Cap-Haitien – The funeral of assassinated Haitian president Jovenel Moise on Friday was disrupted by what appeared to be shots nearby and riot gas used on protesters, prompting a United States delegation and other dignitaries to duck into vehicles for safety.
Reuters witnesses smelled the gas and heard detonations they believed to be shots outside the site of the service.
There were no immediate reports of injuries among protesters or authorities, and no indications any guests at the funeral were in danger.
The trouble flared minutes after a brass band and church choir opened Moise’s ceremony, which took place two weeks after he was killed in a still-unexplained assassination at his home by foreign mercenaries.
The service went ahead, with speeches by family members, but it was punctuated by angry shouts by supporters accusing authorities of responsibility for Moise’s death. Their words were sometimes drowned out by loud swells of taped somber church music.
Smoke billowed into the compound. Dozens of police and security officials formed protective cordons around Haitian officials in the stands.
US President Joe Biden’s ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, was in attendance, leading the US delegation at Cap-Haitien. The delegation had heard the gunshots and was safe and returning home slightly earlier than expected, according to a source familiar with the situation.
“The Haitian people deserve democracy, stability, security, and prosperity, and we stand with them in this time of crisis,” said Thomas-Greenfield on Twitter. “We urge everyone to express themselves peacefully and refrain from violence.”
Earlier, in remarks made as the delegation arrived in Cap-Haitien, Thomas-Greenfield called on Haiti’s new Prime Minister Ariel Henry to create conditions for legislative and presidential elections “as soon as feasible.”
Haitian officials arriving at the event met with protesters’ verbal anger, with one man calling police chief Leon Charles “a criminal”.
“Why do you have all this security, where were the police on the day of the president’s assassination?” one protester said.
The protests by supporters of Moise have convulsed the northern city of Cap-Haitien, the slain leader’s hometown, for three days.
Set on land held by Moise’s family and where he lived as a boy, the partly-built tomb stands in the shade of fruit trees on a dusty plot, just a few steps from a mausoleum for Moise’s father, who died last year.
NO ANSWERS
The demonstrators in Cap-Haitien were venting anger over the many questions that remain unanswered about the assassination, including who planned it and why.
“You lost one battle, but the war is not over. We must find justice for you,” the president’s widow Martine Moise said in Haitian Creole, her face nearly hidden under a wide-brimmed black hat and her right arm in a sling after being injured in the attack.
She said the system was stacked against him, citing powerful business interests seen in the country as a defacto oligarchy, without giving details.
“Cry for justice. We don’t want revenge, we want justice,” she said.
For some, the assassination was a reminder of the ongoing influence foreign actors have in the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, despite it becoming Latin America and the Caribbean’s first state to become independent from Europe at the start of the 19th century.
The attack was carried out by a group that included 26 Colombian former soldiers, at least six of whom had previously received US military training. Haitian Americans were also among the accused.
(Reuters)
