'I Am Not a Dictator' Haiti President Says After Announcing Foiled Coup Attempt

VOA ^ | 2/07/21 | Sandra Lemaire, Matiado Vilme, Renan Toussaint

[Libloather]

WASHINGTON/PORT-AU-PRINCE - “I am not a dictator,” Haitian President Jovenel Moise said during a national address Sunday, hours after announcing that the police had foiled a coup attempt and made more than 20 arrests.

Haitians woke Sunday to gunfire in areas near the national palace, and a high police presence was seen by VOA Creole reporters on the scene.

At midday, the president surprised the nation by going live on Facebook from the international airport in Port-au-Prince to announce a foiled coup attempt and the arrests.

The prime minister would give more details, the president said, before heading to the southern coastal town of Jacmel to inaugurate Carnival festivities. He was accompanied by his wife, first lady Martine Moise.

Moise has said he will serve another year because he was sworn in in 2017 for a five-year term. But the nation’s opposition party says the president’s term should have ended Sunday, February 7, the date set by the constitution when elected presidents are sworn into office. Moise failed to hold elections in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic and a climate of insecurity.

[Libloather]

Another covid victim.

[SharpRightTurn]

““I am not a dictator,” Haitian President Jovenel Moise said.”

It’s Haiti. Of course he’s a dictator. Maybe not on the same scale as Papa Doc Andrew Cuomo, but still, there it is.

[piasa]

2 Americans Are Among Those Arrested In The Assassination Of Haiti’s President
NPR ^ | July 8, 20214:37 PM ET
Posted on 7/8/2021, 9:35:24 PM by BenLurkin

Two men believed to be Haitian Americans — one of them purportedly a former bodyguard at the Canadian Embassy in Port au Prince — have been arrested in connection with the assassination of Haiti’s president, a senior Haitian official said Thursday.

Prime Minister Claude Joseph assumed leadership of Haiti with the backing of police and the military and on Thursday asked people to reopen businesses and go back to work as he ordered the reopening of the international airport.

On Wednesday, Joseph decreed a two-week state of siege following Moïse’s killing, which stunned a nation grappling with some of the Western Hemisphere’s highest poverty, violence and political instability.

Inflation and gang violence have spiraled upward as food and fuel grew scarcer in a country where 60% of Haitians earn less than $2 a day. The increasingly dire situation comes as Haiti is still trying to recover from the devastating 2010 earthquake and Hurricane Matthew in 2016 following a history of dictatorship and political upheaval.

(Excerpt) Read more at npr.org ...