Haiti pleads for military assistance to calm turmoil after assassination
HAITI has urged the US and the UN to deploy troops to guard key infrastructure as the country was plunged into further turmoil after its president was killed by assassins purporting to be a US anti-drug squad.
“We definitely need assistance and we’ve asked our international partners for help,” Claude Joseph, the interim prime minister, said.
Mr Joseph raised the request for US troops to protect the Caribbean nation’s port, airport, oil reserves and other infrastructure with Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state.
Haiti also made a request for forces to the UN Security Council, Mathias Pierre, the elections minister, said, in the hope that security assistance would make it possible to go ahead with scheduled presidential elections on Sept 26.
The extraordinary request for military support from the US, a former occupier of the Caribbean nation, is a measure of the upheaval engulfing the country since the assassination of President Jovenel Moise, 53, on Wednesday.
Hundreds of Haitians gathered outside the US embassy in Port-au-Prince, pleading for help to leave the country.
The White House has pledged to send officials from the FBI and Department of Homeland Security to Haiti “as soon as possible to assess the situation and how we may be able to assist”. But a senior official said there were “no plans to provide military assistance at this time”.
The UN political mission in Haiti said the dispatch of troops would be a matter for the Security Council.
Martine Moise, the president’s widow, released an audio message on Twitter yesterday describing how the assassins entered their home “in the blink of an eye” and “riddled my husband with bullets”. “You h ave to be a limitless criminal to assassinate a president without even giving him the chance to say a single word,” she said, adding that Haiti could not let her husband’s blood “flow in vain”.
Details emerged about the hit squad suspected of killing the president. Police said the “foreign mercenaries” were 26 Colombians and two Haitian-Americans, from Florida. Colombia has identified 13 as ex-soldiers. Two were killed by police and 11 are in custody.
The killing has prompted confusion as to who is the legitimate leader. Ariel Henry, picked to be prime minister by Mr Moise, has staked a claim despite not being in post by the assassination. Mr Joseph has insisted on staying in post, backed by the US and the UN.
Joseph Lambert, head of Haiti’s dismantled senate, was recognised on Friday by the 10 remaining senators as the provisional president.