As the funeral of the Haitian president approaches, anger burns in the streets

CAP-HAÏTIEN, Haiti – The coffin of the assassinated President of Haiti, Jovenel Moïse, was carried by men in military uniform to a central stage and covered with a Haitian flag on Friday as spectators slipped bouquets of white flowers before a state funeral, a moment many hoped would help mend a fractured nation.

A few hours earlier, the northern city of Cap-Haitien – 30 minutes from his family property where the ceremony will be held – had burned with anger and frustration, revealing Haiti’s deep divisions.

Two weeks after Mr. Moïse was killed in his own room outside the capital, Port-au-Prince, the country is still spinning with unanswered questions and seething with anger. Authorities say he was killed by a group of Colombian mercenaries, and several members of Mr. Moïse’s own security services were also questioned and detained.

But on Friday morning, there was no sign of the protests that had raged in the city the night before, and the streets were bright but dark – there was no electricity.

The state funeral, scheduled for Moïse’s homestead less than half an hour from downtown Cap-Haitien, was to draw diplomats from around the world, including a presidential delegation from the United States, led by Linda Thomas -Greenfield, from the United States. the Ambassador to the United Nations – and officials from across the country.

The group will include Juan Gonzalez, President Biden’s senior adviser on Latin America; Representative Jeff Fortenberry, Republican of Nebraska; Michele J. Sison, United States Ambassador to Haiti; and Gregory Meeks, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the White House said in a statement. The State Department said Daniel Foote, a career diplomat, would be its special envoy for Haiti on Thursday; he will also be part of the delegation.

The US group plans to meet with Haitian politicians who fought to replace Mr. Moïse, as well as representatives of civil society organizations.

Still, unrest ahead of the ceremony raised security concerns and questions over whether everyone intending to pay tribute to Mr. Moïse would be able to attend the funeral.

Inside the president’s family compound, a few kilometers south of downtown Cap-Haitien, workers rushed to complete final preparations for a large transit area. The white stands were filled with more than 1,000 white chairs, arranged in a rectangle around a large tent, with floating white curtains, where the president’s coffin was to be placed, surrounded by bouquets of white flowers.

As the sun began to illuminate the sky, workers unrolled green AstroTurf rugs and stapled red and blue ribbons to the stands.

“Today we are all sad,” said Wilkens Saint-Louis, 32, pausing for a moment from his task of sweeping the leaves.

The streets swelled with black smoke from burning tires on Thursday, a form of protest common in a country divided by geography, wealth and power. Large crowds of demonstrators ran through the narrow colonial streets, chanting: “They killed Jovenel, and the police were there.

Distrustful of the elite coming from the capital, angry men tried to block the arrival of mourners from out of town, throwing a concrete block at the head car of a procession that had passed through the fire, then dragging a concrete telephone pole across a road.

“Someone was sent to them alive, they sent him back a corpse,” shouted Frantz Atole, a 42-year-old mechanic, promising violence. “This country is not going to be silent. “

A new government was installed in the capital this week, and its leaders pledged to shed light on the killings and build consensus among the country’s political factions and its civil society groups.

Yet the agitation Thursday threatened to turn hopes of consensus into a naive and unrealized dream.

“The bourgeoisie of Port-au-Prince is responsible. They are the reason for it all, ”said Emmanuella Joseph, a 20-year-old high school student, crying in a washcloth on the side of the road at the end of a marching demonstration. “All I ask is to close all the streets to prevent them from coming.”

She added that the president’s assassins were foreigners who had long been involved in the country’s fate. “What kind of nation comes to kill a president?” “

Others shouted that the police and the presidential guard, whose members suffered no reported injuries in the attack on the president’s home, had been complicit in the murder.

Cap-Haitien was dressed for mourning on Thursday. It was once the capital of the French colony of Santo Domingo, which claimed one of the world’s most brutal slave plantation economies and was later overwhelmed by the world’s most successful slave rebellion. Banners hung along the roads read “Justice for President Jovenel” and “Thank you, President Jovenel. You gave your life for the struggle of the people and it will continue.

Right next to the town’s main stone plaza, where rebel leaders were executed over two centuries ago, mourners lined up to sign condolence books and light candles in front of a large photo of the president in a government building.

“We live in such a fragile time,” said Maxil Mompremier, standing in front of the colonial-era Notre-Dame de L’Assomption Cathedral, where Mr. Moïse’s supporters had gathered earlier for a service. “Nobody understands what happened. A lot of people are afraid. “

Originally from the north of the country, Mr. Moïse was not well known in the center of power of the country of Port-au-Prince when the ruling party chose him as a candidate in the 2015 elections. He was born in the city. de Trou-du-Nord and subsequently began his entrepreneurial career in Port-de-Paix, where he became president of the Chamber of Commerce.

The fact that he was killed far away in Port-au-Prince has fueled old divisions between the less developed north and the country’s capital and economic center. He also deepened the divisions between the country’s small elite and its destitute majority.

“It keeps coming back throughout the history of Haiti,” said Emile Eyma Jr., historian based in Cap-Haitien, evoking the resentment felt by the inhabitants of the North. “What is dangerous is that the issue of color and the issue of regionalism are militarized for purely political reasons.”

The president’s wife, Martine Moïse, who was injured in the attack, said her family would pay for the funeral. The planes arrived at the airport normally asleep throughout Thursday, with more expected to arrive on Friday.

But in the streets of this city, anger was burning.

“We are going to protest all night,” vowed Mr. Atole as tires burned on a bridge behind him. “We’re going to give them a hard time in town. “

Harold Isaac contributed reporting.