‘We have a very deep crisis’: Haitian-born professors share cautious optimism for the future of their home country
The assassination of President Jovenel Moïse of Haiti at his home in Pétion-Ville last week was the latest flashpoint for the Caribbean island, which was already at risk of collapsing into political and economic chaos.
“We have a very deep crisis, probably as pronounced as the one we had immediately after the [2010] earthquake,” Robert Fatton, an expert on Haitian politics at the University of Virginia, and a native of Haiti, told Yahoo News. “But it's a different type of crisis. Virtually all the institutions in the country are essentially being eviscerated.”
Video Transcript
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VLADIMIR DUTHIERS: Haiti is in chaos today after the country's president was assassinated after gunmen stormed his home. His wife was seriously hurt in yesterday's attack outside the capital, Port-au-Prince. Haiti's police chief says officers killed four suspects. Two others are under arrest. The interim prime minister says he remains in charge. The United Nations plans to meet today to try and keep an already volatile situation from getting out of control.
ROBERT FATTON: My name is Robert Fatton, and I teach in the department of politics at the University of Virginia. Well, I think we have a very deep crisis, probably as pronounced as the one that we had immediately after the earthquake. It's a different type of crisis, virtually all the institutions in the country essentially being eviscerated.
We don't have a functioning parliament. We don't have a functioning police. We don't have a functioning government. The constitution has been violated by every actor, both domestic and international. The economy is in freefall. We have not even recovered from the disaster of the earthquake. My hope is that civil society can, in fact, inject into Haitian society some sort of new blood that is not only competent, but also interested in the development of the country without the type of corruption that we had before.
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JEAN EDDY SAINT PAUL: My name is Jean Eddy Saint Paul. I'm a professor of sociology at Brooklyn College. I was not like a big fan of the president. But we Haitian people, we wanted to hold politicians accountable. And he was not like a very popular president, because since he took office in 2017--
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--there were many protests [INAUDIBLE] to leave the country. But no person with the sense would ask to murder a president. This is the time for the US to recognize that they did enough to Haitian people, and to give a chance to Haitian people to figure out their own solution. Because what the media do not tell us in the US is that in Haiti there is a strong civil society, and they know what they need for the country. They need the US to step back and to let Haitian people figure out their own solution.
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