“Wait a second, I thought Barbecue was a criminal gangster — the worst and most powerful of the bad guys — not a reformer.”
I have never been to Haiti (so all I know is what I read) but the last few days I have been following this story closely. Barbecue is indeed a criminal gangster but in recent weeks he and other gangsters have stopped fighting each other over turf and allied together to take on the government such as it is. Maybe they should now be called rebels. The gangs control most of the capitol, have shut down the main port and airport and are slowly destroying government institutions and buildings in the process of this grinding down the small (a few thousand men) underfunded police force.
The Prime Minister can’t get back in the country was supposedly in Kenya seeking help but maybe that was just an excuse to leave. His term is up as well as that of just about every other office holder even if they are still occupying their office.
Prime Minister reneged on promise of elections and pushed them out to 2025 angering many including even the gangs.
Haiti has a population of 11 million plus. Vast majority live in abject poverty. There is a small group of oligarchs (not rich by Russian standards but super rich by Haiti standards) living in somewhat secure gated communities.
You have few professional engineers, doctors etc. trying to run some infrastructure with less and less success.
Some parts of the country are more secure, Royal Caribbean is still stopping at it’s private resort on the North shore of the country.
Dominican Republic has closed it’s border with Haiti, I don’t blame them
If you decide to help in anyway that is what you have to work with.
Thanks for the details. Will be interesting to see how this one plays out. If the presumed bad guys wind up running the place better than the internationally anointed good guys, that would be quite a plot twist.