Thousands march against Moïse, kidnappings and UN in Haiti during large protest

Propelled by a burgeoning sense of doom and fears of a reinstatement of a dictatorship, thousands of Haitians peacefully waved tree branches and Haitian flags through the capital and several major cities in Haiti Sunday to protest a growing wave of for-ransom kidnappings, and again called for the departure of President Jovenel Moïse.

In what was deemed the largest demonstration since anti-government protests resumed earlier this year, protesters accused Moïse, who has been ruling by presidential decree for over a year, of trying to become a dictator and overstaying his time in the National Palace. Opposition leaders contend that Moïse's time in office ended Feb. 7. Moïse disagrees, saying he has another year as president.

The constitutional crisis has plunged Haiti deeper into turmoil and has triggered a series of protests, some of which have turned violent, on the streets. Moïse's detractors have gone as far as installing their own interim president — Judge Joseph Mecene Jean-Louis, 72, who was later removed from the Supreme Court by Moïse — and on Sunday, called on the United Nations, United States and Organization of American States to cease their support for him.

As they chanted, "Down with the dictatorship" and denounced Moïse's rule, they also targeted the head of the U.N.'s Integrated Office in Port-au-Prince, Helen La Lime, saying the protest was also a show of force to her.

On Monday, La Lime told the U.N. Security Council that after months of failed street mobilization efforts by Haiti's opposition, recent actions by Moïse, including the issuing of decrees and the removal of three Supreme Court judges, had led 3,000 Haitians to peacefully demonstrate against him on Feb. 14 "to denounce what they deem to be a looming risk of return to authoritarian rule." The figure has been widely disputed by civic and opposition groups, who accused La Lime of not knowing how to count. The U.N. has said it stands by the accounting, which does not contradict other assessments performed by reliable organizations.

"We have to teach her how to count," said a protesting Sen. Patrice Dumont, one of only 11 elected lawmakers in all of Haiti.

There were no readily available official figures for Sunday's protest, which was organized by some of the country's most prominent Protestant pastors and supported by various civic groups, political organizations and unions. Along with Port-au-Prince, marches took place in six other cities.

Moïse's only comment about the protest was a tweet about an accident at the end of the protest involving a sound truck where two people were injured. He was informed of the accident, he said, and deplored the tragedy.

Largely free from the tear gas and violent clashes that have characterized previous demonstrations, Sunday's effort was also one of the more diverse: pastors were joined by Catholic priests, as well as poor Haitians, high-profile businessmen and journalists, former lawmakers, human rights activists and political militants.

"Today is a day that Haitian youths have to show they are ready to cut ties with a dictatorship," said Jonas Dorfeuille, 30, who is studying finance and law. "We want the country to enter into an era where corruption is less; people can eat and people have rights; where the youth of this country don't have to leave in search of a better life and where our future can be guaranteed. For this to happen, you have to have a government that's credible and based on the development of the country."

Haiti is currently embroiled in a worsening political crisis that has led the United States to demand that Moïse schedule legislative elections as quickly as technically feasible in order to end his one-man rule. Moïse has said elections will take place this year, but only after he holds a referendum for a new constitution, now set for June. Though the referendum has the support of the U.N., which believes the country's 1987 post-dictatorship constitution is the root of its turmoil, Haitian legal scholars, civic groups and the opposition have denounced the move as illegal because of a prohibition against referendums in the magna carta.

Meanwhile, the controversy over the end of Moïse's presidential term and the protracted political crisis have been made worse by a wave of kidnappings and increased criminality by armed gangs.

On Sunday, as Haitians made their way to the protest, the country was roiled by reports that a pediatrician, Dr. Ernst Paddy, 63, was shot and killed in front of his Port-au-Prince clinic, the latest victim of an attempted kidnapping.

A justice of the peace told Le Nouvelliste, the country's daily, that Paddy had been shot in the head and they found four cartridges at the crime scene.

It was the latest violent incident in a week when Haiti saw the escape of more than 400 prisoners, including a violent gang leader, during a prison break and the kidnapping of two Dominican filmmakers and their Haitian translator by armed men as they traveled in a convey with armed policemen. The Dominicans were released by a gang late Friday, but more than 44 hours after their release and a request by Dominican President Luis Abinader that they be taken to the Dominican embassy, they remained in Haitian police custody without explanation. They were finally released at about 6:30 p.m. Sunday.

Late Saturday, Abinader, citing Haiti's crime woes and illegal migration into his nation, told his Congress that he plans to build a border fence with remote sensors to fortify the 234-mile frontier with Haiti.

Steven Benoit, a former senator and member of the Lower Chamber of Deputies who joined Sunday's protest, said it's time the international community realizes that Haitians have reached their limit with the insecurity and the political instability.

"The message to the international community is the gangs that they are supporting, the criminals they are supporting, the population doesn't want them," he said.

Benoit, who gained notoriety for the country's minimum wage law for factory workers and unsuccessfully ran for president against Moïse, said opposition forces were no longer asking Moïse to turn in his resignation.

"We are demanding that he formally arrive at the conclusion that his mandate is over, he should go about his business, and give the country a chance," Benoit said.

At one point after the protest had gained momentum and arrived in Petionville, a suburb in the hills of the capital, the crowd was so large that it stretched more than 2.5 miles as protesters wrapped around a mountain separating two prominent hotels.

Looking for the U.N.'s office, a first wave of protesters eventually arrived at an entrance in the Juvenat neighborhood. It was more than three hours after the march began and after a tense standoff between some protesters and a group of armed government supporters at the entrance to another Petionville neighborhood. Instead of being allowed in to deliver their message to the U.N., however, marchers were met by riot police blocking the community's entrance in Juvenat.

With police refusing to give way, marchers settled for song. Chanting "Down with the United Nations," they waved miniature Haitian flags and signs calling on La Lime and U.S. Ambassador Michele Sison "to stop supporting a dictatorship."

Minutes later, they broke out into another chant of Sunday's protest: "Madame La Lime doesn't know how to count."

Photo:  REGINALD LOUISSAINT JR/AFP/TNS Haitian protesters march through the streets on Sunday, Feb. 28, 2021, in Port-au-Prince, to denounce the upsurge in kidnappings committed by gangs and call for the departure of President Jovenel Moïse.

Link: Thousands march against Moïse, kidnappings and UN in Haiti during large protest (msn.com)