Haiti on Friday said farewell to its slain president, Jovenel Moise, under tight security at a state funeral marred by an eruption of gunfire outside the venue, highlighting the instability of the Caribbean country.
Just more than two weeks after the 53-year-old Moise was shot and killed in his home in Port-au-Prince in the early hours of July 7, he was interred in Cap-Haitien, the main city in his native northern region.
In an open-air funeral lasting several hours, Moise’s coffin was draped in the red, white and blue Haitian flag and the presidential sash, and surrounded by flowers. Military guards kept watch, and soldiers performed the national and presidential anthems.
Photo: EPA-EFE
One by one, representatives of the government and foreign diplomats stopped to pay their respects to Moise’s widow Martine Moise — who was seriously wounded in the attack that killed her husband and required treatment in the US.
She had her arm in a sling and wore a black hat and a mask bearing a photograph of her late husband on one side.
“What crime did you commit to deserve such punishment?” she asked in an emotional eulogy, calling Haitian politics “rotten and unfair,” and insisting that her husband had tried to clean it up before being “savagely murdered.”
Photo: AFP
“Overnight, he found the whole system lined up against him,” Martine Moise said, nevertheless adding she was not seeking “revenge or violence.”
Despite her praise, the late president was not a popular man — many people accused him of failing to make progress on the country’s many woes.
In a sign of Haiti’s chronic security problems, despite a robust police presence in the streets of Cap-Haitien, gunfire rang out during the funeral, prompting some in attendance to leave early.
US President Joe Biden had sent a high-level delegation to the funeral, including US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield and US Special Envoy for Haiti Daniel Foote.
“Members of the presidential delegation to the funeral of president Moise have arrived safely back in the United States,” Thomas-Greenfield said in a statement, underscoring her country’s commitment “to support an inclusive and peaceful dialogue in Haiti.”
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that Washington remained “deeply concerned about the situation on the ground in Haiti.”
“We strongly urge all parties to express themselves peacefully, and call on Haiti’s leaders to be clear that their supporters must refrain from violence,” Sullivan said in a statement.
On Friday, several roads in Cap-Haitien were blocked by barricades and cars on fire. Several businesses were torched.
Local and foreign journalists were attacked by protesters.
Memorial ceremonies in honor of Moise have been held this week in Port-au-Prince as well.
Attending one of them was new Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who was sworn in on Tuesday and vowed to restore order and organize long-delayed elections sought by Haitians and the international community.
Haiti has no working parliament and only a handful of elected senators. The interim government installed this week has no president.
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