A string of recent arms-trafficking scandals in Haiti has ignited anger over a steady flow of US guns that are fueling gang violence.
Haiti’s customs agency on July 14 seized shipping containers holding 18 “weapons of war,” four handguns and nearly 15,000 rounds of ammunition that were shipped from the US to the Episcopal Church of Haiti, which said the documents had been falsified and that it had nothing to do with the containers.
Separately, police investigating gun smuggling this month arrested a state prosecutor and a prominent lawyer who, according to media reports, served as an adviser to Haitian Minister of Justice Berto Dorce.
Photo: Reuters
Guns brought illegally to Haiti are often used in gang wars such as a recent turf battle in the town of Cite Soleil, which between July 8 and 17 left more than 471 people killed, injured or unaccounted for, UN data showed.
“We don’t know how many [weapons] got through. We don’t know how many are left to go through, but it’s a lucrative business,” said former Haitian senator Ronald Lareche, who served on the parliamentary security commission.
“This is the tip of the iceberg,” said Lareche, who says the murder of his sister and brother-in-law led him to speak out while in office about customs corruption and its link to gun trafficking.
Most of the weapons are smuggled from the US to Port-au-Prince, he said.
“It’s some of our citizens in the US who are sending weapons to Haiti and are thus fueling the insecurity,” said Pierre Esperance, executive director of Haiti’s National Human Rights Defense Network.
A shipping document for the cargo labeled as for the Episcopal Church described the contents as “Donated Goods, School Supplies, Dry Food Items.”
In another case, police early this month arrested Michelet Virgile, a state prosecutor for the town of Port-de-Paix after he unexpectedly released two men who had been jailed for the illegal import of 120,000 rounds of ammunition.
Lawyer Robinson Pierre-Louis, head of Haiti’s Federation of Bar Associations, was jailed last week for alleged involvement in the Port-de-Paix munitions smuggling case, a spokesman for Haiti’s National Police said.
Local media reports said that Pierre-Louis was until recently a staff member for Dorce.
On a beach in the Chinese coastal city of Xiamen, just a few kilometers from Taiwan’s Kinmen, life is carefree, despite some of the worst cross-strait tensions in decades. Ignoring warnings from Beijing, US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi arrived in Taiwan on Tuesday — the highest-ranking elected US official to visit the nation in 25 years — sparking a diplomatic firestorm. China yesterday launched some of its largest-ever military drills — exercises set to disrupt one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes. However, on Xiamen’s palm-fringed beach, there was little concern. “A war? No, I don’t care,” a young IT worker surnamed
According to Forrest Gump, life is like a box of chocolates because “you never know what you’re going to get.” Now, an Indian remake of the movie has been hit by boycott calls over years-old comments by its Muslim star, Aamir Khan. It is the latest example of how Bollywood actors, particularly minority Muslims such as Khan, are feeling increased pressure under Hindu nationalist Indian Prime Minister Modi. Laal Singh Chaddha, an Indian spin on the 1994 Hollywood hit with Tom Hanks, is expected to be one of India’s biggest films of the year. This is due in large part to its
ACROPORA REVIVAL: A marine science official said that the results of recent studies showed that the reef can still recover in periods that are free of intense disturbances Parts of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef now have the highest levels of coral cover in decades, an Australian government report said yesterday. Portions of the UNESCO heritage site showed a marked increase in coral cover in the past year, reaching levels not seen in 36 years of monitoring, the Australian Institute of Marine Science said. Scientists surveying 87 sites said that northern and central parts of the reef had bounced back from damage more quickly than some had expected, thanks mainly to fast-growing Acropora — a branching coral that supports thousands of marine species. “These latest results demonstrate the reef can still recover
Screams from soldiers being tortured, overflowing cells, inhuman conditions, a regime of intimidation and murder. Inedible gruel, no communication with the outside world and days marked off with a home-made calendar written on a box of tea. This is what conditions are like inside Olenivka, a notorious detention center where dozens of Ukrainian soldiers burned to death late last month, said a former prisoner of the camp outside Donetsk in the Russian-occupied east of Ukraine. Anna Vorosheva — a 45-year-old Ukrainian entrepreneur — gave a harrowing account to the Observer of her time inside the jail. She spent 100 days in Olenivka