The widow did it

She might be a “Black widow.” But, given reports that Martine Moïse orchestrated her husband’s assassination, “queen bee” might be a more fitting title.

The wife of Haiti’s former President Jovenel Moïse, Martine Moïse, and the former prime minister Claude Joseph are among 51 people who have been indicted over the assassination of the former president…on July 7, 2021. … He was shot 12 times and killed. Mrs. Moïse was also shot multiple times but survived.

Haiti has faced a surge in gang-related violence in recent years, which has cut off vital supply chains and forced some 200,000 people to flee their homes in the capital Port-Au-Prince. 

(CNN, February 21, 2024)

Frankly, I’ve written many commentaries bemoaning Haiti’s fate. And, as is often the case, the titles alone speak volumes. Here are just five:

1. “Haiti’s Living Nightmare Continues…Unabated” on March 7, 2005
2. “Compassion Fatigue for Haitian Migrants” on July 31, 2009
3. “Miss Haiti Beauty Pageant Crowns ‘White Hope‘ Sarodj Bertin” on June 3, 2010 Contest 
4. “Haitian Déjà vu: Corruption, Violence, and Dysfunction” on August 11, 2014
5. “US Abandons Haiti, Leaving Behind a Gangsters’ Paradise” on August 22, 2023

For the record, I penned this damning, yet prescient lament in the first commentary cited above:

Perhaps Haiti is fated to loom amidst the islands of the Caribbean as Africa does amidst the continents of the world, namely as a dark, destitute, diseased, desperate, disenfranchised, dishonest, disorganized, disassociated, dangerous, and, ultimately, dysfunctional mess. 

I told you so

Concerning this latest development, here is what I said in a podcast episode titled “Assassination of President Jovenel Moïse: Wither Haiti” on July 25, 2021:

This being Haiti, it appears to have been an inside job. Not least because his presidential guards were conveniently AWOL when the assassins arrived. But suspicious minds are also wondering about his wife. After all, despite the barrage of bullets fired all about their bedroom, she managed to sustain only a superficial wound on one arm. 

But the dead giveaway was how her drama overshadowed any trauma. Because she made a point of uttering what seemed like dying words to the nation – as medics were airlifting her to a hospital in Florida for ’emergency treatment.’

Again, this being Haiti, expect Madame Moïse and her cronies to be convicted and imprisoned with feral dispatch. Granted, the former prime minister has already betrayed their guilt with Trumpian projection. Specifically, he accused current Prime Minister Ariel Henry of “weaponizing the Haitian justice system.”

Haiti should invoke the Pottery Barn rule

The “Pottery Barn rule” governs US intervention in foreign countries like Iraq and Afghanistan. Here is how former Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell coined this rule:

• If you break it, you fix it. Now, if you break it, you made a mistake. It’s the wrong thing to do. But you own it.

I’ve condemned America repeatedly for conspiring with France to ensure Haiti would suffer crib death. That’s how they reacted to it becoming the first Black republic in 1804. But they broke Haiti. 

That explains America’s troubled history of sending troops to enforce law and order in Haiti. Its feckless interventions include operation “Uphold Democracy” in 1994 – when the US sent in 20,000 military troops. Not to mention sending the financial equivalent to rebuild Haiti after the catastrophic 2010 earthquake. 

The point is that, despite its best efforts, the US left Haiti more broken after 200 years than it left Afghanistan after 20. Indeed, a CNN report from just days ago (on February 16) reflects the ungovernable “gangsters’ paradise” Haiti has become. Here is how it reinforced the cynicism and dismay I’ve been expressing for nearly 20 years:

A Kenyan official who had been in Washington for talks on a planned international security force to help Haitian police fight gangs was found dead in his hotel room this week, police in the US capital said on Thursday. The would-be Kenyan-led force has faced setbacks, with a Nairobi court blocking the proposed deployment of 1,000 police officers last month as unconstitutional.

Yet, who, in their right mind, believes 1,000 Kenyan cops could achieve what 20,000 US troops couldn’t. This is why I fear Haiti remains fated to loom, as I wrote in 2005. 

The only hope is that Haitian migrants might become a greater menace to American society than Columbian drugs. And the Haitians already showing up at the US-Mexico border suggest that menacing prospect is neither farfetched nor far off.

The US has spent hundreds of billions trying to repair Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, it’s doing the same to help Ukraine fend off Russia’s genocidal attempt to destroy it.

The old wisdom rings true here – “clean your own backyard before meddling in others.” America can tolerate a narco-state or two in its backyard. But it cannot tolerate a failed state. So it behooves America to divert a little of the attention and resources it is directing towards sorting out Ukraine to sort out Haiti – before it’s too late.

Send in 50,000 Marines to take out the gangs and enforce martial law. Then, appoint a provisional government, with direct US oversight, to rehabilitate and rebuild Haiti. And, yes, the US should prevail upon France to foot half the bill to compensate for enslaving Haitians, and then breaking Haiti.

America can use its occupation, rehabilitation, and rebuilding of Japan after WWII as a blueprint. That took seven years; I suspect this will take at least ten.

All else is head-in-the-sand folly.