In rare move, Haiti president acknowledges uptick in kidnappings, asks for help

Haiti President Jovenel Moïse is calling on Haitians to help police respond to a worrying surge in kidnappings for ransom and put an end to the fear gripping the impoverished nation and leading many to conclude it is unlivable.

“I don’t have a problem carrying this weight on my back; I am not afraid to carry it. But I need your help, I need the support of the population,” Moïse said. “I need a marriage with the police and the population to allow us today to grab the thugs by the neck.”

Moïse’s plea and rare acknowledgment of the kidnapping epidemic that’s gaining ground in the country came during a midday, live address to the nation, and on the heels of the kidnapping of a schoolboy.

Earlier in the morning, local press reported that a 10-year-old boy had been grabbed as he headed to school in the city of Carrefour, not far from the bustling Bizoton market. The boy’s mother had turned around to pay a bus driver when a vehicle pulled up and grabbed the child, just a few feet from his school’s front gate.

As word of the abduction spread, outraged school children, residents and parents throughout the capital took to the streets in protest. Some blocked the street in Carrefour near where the incident occurred. Others, still dressed in their school uniforms, marched in Tabarre, not far from the U.S. Embassy, while crowds gathered in a public park in Pétion-Ville, adjacent to the road the president takes to go home.

The boy was eventually released.

Anatomy of Haiti’s kidnapping epidemic: No one seems immune

While once only a concern for those with means, now no one is immune from becoming a kidnapping victim in Haiti, human rights leaders say. In November, the slaying of a poor schoolgirl, Evelyne Sincère, sparked outrage and criticism, underscoring the population’s vulnerability.

Other recent kidnapping victims have included priests, nuns, physicians and market vendors. A number of victims have been U.S. citizens, including Elie Henry, head of the Seventh-day Adventist’s Inter-American division and a Miami-based church leader. He and his daughter, a physical therapist, were kidnapped on Christmas Eve and eventually released.

Widening insecurity has paralyzed Haiti while kidnappings have become such an industry that an economic adviser to the president recently suggested on Twitter that the Haitian government is losing money on it, and that kidnapping should be subject to state regulation, apparent offhand remarks that were seen as a sign of a lack of seriousness in addressing the issue.

Whereas before assailants went to great means to hide victims’ whereabouts, some now ask hostages to tell relatives where they are because they know that police won’t go into gang-controlled slums, where they are often hidden with the knowledge of the population.

For their part, the families of victims are often reluctant to turn to the police for help, fearing their involvement. Hostages have reported seeing assailants dressed in police uniforms or driving police vehicles when they were taken.

Moïse did not address any of this, nor did he provide data on the number of kidnappings to date. He mentioned that his prime minister is chairing an anti-kidnapping task force and thanked the police’s anti-kidnapping unit for their work.

The unit, like most agencies in Haiti, is cash strapped. The freedom of many victims comes not because police make an arrest or rescue, but often because ransoms are paid. Ransom demands can go as high as $5 million, impossible for most families, who end up scrounging together whatever money they can collect and paying hundreds or thousands to earn a captive’s release.

Until now, the National Palace has been largely silent on kidnappings, which human rights activists have attributed to armed gangs that reign with impunity.

Valéry Daudier, a columnist with Le Nouvelliste, said he has never been satisfied with how Haitian officials address the country’s kidnapping problem. He said that after acting like the problem doesn’t exist, “the president didn’t have a choice” but to say something. The paper last year estimated that there were on average 160 kidnappings a month in Haiti.

Haiti police did not respond to a request for information on how many kidnappings they have logged so far this year, or in 2020 and 2019.

“When you take into account the number of people who have been kidnapped in the country, and the aggression committed against young women and what people report about being sequestered, I think he had to say something,” Daudier said. “But if you followed his speech, you also saw that he didn’t talk about the larger problem of insecurity and instead came with the same old propaganda about 24-7 electricity.”

With most of Moïse’s address devoted to other issues, Daudier said he isn’t optimistic that the kidnappings or Haiti’s larger crime problem will be resolved anytime soon. On Friday, hundreds of people living in gang-controlled areas took to the streets to protest against the abductions, but joining them were members of a notorious gang federation, including the most wanted gang leader in Haiti, a former cop named Jimmy Chérizier, alias Barbecue.

“I think the mention of kidnapping was just to grab people’s attention to get them to listen,” Daudier said.

Following his brief remarks about kidnappings, Moïse devoted most if his hour-and-half address to touting his efforts to electrify the country and build roads. He also sent subliminal messages to the new Biden administration in the U.S., those criticizing him for heading into elections without a political agreement with the opposition, and his political opponents in Haiti seeking his removal from office on Feb. 7, based on their reading of the Haitian constitution.

“Why is it that every time a president wants to do an election he has to find a political accord?” Moïse said, defending his push to reform the constitution and hold elections without such an accord.

Welcoming the election of U.S. President Joe Biden, he said, “We are here to collaborate among the two governments for the good of the people; the people of Haiti and the American people....Our rapport with the new American government is excellent and it’s a rapport that sits on respect for one another, and the respect for the relationship that has existed between these two countries for a long time.”