The last hour of the President of Haiti | International

A few meters from the house of the President of Haiti, Jovenel Moïse, a young man of 22 years, Eli Pledami, turns over in his bunk. It is Wednesday July 7th, the Copa América match between Colombia and Argentina has just ended and after seeing the penalties, he cannot sleep. There are a lot of mosquitoes after a few days of rain and he is hungry.

As Pledami rolls over in his bed, a commando group of 28 armed white men advance into Pelerin 5, a narrow, cobbled street in the Pétion Ville district, on one of the hills of Port-au-Prince. He has just closed the window and hears only the barking of dogs in the thick Haitian night, darker and deeper than any other, barely lit by a few bulbs, when a voice with a megaphone screams in the street. “It’s a DEA operation, don’t leave the house. I repeat, we are DEA agents and if you leave the house you will be shot! He shouts to the neighbors in English.

The brave few who dare to disobey crouch down with their cellphones at the controls: five vehicles, two dark trucks and three pickups, advancing slowly, exchanging instructions in English and Spanish. They walk slowly, heavily armed and dressed in fake US Drug Agency vests with their initials painted yellow.

It is one in the morning and the group walks past a street graffiti that says “Team Jovenel” at one of the houses on the right side where the President of Haiti lives. It is a simple construction of a factory with an entrance for vehicles and pedestrians, described to EL PAÍS one of his collaborators, used to shipping to home. Normally, the president’s security is made up of ten men who at this time of the night are drowsy or playing on the phone. “Least like a professional escort,” he explains.

Once at the door, the group of contract killers splits up. A party remains outside watching the guards – who are being questioned for their possible complicity in the murder – and another dozen shoot down the main door. They enter the house, cross a room, cross a room decorated with Haitian crafts and continue down the hall. Along the way, they find the maid, gag her and lock her in one of the rooms. The men continue to the bedroom of the Moïse couple and open fire at will.

“Shots started to be heard non-stop, many. It looked like a war. I was so scared that I tried to get under the bed, ”the frightened neighbor recalls to this newspaper. When the crime is over, the group begins the looting: frantically opening drawers, cupboards and doors in search of jewelry and money. Following the scene, the president’s daughter, Jomarlie Moïse, hears everything, but managed to hide in her brother’s room. In less than half an hour, at 1:30 a.m., the order leaves the premises.

When a few hours later, Judge Carl Henry Destin arrives at the scene of the crime, he finds the President out of bed, with broken bones and dress pants. He had tried to defend himself or maybe the kidnapping had gone wrong. “He was lying in blue pants and a bloodstained white shirt. His mouth was open and his left eye was gouged out, ”the judge later described. President Jovenel Moïse had received “a bullet impact in the forehead, two in the chest, three in the hip, one in the abdomen…”, according to the judge. In total, there were 12 bullets from two different weapons, a 9 millimeter pistol and a large caliber pistol. Next to him, the first lady, Martine Moïse, also lies bloody after being shot in the arms, hand and abdomen, but is still alive. Within an hour, at 2:30 a.m., she is in a helicopter and an hour later lands in Miami, where she is admitted and remains stable, albeit in critical condition. On the door of the house there is a shower of 5.56 and 7.62 millimeter caps, the judge noted. With the first rays of light, word of mouth spreads word of mouth and the tense dawn of Wednesday empties the streets of Port-au-Prince, a city that needs the chaos of the streets like oxygen to survive.

The assassination gave way to a mad flight of hired killers, without feet or heads. Haiti is one of 15 countries in the world that, in exchange for money and aid, like covid-19 masks, maintains diplomatic relations with Taiwan, independent of China. Of the 28 hired killers who, according to the authorities, made up the group, mostly Colombians, eight chose this embassy to go into hiding. The diplomatic headquarters, 2,000 meters below the president’s house, is empty, but they are betrayed and captured by the security guard. Eleven others barricaded themselves in a nearby house and exchanged gunfire with police for hours on end until officers attacked from behind, killing four and arresting seven more, witnesses said.

Thursday, this house seems charred and in front of it, there are two vehicles set on fire, proof that the command, made up of “highly qualified professional hired killers”, did not prepare to flee or is nothing as the saying goes. authorities. Two other Colombians were about to be lynched shouting “they killed our president” as the crowd shook the frightened hired killers. The three days of search and capture ended with seven mercenaries killed by the police, 15 arrested and six others on the run. On Thursday, the police presented the detainees and displayed the found weapons, their passports, the hard drive of the home camera and President Moïse’s checkbook.

Colombia later clarified that the detainees are former soldiers, ranging from a lieutenant colonel to ordinary soldiers. The wife of one of those captured, who identified as Yuli, said her husband was recruited by a security company to travel to the Dominican Republic last month. According to W Radio, Francisco Uribe was hired for $ 2,700 a month by a company tasked with protecting powerful families in the Dominican Republic. The last time she spoke to him, Wednesday night at 10 p.m., he said he was on duty at a house where he and others were staying. “The next day he wrote me a message that sounded like goodbye,” the woman said. “They were running, they had been attacked … It was the last contact I had.” The two Haitians of American nationality said they were only serving as translators for the group and that they always believed it was about kidnapping the president, not killing him.

Meanwhile, on the streets, there is a smoldering feeling that something is about to happen and that Haiti is heading into a power vacuum. The newspaper editorial The Nouvelliste, the oldest in the country, described the state of mind of America’s poorest nation: “With the very serious news, shock coverage enveloped everything: people, animals and things. Not a sound. Not a cry. Not a tear. The time was not for loud expressions or visible pain. It is that of a country which holds its breath ”.

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