Haitian President Jovenel Moïse was shot dead on Wednesday after a group of unidentified assailants barged into his private residence.
Haiti Police Chief Leon Charles stated on a television briefing that four suspects were killed and two were arrested on the outskirts of the capital, Port-au-Prince. The First Lady was also reportedly injured during the shooting and is receiving treatment in Miami.
Three officers captured by the gunmen were freed, while the police are fought back in a fierce battle with the gunmen. A Haitian ambassador says, ‘Well-trained professionals’ killed the president.”
Even before he took office, Mr. Moïse had to fight off accusations that, as a little-known banana exporter, he was nothing but the handpicked puppet of the previous president, Michel Martelly.
“Jovenel is his own man,” he told The New York Times in 2016, shortly after winning his election, trying to flick off the accusations. He promised to show results within six months.
After more than four years in office, he was gunned down in his home early Wednesday at the age of 53. He left a wife and three children.
In his last year in office, as protests grew and he declined to step down, he had to defend himself in other ways: “I am not a dictator,” he told The Times in February.
So who was he?
Mr. Jovenel Moïse was a former chamber of commerce leader when he ran for president. He was not well known as he emerged as a leading candidate and the people named him “the Banana Man.”
In interviews, Mr. Moïse often described how he grew up on a large sugar plantation and could relate to a vast majority of Haitians who live off the land. He was raised in a rural area in the north but attended school in the capital, Port-au-Prince. He said he learned how to succeed by watching his father’s profitable farming business.
“Since I was a child, I was always wondering why people were living in such conditions while enormous lands were empty,” he said. “I believe agriculture is the key to change for this country.”
He ran a large produce cooperative that employed 3,000 farmers. He was often accused of being a strongman who tried to amass power as he tried to ram in a new Constitution that would have given his office more power and presidents the ability to seek more terms in office and these plans were thwarted by COVID-19 and mounting uncertainty.
In a dispute over when his term should end, he refused to step down and ruled by decree as the terms of nearly every elected official in the country expired, and no elections were held. He was accused of working with gangs to stay in power.
Even his critics acknowledge that Mr. Moïse exercised his power in office to try to end monopolies that offered profitable contracts to the powerful elite and this is probably what made him enemies.
“To some he was a corrupt leader, but to others he was a reformer,” said Leonie Hermantin, a Haitian community leader in Miami. “He was a man who was trying to change the power dynamics, particularly when it came to money and who had control over electricity contracts. The oligarchy was paid billions of dollars to provide electricity to a country that was still in the dark.”
Simon Desras, a former senator in Haiti, said Mr. Moïse seemed to know that his battle against the wealthy and powerful interests in the country would get him killed.
“I remember in his speech, he said he just targeted the rich people by putting an end to their contracts. He said that could be the reason for his death because they are used to assassinating people and pushing people into exile,” Mr. Desras said in a telephone interview, as he drove through Haiti’s deserted streets. “It’s like he made a prophecy.”
Haiti is in the western one-third of the island of Hispaniola between the Caribbean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean. This small, tropical country is west of the Dominican Republic and is south of the island of Cuba.
