President Moise of Haiti assassinated.

 

President Jovenel Moise of Hati. UN photo.

President Jovenel Moise of Haiti was assassinated, leaving the stability of the country in question. AP. Police have killed four suspects and arrested two more. One of the suspects took three police officers hostage but all were safely released. Prime Minster Claude Joseph said that police and the military were now in control of the country. The killers were accused of being professional mercenaries and posed as American DEA agents. The DEA has an office Haiti to deal with drug smuggling. Moise was a controversial President as he was delaying holding elections. Haiti's future is uncertain as Claude Joseph was only an interim Prime Minster and the country's Supreme Court Justice recently died of the Coronavirus. Moise had nominated Arial Henry as Prime Minster yesterday, with Henry claiming he is the Prime Minster. 

The scene of the assassination with some of the assassins visible

A friend of mine tells me “it’s been a long time since I’ve heard gunfire like this.” This is what Port-au-Prince sounded like a bit ago. Says gunfire is now “everywhere.” #haiti pic.twitter.com/Qfhnyg2i40

— Michael Deibert (@michaelcdeibert) July 7, 2021

My Comment:

 I am far from an expert on Haiti, other than it is an extremely dysfunctional country in the best of times, let alone when a disaster happens. And this is clearly a disaster. Whenever a leader of an entire country dies it is a very bad thing for that country's stability. Since Haiti is already completely unstable this situation could spin out of control very quickly. 

We don't know who was responsible for this assassination but I am betting the reason was because Moise was not holding elections like he should have been. That would make him a ton of enemies, including the people he named as Prime Minster. There are a lot of people that likely wanted him dead.

The attack was fairly professional. They were able to kill the President and even managed to flee for a bit. They were also smart enough to come up with a plausible excuse for them to be there, identifying themselves as DEA agents. My guess is that they were mercenaries of some sort, given that they spoke Spanish and English. 

It is also unclear who is actually in control of Haiti right now. There are dueling Prime Minsters saying that they are both in control of the country. That is a recipe for disaster and could lead to a civil war. And even if one of them manages to take control civil war is very possible considering that it will take time to set up elections. 

So why should Americans care about this? The biggest threat is a refugee situation. We already had a ton of refugees from Haiti, which is not a good thing as we have to feed and house these people and they take jobs from American citizens. Given what party is in control right now I honestly wouldn't be surprised if they try to bring the entire population of Haiti to America.

Another worry is that Biden will try to deploy American troops to Haiti to try and re-stabilize the country. I have seen rumblings from the defense community that we might just do exactly that. I don't think there is any support for a mission in Haiti. Considering we are just getting troops out of Afghanistan, it would be a shame if we put our troops into harms way in yet another failed country.