Protesters told to ‘go home’
PORT-AU-PRINCE: Haiti’s President Jovenel Moise called on protesters late on Saturday to “go home” after the suspension of a fuel price hike that triggered violent protests and left at least two dead in the Caribbean nation.
In an address broadcast on state television, Mr Moise said he had “corrected what had to be corrected” following an aboutface on the price increases earlier that day.
“As soon as you speak, I listen. Because you started sending me this message last night, I received it and corrected what had to be corrected,” Mr Moise said.
“To those watching me tonight, I ask you all: go home,” he said, adding authorities had been directed to clean the streets.
The capital Port-au-Prince and its environs have stood paralysed since Friday afternoon, with major routes blocked by barricades, some made of burning tires, and some protesters even calling for a revolution in the impoverished country.
Just before t he suspension was announced, the leader of Haiti’s lower house of parliament had threatened a government takeover if the fuel price increases were not reversed.
They had only been announced on Friday, while many Haitians were engrossed in a World Cup football match.
“If there is no response within two hours, the government will be considered as having resigned” and the legislature will take charge, Gary Bodeau, the president of the Chamber of Deputies, said.
Prime Minister Jack Guy Lafontant then announced on Twitter suspension of the price increases, writing that “violence and democracy are fundamentally incompatible”.
Even before the fuel price controversy, deputies had already begun a debate on his future, and Saturday’s U-turn could lead to the government’s fall.
On Friday night, the bodyguard of an opposition-party politician died in an altercation with demonstrators in central Portau-Prince as he attempted to get through a roadblock. His body was then burned on the road.
On Saturday afternoon, a journalist saw a young man shot dead.
A supermarket and other businesses were looted and vehicles burned, mainly in the wealthy areas of Petionville.
Similar angry protests broke out in CapHaitien, the second-largest city, as well as in the communes of Les Cayes, Jacmel and Petit-Goave.
Internet service suffered difficulties, although it was unclear whether there was a link to the unrest.
“We’re seeing a little bit more calm right now,” an American, Stacy Librandi Bourne, said from Port-au-Prince. She is among 50 American tourists, children and missionaries unable to leave the Oasis Hotel because of the unrest.
The troubles were sparked by a government announcement that gasoline prices would rise by 38% , diesel by 47% and kerosene by 51%.
Protests prompted several major airlines, including American, Air France, Delta, Jet Blue and Copa, to cancel flights to Port-au-Prince, at least through midday on Saturday.
“I ask your patience because our administration has a vision, a clear program,” Lafontant, a doctor by profession and political novice, had appealed hours before the suspension.
“Do not destroy, because every time it’s Haiti that becomes poorer.”
Haiti is still recovering from Hurricane Matthew which struck in 2016. Almost 40,000 people remain in makeshift camps after an earthquake killed more than 200,000 people eight years ago, and thousands of others have died from a yearslong cholera epidemic.
The national police director also pleaded urgently for calm.
“We understand your right to protest,” said Michel-Ange Gedeon. “But we do not understand the violence.”
At least two police stations and several police vehicles were burned.
A framework signed in February between the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Haiti implied the ending of subsidies for petroleum products, which are a major source of the budget deficit.
But subsidies also help make fuel affordable in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country, where most people live in extreme poverty, joblessness is widespread and the inflation rate has exceeded 13% for the past three years.