Slain Haitian president’s widow blames ‘shadowy enemies’ for hit job
PORT-AU-PRINCE: The widow of slain Haitian President Jovenel Moise on Saturday accused shadowy enemies of organising his assassination to stop democratic change, as a struggle for power intensified in the Caribbean country.
Moise was gunned down before dawn on Wednesday at his Port-au-Prince home by what Haitian authorities said was a unit of trained assassins comprising 26 Colombians and two Haitian Americans.
Doubts have grown, though, about that narrative, with families of at least two of the Colombians saying they had been hired as bodyguards.
Martine Moise, who was wounded in the attack on the president’s private residence and flown to Florida for medical treatment, said her husband was targeted for political reasons. “You know who the president was fighting against,” she said in a recording released on Twitter, without naming anybody. “They sent mercenaries to kill the president at his home with members of his family because of roads, water, electricity and the referendum as well as elections at the end of the year so that there is no transition in the country.”
The late president had spoken of dark forces at play behind years of unrest under his mandate - rival politicians and oligarchs angry about what he called his attempts to clean up government contracts and politics - and proposed a referendum to change Haiti’s constitution.
The referendum, scheduled for September 26 along with presidential and legislative elections, could abolish the prime minister’s position, reshape the legislative branch and strengthen the presidency. Critics called it a power grab.
Late on Friday, the man Moise appointed as prime minister just before the assassination claimed the right to lead Haiti, pitting him against acting head of state Claude Joseph, whose government has managed the response to the killing to date.
Ariel Henry, a neurosurgeon who Moise named prime minister on Monday, told Reuters late on Friday he was now the highest authority in Haiti, not interim Prime Minister Joseph, and that he was forming a government. “After the president’s assassination, I became the highest, legal and regular authority because there was a decree nominating me,” he said.
Henry said his government would create a new electoral council which would determine new dates for elections to be held “as soon as possible.”
But Henry has yet to be sworn in, and Joseph, who was named interim prime minister in April, has stayed put.
The power struggle has created confusion over who is the legitimate leader of the country’s 11 million people.
Elections minister Mathias Pierre said acting premier Joseph would keep that role until the September 26 vote.
Meanwhile, Haitian officials have not given a motive for the assassination or explained how the killers got past Moise’s security detail. None of Moise’s guards were injured in the attack, Pierre,said.
Taking power in 2017, Moise’s administration was beset by mass protests, first over corruption allegations and his economic record, then over his increasing grip on power and impunity amid worsening gang violence.