When news of the assassination of Haitian President Giovinel Moys came out, members of the Canadian Haitian community (mainly living in French-speaking Quebec) were shocked.
According to Haiti’s interim prime minister, Claude Joseph, the former president was elected for the first time in 2017. His wife was killed and injured after a group of gunmen entered his residence early on Wednesday.
Moise’s death comes at a very turbulent period in Haiti, which is struggling to deal with escalating gang violence and anti-government protests.
After Moise’s death, the Haitian government and other international leaders are in a rush, but some Haitian Canadians are now increasingly concerned about the future of the Caribbean countries.
Marjorie Villefranche, executive director of La Maison d’, said: “This is really shocking because we did not expect this to happen, and it is terrible, because it is not a very democratic way to remove the president.” Haiti -Haitian community group in Montreal.
According to Liberty City, the assassination of Moise has now left a deeper power and political vacuum in a country already affected by political and economic instability.
Moise first became president in 2017, but after failing to hold an election, he has been ruled by decree for more than a year. Many people accused his government of corruption and forced him to step down.
In recent months, widespread protests against Moise’s rule and the resurgence of COVID-19 have paralyzed Haiti.
On the other hand, gang violence in the country’s capital, Port-au-Prince, has rapidly intensified. Last month, more than 14,700 people were displaced by gang arson and looting of their homes.
Sherly, a Haitian Montrealer who declined to give her surname, said the news shocked and terrified her family who still lived in Haiti.
“That’s my country, which makes me sad,” she said. “I don’t know what will happen. Only God knows.
“I am scared because I have some similar family members over there, my mother, my sister, and my brother.”
Another Haitian Montrealer, Jean-Michel Baptiste (Jean-Michel Baptiste), said the news was “sorrowful.”
“Because this is not something you hear every day…especially it happened in my country, which is why I say it hurts.”
Jean Emmanuel Pierre, the news director of a Haitian radio station in Montreal, said he could not escape the result of the Haitian crisis.
Pierre said that since the country’s rising inflation led to widespread riots in the summer of 2018, there have been protests and “complaints” against the president.
He said: “This country has indeed been in crisis for more than two and a half years.”
Both Pierre and Liberty City stated that they expected Moise to leave power and leave the country peacefully. For them, such an assassination was completely unexpected.
Pierre visits Haiti at least twice a year to learn about the news there, and he says that people there react similarly to him.
“People did not respond, the streets were empty, and protests against power occurred frequently,” he said.
“There was no show of joy or anything, because the president did not leave and he was assassinated”
— WThe ith file from Phil Carpenter, Mike Armstrong, and Annabelle Olivier
© 2021 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
