FORT LAUDERDALE — Haitians living in South Florida, accustomed to frequent disaster in their homeland, said on Wednesday the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in his residence shows the nation’s relentless turmoil is unlikely to cease anytime soon.
Gunmen assassinated Moïse and wounded his wife early Wednesday. The first lady, Martine Moïse, was flown to Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport by Trinity Air Ambulance on Wednesday afternoon for treatment at Baptist Hospital in Miami, Local10 News reported. Officials said her vitals are stable but critical.
In South Florida, which has the largest concentration of Haitians and Haitian- Americans in the United States, many saw the death of the president with distrust and cynicism. They questioned how the assassins got inside his residence, and said they didn’t like the president much anyway.
June Solide, shopping at the Leogane market, a Haitian grocery store in Delray Beach, said she disapproved of Moïse’s leadership and believed he did nothing to address the problem of hungry children in the country. She said his selfishness made him an ineffective leader.
“He only worried about his own family,” said Solide, who left Haiti as a toddler and has not returned.
Willy Madey, of Delray Beach, working at Leogane, hopes Haiti will change for the better after Moïse’s assassination.
He said the late president cared more about his personal wealth than saving the country, and believes that Moïse exploited poor Haitians, contributing to the political dysfunction that Haiti experiences today.
“People can’t visit family because there’s not justice,” he said. “A country can’t function without justice.”
Jay Joseph, on a visit to the Sakpase Compas.com store in Fort Lauderdale, wondered how the assassins were able to enter the president’s home.
“It had to be an inside job,” Joseph said. “How could they have access to the president? It’s got to be someone behind it, you know? I’ve never seen that, even in a movie.”
These reactions are not surprising, considering the centuries of political convulsions and public health crises caused by revolutions, foreign occupations, brutal dictatorships, hurricanes and famines, said Giselle Jamison, director of the political science program at St. Thomas University in Miami Gardens. She said the situation is likely to get worse before it gets better.
Jamison said the international community needs to help Haiti, but Haitians at home and abroad need to take the reins and establish honest government, she said.
“The political process has been broken for a long time,” she said. “Then you have COVID, which is going to get profoundly aggravated by this. The distrust is understandable.”
Christina Romelus, a Boynton Beach city commissioner, agreed. Still, she said an assassination cannot be justified.
“The killing of a head of state, no matter what your political affiliation is, is not warranted,” said Romelus, who was born in Haiti and came to the United States when she was 6.
President Biden said the U.S. is ready to provide assistance.
“We condemn this heinous act, and I am sending my sincere wishes for First Lady Moïse’s recovery. The United States offers condolences to the people of Haiti, and we stand ready to assist as we continue to work for a safe and secure Haiti,” he said in a statement.
Moïse ruled by decree for more than two years after Haiti — already enduring an escalation of gang violence, anti-government protests and a recent surge in coronavirus infections — failed to hold elections and the opposition demanded
he step down in recent months.
The country’s economic, political and social woes have deepened recently, with gang violence spiking heavily in Port-au-Prince, inflation spiraling, and food and fuel becoming scarce in a country where 60% of the population makes less than $2 a day. These troubles come as Haiti still tries to recover from a devastating 2010 earthquake and Hurricane Matthew in 2016.
Opposition leaders accused Moïse of seeking to increase his power, including by approving a decree that limited the powers of a court that audits government contracts and another that created an intelligence agency that answers only to the president.
Haiti needs immediate support from the United States, American elected officials said on Wednesday.
U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Miami Gardens, who represents more Haitian- Americans in her district than any other in the U.S., recommended that the interim Haitian government ask President Biden for help with security.
“I call upon Haiti’s acting prime minister to reach out to President Biden for additional U.S. security enforcement. I also urge the Haitian people to remain calm during this international crisis and come together to save their nation,” she wrote. State Rep. Marie Woodson, D-Hollywood, said she was deeply saddened by the “senseless act.”
“I send the people of Haiti my love and prayers and will continue to advocate for peace as we deal with this senseless act coupled by the instability and insecurity in Haiti,” Woodson said. “I urge President Joe Biden, the United Nations, and the international community to work closely with Haitian officials to get to the bottom of this atrocity.”
Michel Arthaud of Delray Beach, visiting Sabine Caribbean restaurant on Wednesday, said that he worries that the killing could set a dangerous precedent for what could happen to future Haitian presidents that aren’t accepted by citizens. He believes many people blamed Moïse for the gang and army violence in the nation. “They can dislike him, but they went too far,” he says.
Kevin Hemingway, owner of Polo Groceries and Wireless in Fort Lauderdale, said Moïse represented a new generation in Haitian politics that wants to make drastic revisions to the political process.
“In order for our country to move forward, changes have to take place, which is what President Jovenel Moïse, that’s what he was doing, trying to make change, trying to change the way of politics in the country,” Hemingway said. “We thought change was coming. But now a lot of people lost hope.”
Jaime Victor, working behind the counter at Piman B&K Restaurant in Fort Lauderdale, said she checked on family and friends in Haiti Wednesday morning and was reassured that they are fine.
“I want my country back,” Victor said. “I want security in my country like we have here.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
This story was co-written with Lois K. Solomon and Rod Stafford Hagwood. It was published July 7, 2021 in the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
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