What happened to Caribbean Hespaniola island of Haiti?
By Edward Baliddawa
OPINION | Haiti has been plagued by widespread gang violence for more than two years, particularly in the wake of the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise. That killing created a power vacuum and worsened political instability in the Caribbean nation.
Recently it was reported that the gangs in the capital city of Haiti, Port-au-Prince had broken into the maximum prison and freed over 4,000 hard-core criminals that were serving maximum jail sentences.
It is also being reported that the embattled Haitian Prime Minister, Ariel Henry, who assumed power following the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, has been notably absent since the country's latest and most serious outbreak of violence started last week.
He was last seen in public when he made an official trip to Kenya two weeks ago where he signed a security pact with Kenya under which Kenya will send 1,000 Police security officers to Haiti to help bring the deteriorating security situation there into control.
Listen to what this man is saying about Bill and Hillary Clinton concerning Haiti. #Freyja pic.twitter.com/wQNfCjmxyC
— Freyja™ (@FreyjaTarte) March 10, 2024
What is very disturbing is the juxtaposed position that the two countries on the same island and who share similar historical backgrounds have a very sharp dichotomy in terms of economy, politics and social being of the people who live in Haiti and her immediate neighbour called the Dominican Republic.
Although, both Haiti and the Dominican Republic are on the same Caribbean island of Hespaniola, Haiti has remained an impoverished country and considered the poorest country in the hemisphere.
On the other hand, the Dominican Republic is a flourishing democracy with a very strong capitalist economy registering a GDP of $95bn and where her people enjoy better standards of living.
It has been reported severally that the United States of America has had a lot of both covert and overt interests in this Caribbean island of Haiti.
When an earth quake hit Haiti in 2010 in which an estimated 300,000 lost lives, the American government together with various voluntary non for profit organizations rushed in to help the Haitians.
Among these organizations was prominently one called the Clinton Foundation which is run by the former American President and his family.
Under this organization, all international humanitarian aid to Haiti was galvanized and President Clinton took a center position in the coordination of this aid.
However, as we can hear from this guy from Haiti, the aid that was intended to benefit the victims of the earthquake never got it, instead as it is alleged by this man, all the money collected ended up going or staying in the US and thus Haiti has never been able to recover let alone establishing a viable political dispensation.
As a result, Haiti has descended into a gang run country with no semblance of governance and despair is the order of the day amongst the Haitian people.
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Mr Edward Baliddawa is a former MP for Kigulu North in Iganga and served in both the 8th and 9th Parliament.
Email is [email protected] | +256772502121
