We need help: Haiti’s interim leader to US

Port-Au-Prince (Haiti), July 10

Haiti’s interim government said it had asked the US to deploy troops to protect key infrastructure as it tries to stabilise the country and prepare for elections in the aftermath of President Jovenel Moïse’s assassination. Amid the confusion, hundreds of Haitians gathered outside the US Embassy in Port-au-Prince, pleading for a way out of the country.

Women carried babies and young men waved passports and ID cards as they cried out, “Refuge!” and “Help!”. Interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph said n a phone interview: “We definitely need assistance and we’ve asked our international partners for help. We believe our partners can assist the national police in resolving the situation.”

The stunning request for US military support recalled the tumult following Haiti’s last presidential assassination in 1915, when an angry mob dragged President Vilbrun Guillaume Sam out of the French Embassy and beat him to death. In response, President Woodrow Wilson sent the Marines into Haiti, justifying the American military occupation — which lasted nearly two decades — as a way to avert anarchy.

But the Biden administration has so far given no indication it will provide military assistance. For now, it only plans to send FBI officials to help investigate a crime that has plunged Haiti, a country already wracked by gaping poverty and gang violence, into a destabilising battle for power and constitutional standoff. On Friday, a group of lawmakers announced they had recognised Joseph Lambert, the head of Haiti’s dismantled Senate, as provisional president in a direct challenge to the interim government’s authority. — AP