Armed gangs increasingly rule the streets of Port-au-Prince, seizing ports, blocking food and fuel shipments, and stopping basic services and markets from functioning. At times violent street demonstrations against the federal government have only added to the overall civil disorder. On Oct. 14, the nation’s de facto leader, Ariel Henry, issued an appeal for a global military intervention to revive order.
Catholic Relief Services educational and health care programs have been suspended.
“Roads are blocked, and [staff] can’t get on the road to go to the office,” Akim Kikonda, the C.R.S. country representative, told The Associated Press. “There isn’t any gas to drive their cars, and in some cases there isn’t a web on the office.”
He added: “You may imagine our frustration…once we see the needs are greater than they’ve ever been, but we’re unable to go meet those needs.”
We asked Jean Denis Saint Félix, S.J., the Jesuit superior in Port-au-Prince, to explain current conditions in Haiti and to share his thoughts and hopes for a way out of the nation’s seemingly infinite crisis. This interview was conducted over email and has been edited for length and clarity.
Are you able to offer a temporary situation report on conditions in Haiti: What is going on to its common people? Is a hunger and fuel crisis looming?
Since 2018, the Jesuits in Haiti have been calling the eye of each the national and international communities to the worsening situation in Haiti on every level. Back then we said that Haiti was on the verge of not only a humanitarian crisis, but a complete humanitarian catastrophe.
Jean Denis Saint Félix, S.J.: Haitian persons are living in what could also be easily in comparison with hell. No electricity, no running water, no transportation because there isn’t a fuel. Unhealthy conditions in all places.
Today, 16 months after the assassination of the previous president Jovenel Moïse—against the law which the name of the de facto prime minister Ariel Henry has from the very starting been associated—Haitian persons are living in what could also be easily in comparison with hell. No electricity, no running water, no transportation because there isn’t a fuel. Unhealthy conditions in all places. Even garbage serves as a political tool here.
Even those that considered themselves middle class are actually ravenous, and violence is in all places, especially within the capital. The specter of kidnapping threatens every corner of Port-au-Prince.
Communication between the various provinces has long ceased due to the lack of fuel and the insecurity brought on by the armed gangs. Telephone and web services have change into a luxury. There are not any schools for kids and young people—universities and hospitals are closed. Banks and public offices are working three days every week.
Some private and international institutions have simply closed their doors. On top of this, the cholera that has been brought here by the U.N. troops in 2010, causing greater than 10,000 deaths, is back in most of our major slums in Port-au-Prince, where persons are living within the worst conditions possible.
There isn’t any life for Haitian people aside from hunger, lamentations, violence and death. It’s all a catastrophe here. The frontier between life and death is simply imaginary.
Why cannot government and security forces get control of the streets and protect vital infrastructure?
Due to its lack of empathy, its incompetence, its illegitimacy and the corruption that characterizes the actual government, there isn’t a way that it could solve the issues of insecurity provoked by gang violence and the misery that Haitian persons are facing today. Moreover, the federal government has never demonstrated any willingness to achieve this. We’ve to say also that some members of the federal government have been linked to some gangs which have acted like collaborating extensions of interests inside Haiti’s political and personal sectors. Many gangs now, in fact, follow their very own interests, to the people’s detriment.
Even those that considered themselves middle class are actually ravenous, and violence is in all places, especially within the capital. The specter of kidnapping threatens every corner of Port-au-Prince.
How did these criminal gangs change into so powerful?
For the past 30 years or so, armed gangs have been utilized by Haitian politicians to maneuver themselves into power, to eliminate the adversaries after which to remain in power. Individuals within the private sector have also used armed gangs to guard their business and to discourage competition. Haitian economic life is monopoly-based. It’s a rent-seeking financial system.
Experts here speak about an “economics of violence,” a criminal economy. We could also say that Haiti endures a “politics of criminality.” Crime has change into a traditional way of operation.
Are churches and spiritual institutions particularly targeted by criminals? How are you protecting yourselves and carrying out your pastoral work?
I don’t think that the church has been targeted greater than other institutions or individuals. I do think, though, that we, living with the people as we do, have also change into targets and victims very very similar to them. I should add, though, that there are some sectors inside Haitian society that clearly promote an anti-church discourse and anti-Catholicism. That has been very clear for the reason that Michel Martely and Moïse administrations.
On this context, protecting ourselves is solely an oxymoron; anything can occur to us each time and wherever we’re, whatever the measures of precaution we may put in place. We attempt to limit our activities and to avoid certain zones in Port-au-Prince. But all these precautions may be pointless since a few of us are working right in places where things are worse—providing take care of the needy, food for the hungry, and education and dignity for the least amongst us. So, like our Haitian brothers and sisters, we’re kidnapped, killed and our homes are robbed and ransacked almost on a each day basis.
How do the Haitian people want the USA and the international community to reply? Are they losing hope?
Haitian persons are very resistant—I don’t just like the word resilient. We’re a people of hope and faith. We usually are not like people in other nations who’re afraid of suffering. We usually are not manufactured from wood, either. Our patience and fighting spirits are being eroded. That is all an excessive amount of for one people to endure.
We’d like our fellow Catholics all around the world not only to wish for us, not only to have compassion and take pity on us, but to act, to query the racist politics of their governments toward Haiti.
We’re feeling helpless, forgotten and abandoned by the opposite nations, especially the USA, Canada and France who’ve responsibility for what is going on in our country since they’re those who normally put in place and support our corrupt and bloodthirsty governments.
How do such conditions affect migration? Do people feel trapped? Unable to stay but anxious about how dangerous undocumented migration may be?
On this context, the one way out for most individuals, especially the youth, is to go away Haiti by any means. And that is what they’re doing.
Our professionals of all types, our students, our teachers are leaving. It appears that evidently we now have two options: Let ourselves be kidnapped or killed, or to migrate. We, as religious, and a remaining few, imagine in a 3rd way.
We would like to proceed to withstand, to make proposals for a recent Haiti built on dialogue, labor, trust and transparency with a special class of local politicians and entrepreneurs who finally consider Haiti as their home and never a mere business opportunity.
We also need a renewed relationship with the international community that’s able to break away from a colonialist, racist and patronizing paradigm that has plagued Haiti and to have interaction with legitimate actors in Haiti, its civil society—the vast majority of which will not be corrupt like Haiti’s typical politicians, to work with these civil society actors because the foremost agents of the event of their very own country. I would really like to emphasise: Haiti doesn’t need humanitarian aid anymore; we’d like strong and practical investments in health, infrastructure, agriculture, and education and research.
What’s the moral call during this crisis to the international community? To fellow Catholics?
We’d like our fellow Catholics all around the world not only to wish for us, not only to have compassion and take pity on us, but to act, to query the racist politics of their governments toward Haiti. We’d like concrete solidarity and brotherhood, substantial help to courageously rebuild our beautiful country in order that our kids and grandchildren shouldn’t have to migrate to the Dominican Republic or to make the perilous trip to the coast of Florida and be treated worse than animals.