As the already impoverished nation of Haiti descends into deeper chaos and anarchy of historic proportions, the question on everyone’s lips is, “what is going on?!”
Haiti is a Caribbean nation located in the Greater Antilles archipelago. The nation shares the island of Hispaniola with a counterpart Caribbean nation of the Dominican Republic. Haiti sits on about 27,560 sq km of land, about 190 sq km of water and has a population of about 10.8 million inhabitants.
Now, let’s cut to the chase. It’s a long story but let’s start from the timeline of the immediate past president of Haiti, Jovenel Moise who was assassinated on July 7, 2021. Prior to his assassination, a few interesting events unfolded in Haiti. In March of 2021, a Tweet originating from the Foreign Ministry of the Russian Federation stated that Haiti was entering a new period of “political instability and the largest ever social and economic crisis.” The Tweet further emphasized, “Russia is ready to help Haitians restore political stability, maintain internal security and train personnel.”
Three months later, in June of 2021, Haitian President Jovenel Moïse welcomed the Russian Federation’s newest and third ambassador to Haiti, Sergey Melik-Bagdasarov. In a June 2 announcement on Twitter, Moïse said the two “discussed the prospects for strengthening bilateral relations between the two countries,” (which essentially implied Haiti had opened its doors wide for Russian military interventions and personnel training on multiple levels. But things were still at the incubation stages.)
A month after the historic, open display of partnership with Russia, Moïse was dead, shot 12 times in his private bedroom in the hills above Port-au-Prince after a group of Haitian Americans, Haitian nationals and former Colombian soldiers failed to kidnap him two weeks earlier when he returned from an overseas trip to Turkey, where it is believed he had met with Russians to evade the prying eyes of the west, especially the USA.
When the news of his death broke, the nation was thrown into mourning. Protests broke out everywhere, with Hatians accusing the imperialist forces (chief of which is the U.S.) of brutally assassinating their president. Gang warfare escalated and insecurity in Haiti degenerated beyond control. Amidst all the confusion and protests in much of Haiti over the brutal assassination of Moise, American President Joe Biden was quick to throw his weight behind a quick replacement for Moise in the person of Prime Minister Ariel Henry who filled the void. So, a Russian-leaning Moise was assassinated and a Biden-supported Ariel was immediately railroaded to power, to replace him amidst protests – just for the records.
The choice of Ariel and the fact that he has been supported by the U.S. president to quickly replace Moise at a time that no one has been able to explain what happened to Moise further infuriated Haitians who already seem to have developed a deep-seated hatred towards the USA, whom they believe is at the center of nearly all the political, social and economic woes of Haiti.
Protests across Haiti quickly took a turn for the worst and then something that hadn’t happened before happened: Haitian protesters were seen in their numbers waving Russian flags! According to a news article in the Haitian publication, AyiboPost, as recently as 18 October 2022, an author, Boaz Anglade, asserts that an undercurrent of pro-Russian sentiment in Haiti already existed prior to the current crises, but that recent events have made it far more widespread than previously. Anglade states that there has always been a fringe segment of Haitian society that has idolized leaders and nations who they perceive as defying US imperialism, but that this fringe had previously been limited to self-described socialists and socially-conscious university students.