Did Trump Financially Back Medical Mission to Hati
Missionaries with an American Christian group are kidnapped in Haiti.
Image
Seventeen people, including five children, associated with an American Christian aid group were kidnapped on Saturday by a gang in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, as they visited an orphanage, according to a former field director for the group, Christian Aid Ministries.
The Haitian police said the group behind the abductions was one of the country's most dangerous criminal gangs. Known as 400 Mawozo, the gang was blamed for kidnapping five priests and two nuns earlier this year.
The group has sown terror for several months in the suburbs, engaging in armed combat with rival gangs and kidnapping businessmen and police officers.
Christian Aid Ministries said in a "prayer alert" that the missionaries were based in Titanyen, about 11 miles north of Port-au-Prince.
The alert asked for prayers and that "the gang members would come to repentance and faith in Christ."
Christian Aid Ministries said in a statement on its website that six women and six men were taken hostage, along with a 3-year-old and four other children. Local authorities said the group that was kidnapped included 16 Americans and one Canadian.
"We are seeking God's direction for a resolution, and authorities are seeking ways to help," the statement said.
The group, which is based in Millersburg, Ohio, says on its website that it "strives to be a trustworthy and efficient channel for Amish, Mennonite, and other conservative Anabaptist groups and individuals to minister to physical and spiritual needs around the world."
Haiti has been in a state of political upheaval for years, and kidnappings of the rich and poor alike are alarmingly common. But even in a country accustomed to widespread lawlessness, the abduction of such a large group of Americans shocked officials for its brazenness.
Violence is surging across the capital, Port-au-Prince, where by some estimates, gangs now control roughly half of the city. On Monday, gangs shot at a school bus in Port-au-Prince, injuring at least five people, including students, while another public bus was hijacked by a gang as well.
Security has broken down as the country's politics have disintegrated. Demonstrators furious at widespread corruption demanded the ouster of President Jovenel Moïse two years ago, effectively paralyzing the country. The standoff prevented the sick from getting treatment in hospitals, children from attending school, workers from going to the rare jobs available and even stopped electricity from flowing in parts of the country.
Since then, gangs have only become more assertive. They operate at will, kidnapping children on their way to school and pastors in the middle of their services.
When the U.N. peacekeeping mission to Haiti was in place and included peacekeeping troops, it was able to quell the gangs in Port-au-Prince and its suburbs. Since the mission ended in 2017, gangs have returned in full force.
The nation's political turmoil intensified further after Mr. Moïse was assassinated in his home in July, a killing that remains unsolved. The few remaining officials in the country soon began fighting for control of the government, and the factionalism has continued for months, with officials accusing one another of taking part in the conspiracy to kill the president.
On Sunday, Haiti's prime minister, Ariel Henry, tried to pay tribute to one of the country's founding fathers, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, on the anniversary of his assassination about 200 years ago. When Mr. Henry tried to lay a wreath at the statue, on the site of the assassination in downtown Port-au-Prince, gangs fired on him. Mr. Moïse was similarly unable to do this over the past few years because gangs opened fire on his entourage, too.
The kidnapping of the American missionaries happened only a day after the United Nations Security Council extended its mission in Haiti by nine months in a unanimous vote on Friday. Many Haitians have been calling for the United States to send troops to stabilize the situation, but the Biden administration has been reluctant to commit to boots on the ground.
A State Department spokesperson said on Sunday that the U.S. government was aware of the reports but didn't offer further details.
Representative Adam Kinzinger, Republican of Illinois and a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said Sunday on CNN that the U.S. government will do everything possible to get the Americans back.
"We need to track down where they are and see if negotiations without paying ransom are possible or do whatever we need to on the military front or police front," he said.
Correction :
An earlier version of this article included an incorrect gender breakdown of the kidnapped missionaries, attributed to a statement on the website of Christian Aid Ministries. The organization updated the information on Monday. Six men, six women and five children were taken, not five men, seven women and five children.
Correction :
An earlier version of this article, relying on information from a former field director for Christian Aid Ministries, misstated the age of one of the children who was abducted. The child is 3, not 2.
Kidnappings of Americans were once rare in Haiti. Not anymore.
Image
Holding Americans hostage used to be rare in Haiti. But experts say it's become more common over the past two years.
The F.B.I. is the lead federal agency on cases of Americans kidnapped abroad. Its field office in Miami has sporadically sent teams to Haiti to investigate or negotiate for the release of victims when families asked for help.
A senior U.S. official who has worked on Haiti issues said there have been reports of a number of Americans kidnapped over the last several months. The victims are most often of Haitian descent.
The official said that while kidnappings for ransom in Haiti are generally not as savage as those by terrorist groups in the Middle East, the U.S. government approaches both with the same sense of urgency.
Separately, a senior State Department official said the Biden administration was in touch with officials at the highest levels of the Haitian government about the kidnappings but declined to comment further, including as to whether negotiations for the victims' release had begun.
The officials did not give their names because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the kidnappings.
Jean Monestime, the first Haitian-born member of the Miami-Dade County Commission and a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, pointed to the brazen kidnapping in December of Élie Henry, the head of the church's Inter-American Division, who is based in Miami.
Mr. Henry, whose brother, Ariel Henry, is now Haiti's prime minister, was in Port-au-Prince on Christmas Eve when he was kidnapped along with his daughter. They were eventually released.
"Luckily, his life was spared," Mr. Monestime said. "But there are many that haven't been released."
Amy Wilentz, a Haiti expert and journalism professor at the University of California at Irvine, noted that the number of Americans in Haiti usually rises after a catastrophe, when people travel to the country to try to help.
The Americans are generally seen by gangs and other organized crime groups as "luxury targets," she said, because of the high value of ransoms they are believed to deliver. She also described Haitians who worked for the American Embassy in Port-au-Prince who have been chased down by gangs because of their connections to the United States.
Just days before the kidnapping, a senior United Nations diplomat and Haitian officials announced plans to arrest gang leaders, "so this could be a response to that," Ms. Wilentz said.
Gang violence spiraled under President Jovenel Moïse without much impunity, Ms. Wilentz said, but the new government has asked the U.N. for help strengthening the Haitian National Police and other security agencies. "I think they're scared of a new government — especially if it's backed by the Americans," Ms. Wilentz said. "I think that's the reason for the spasm."
Gang suspected in kidnapping of missionaries is among the country's most dangerous.
Image
The gang that the police say kidnapped 17 missionaries and their family members in Haiti on Saturday is among the country's most dangerous and one of the first to engage in mass kidnappings.
The gang, known as 400 Mawozo, controls the area where the missionaries were abducted in the suburbs of Port-au-Prince, the capital. The group has sown terror there for several months, engaging in armed combat with rival gangs and kidnapping businessmen and police officers.
The gang has taken kidnapping in Haiti to a new level, snatching people en masse as they ride buses or walk the streets in groups whose numbers might once have kept them safe.
The gang was blamed for kidnapping five priests and two nuns earlier this year. It is also believed to have killed Anderson Belony, a famous sculptor, on Tuesday, according to local news reports. Mr. Belony had worked to improve his impoverished community.
Croix-des-Bouquets, one of the suburbs now under control by the gang, has become a near ghost town, with many residents fleeing the daily violence.
The once-bustling area now lacks the poor street vendors who used to line the sidewalks, some of whom were kidnapped by the gang for what little they had in their pockets or told to sell what few possessions they had at home, including radios or refrigerators, to pay off the ransom. By some estimates, gangs now control about half the capital.
Gangs have plagued Port-au-Prince over the past two decades, but were often used for political purposes — such as voter suppression — by powerful politicians. They have grown into a force that is now seemingly uncontrollable, thriving in the economic malaise and desperation that deepens every year, with independent gangs mushrooming across the capital.
While older, more established gangs trafficked in kidnapping or carrying out the will of their political patrons, newer gangs like 400 Mawozo are raping women and recruiting children, forcing the youth in their neighborhood to beat up those they captured, training a newer, more violent generation of members. Churches, once untouchable, are now a frequent target, with priests kidnapped even mid-sermon.
Locals are fed up with the violence, which prevents them from making a living and keeps their children from attending school. Some started a petition in recent days to protest the region's rising gang violence, pointing to the 400 Mawozo gang and calling on the police to take action.
The transportation industry has also called a general strike on Monday and Tuesday in Port-au-Prince to protest the gangs and insecurity. The action may turn into a more general strike as word has spread across sectors for workers to stay home to call attention to the insecurity and the fuel shortages in the capital.
"The violence suffered by the families has reached a new level in the horror," the text of the petition reads. "Heavily armed bandits are no longer satisfied with current abuses, racketeering, threats and kidnappings for ransom. At the present time, criminals break into village homes at night, attack families and rape women."
In April, the 400 Mawozo gang abducted 10 people in Croix-des-Bouquets, including seven Catholic clergy members, five of them Haitian and two French. The entire group was eventually released in late April. The kidnappers had demanded a $1 million ransom, but it remains unclear if it had been paid.
Michel Briand, a French priest living in Haiti who was part of the group, said the gang had forced their cars to divert from their course before kidnapping them. "If we hadn't obeyed them — that's what they told us afterward — they would have shot us," he said.
According to the latest report from the Center for Analysis and Research for Human Rights, based in Port-au-Prince, from January to September there were 628 people kidnapped, including 29 foreigners. Haitian gangs have stayed away from kidnapping American citizens in the past, fearing retribution from the United States government, making 400 Mawozo's actions all the more brazen.
A big payoff, then silence: How kidnappings often play out in Haiti.
Image
It's news Haitian Americans have become all too familiar with: Someone back home has been kidnapped and is being held for ransom.
"There are many stories," said Jean Monestime, the first Haitian-born member of the Miami-Dade County Commission. "Basically too many to talk about."
The kidnappings in which victims are released typically end with the payment of ransoms, he said, but their amounts are not usually disclosed — and in some cases, the abductees are told not to speak about how their release was engineered.
Gèdèon Jean, the executive director of the Center for Analysis and Research in Human Rights, an advocacy group in Port-au-Prince, said kidnappers could ask as much as $1 million per hostage in ransom for each of the 17 people linked to an American Christian aid group who were kidnapped on Saturday by a gang in Port-au-Prince.
Mr. Jean said it would be highly unlikely for any American hostages to be killed.
"They're going to negotiate," Mr. Jean said. The hostages "are going to be freed — that's for sure. We don't know in how many days, but they're going to negotiate."
"The 400 Mawozo gang don't want to kill the hostages," he added, referring to the group suspected in the kidnapping.
Mr. Jean said that most kidnappings in Haiti were motivated by money.
"Nowadays, the gangs, especially in a situation that is a little financially vulnerable, they increase kidnappings to have enough money," he said. "So the motive behind the surge in kidnappings for us is a financial one, if the gangs need money to buy ammunition, to get weapons, to be able to function."
Haiti's police, underfunded and with little support from leaders, cannot hold back gangs.
Image
The inability of Haiti's police to counter gang control of Port-au-Prince over the last few years has left parts of the city abandoned as civilians, fleeing violence, surrendered the streets to urban warfare.
In one of the rare instances where the police tried to exert control over a gang-held slum this year, armed men and local children besieged Haitian security forces when they entered the Village-de-Dieu community, killing several officers and commandeering their vehicles. The gang that controls the area refused to hand over the officers' bodies, stirring outrage across Haiti.
The problems plaguing Haiti's police force boil down to two main issues: The relatively new force, established in 1995, is chronically underfunded and undertrained and there is a lack of political will to support it as it struggles to regain state control.
Over the last two decades, some wealthy oligarchs, government officials and their political foes have funded gangs across Port-au-Prince to achieve their own political and business objectives, creating what Haitians describe as an "invisible arm" holding the country back from achieving stability.
Government support for the gangs strengthened under President Jovenel Moïse, who was assassinated in July, according to diplomats in Port-au-Prince, Haitian officials and local human rights organizations.
"The Haitian National Police has been ineffective because the alliance between armed gangs and executive power, strengthened in 2018, continues to this day," said Pierre Espérance, a prominent Haitian human rights defender who has testified to Congress about the violence in Haiti.
"The executive branch of government has given more weapons and ammunition to the gangs than perhaps even to the police," Mr. Espérance added.
The force was formed in 1995, after Haiti disbanded its military for launching a coup to overthrow the democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The military historically played two roles, as the nation's defender against outside forces and as the enforcer of public security domestically.
But the police were hobbled by a lack of funding and corruption until 2004, when the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti was established. It helped train, equip and fund the burgeoning force.
United Nations peacekeeping troops helped safeguard neighborhoods across Port-au-Prince, going into notorious slums like Cité Soleil and establishing a shaky peace with the aid of Haitian police forces, in a kind of on-the-job training. But as the international peacekeepers began to wind down their presence in Haiti ahead of a final withdrawal in 2017, the gangs moved into the capital again.
Now, about half of Port-au-Prince is under gang control.
— Maria Abi-Habib and Andre Paulte
For a missionary group in a fragile Haiti, charity turns to chaos.
Image
Christian missionary workers typically labor in obscurity, running medical clinics, building wells and delivering Bibles without fanfare — until crisis erupts.
There was Andrew Brunson, an evangelical pastor from North Carolina who was swept up in a coup attempt in Turkey in 2016 and detained for two years. And Kent Brantly, a medical missionary who nearly died from Ebola in Liberia.
On Saturday, Christian Aid Ministries, a global missionary organization in Millersburg, Ohio, that was founded by Amish and Mennonites, unwillingly joined the ranks of those making headlines when 17 members of its group were kidnapped.
The organization is one of more than 100 Christian mission organizations working in Haiti, according to the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. There were about 1,700 Christian missionaries in Haiti as of mid-2020, the group estimates. Most are Catholic, but Seventh-day Adventists are also a major presence.
Along with Christian Aid Ministries, other Anabaptist mission groups in Haiti include smaller ones like Mennonite Gospel Mission, Haiti Relief and Missions, and Redeemed Vocational School. Anabaptist communities date to the Protestant Reformation and are known for their pacifism, simple lifestyle and beliefs in adult baptism.
Smaller Anabaptist mission groups have worked in Haiti for decades, often affiliated with faith communities in the United States, especially across the Midwest. But Christian Aid Ministries has far more resources than smaller mission groups.
Haiti is still reeling from an earthquake and an assassination.
Image
Haiti has been rocked by one crisis after another this year.
First came mass protests that paralyzed much of the capital early this year. Haitians, angry that President Jovenel Moïse was refusing to step down, took to the streets demanding change amid daily power cuts, food shortages and corruption.
In July, mercenaries stormed his home in the middle of the night, killing him and injuring his wife. The assassination left a political void that deepened the turmoil and violence that had gripped Haiti for months, threatening to tip one of the world's most troubled nations further into lawlessness.
Long accustomed to unrest, the Haitian population has found its resilience pushed to the limit. Barely a month after the assassination, a huge earthquake struck the nation. The 7.2-magnitude quake brought back memories of the tremor that devastated the nation in 2010 and killed more than 100,000 people. Haiti has yet to recover from that, or a subsequent outbreak of cholera brought by United Nations peacekeepers.
The chaotic and violent year has led to a surge in kidnappings, adding even more fear to daily life.
Armed gangs have taken greater control of the streets, terrorizing poor neighborhoods and sending thousands fleeing, kidnapping even schoolchildren and church pastors in the middle of their services. Poverty and hunger are rising, with many citizens accusing members of the government of enriching themselves while depriving the population of even the most basic services.
The crises have fueled immigration to South America and even the United States, where Haitians seeking asylum have come to the southern border.
In the absence of a strong government, religion and churches play a crucial role in Haiti.
Image
Christian churches play a central role in Haitian life. For many Haitians, their only source of aid throughout their lives, in the absence of strong government institutions, has been the church, a part of Haiti's landscape since the era of European colonialism and slavery.
Severe poverty, systematic gang violence, the pandemic and a history of dysfunctional government have only worsened the struggles of Haiti's 11 million people.
Those struggles have reinforced the importance of the church as a source of aid, education and stability for much of the country, which has no other social safety net. French slave owners made Catholicism Haiti's official religion, and it endured even after the slave revolt and Haitian independence as a faith many Haitians are deeply bound to.
But Haiti, as the world's first Black independent nation, also took Catholic rituals and melded them with local customs, creating a faith unique to the nation that many find pride in.
Churches became a major feature of communities across the country, places to gather, seek refuge and get food and education. These needs only intensified as the country — once the wealthiest in the Caribbean — slipped into poverty over the past 100 years. Foreign interference from the United States, which invaded and supported political coups and dictatorships, deepened the despair.
Religious charities played a prominent role in mobilizing help for victims of a devastating earthquake this year. Catholic Relief Services, for example, dispatched teams to Les Cayes, Haiti, and the surrounding area to provide clean water, sanitation, shelter and emergency supplies. Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Miami, a major community of the Haitian diaspora, accepted donations for quake relief.
Kidnapping, a threat that has long menaced Haiti, grows worse amid a security breakdown.
Image
Kidnapping has long been a scourge in Haiti, with gangs abducting anyone from vegetable sellers to foreign businesspeople for ransoms that range from the hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars.
The threat of kidnapping has grown as political turmoil continues and armed gangs have taken greater control of the streets, terrorizing poor neighborhoods and sending thousands fleeing.
Haitians — already facing poverty and hunger — have described the threat of kidnapping as a constant menace that complicates much of daily life, with simple acts like buying gas or going to the grocery store carrying the risk of being grabbed.
"They can kidnap you at any time; they don't need to know who you are to kidnap you," said Anette Telemarque, 72, a Haitian who is now living in New York. "They kidnap everybody, rich or poor."
She added: "I was suffering in Haiti because I didn't have a minimum of freedom. Every time I had to go out, I thought about the kidnapping, the gangs in the streets."
Most victims are middle and working-class people. Their families often end up negotiating with kidnappers on their own rather than turn to the police, who have a long history of corruption and who sometimes engage in kidnapping themselves.
In April gangs kidnapped five Roman Catholic priests and two nuns.
"For some time now, we have been witnessing the descent into hell of Haitian society," Archbishop Max Leroy Mesidor of Port-au-Prince said in a statement at the time.
Haitian migrants risk everything to reach the U.S. border.
Image
Haitians have been making the dangerous journey to the southern border of the United States in greater numbers this year after the country was buffeted by a string of crises, including an earthquake, a presidential assassination, floods and gang violence.
In September, thousands of Haitians gathered at a makeshift camp in a Texas border town, which led to scenes of Border Patrol agents on horses pushing some of them back across the Rio Grande. That prompted criticism from Democrats and questions about President Biden's decision to deport Haitians who arrived at the border.
Haitian government officials have protested that they do not have the resources to help those who are being sent back on flights from the United States. Daniel Foote, the senior American envoy for Haiti policy, resigned over a deportation policy he called "inhumane" and "counterproductive."
Over the past decade, many Haitians have sought refuge abroad, particularly after a devastating earthquake in 2010. Some who traveled to countries in South America, including Brazil and Chile, decided to continue on to the United States this year. Some said they believed that migration policies had eased after President Donald J. Trump left office, particularly after Mr. Biden extended protections for Haitians already in the country.
But for those who reached Del Rio, the Texas border town where thousands gathered, it became clear that their expectations of a warm welcome were mistaken.
Still, many continue to make a perilous journey, crossing the lawless Darién Gap, a roadless stretch of jungle that links South America to the North. Panamanian officials say an estimated 95,000 migrants, most of them from Haiti, tried to cross that dangerous stretch in the first nine months of this year.
"We take this risk because we have children," Vladimy Damier, a Haitian migrant who was crossing the Darién Gap with his family, told The New York Times.
In Haiti, charity efforts are vital but sometimes troubled.
Image
Over the past decade the international community has sent more than $13 billion in aid to Haiti.
In the absence of a strong government, religious groups and international aid organizations provide vital services in the country, which has been called the Republic of NGOs because of the many nongovernmental organizations that operate there.
The devastating 2010 earthquake was a catalyst for some charity groups, which have allowed Haiti to greatly improve its capacities to respond to health and natural disasters.
Over the past decade, emergency medical services have been established and training programs for emergency responses have been opened. Air ambulances are now available as are medical helicopters and trains.
"The things we had at our disposal in 2010 versus now are night and day," Dr. Paul Farmer, a physician and co-founder of the relief agency Partners in Health, said in an interview in August. "We can move patients from south to north like today, whereas after the earthquake in 2010, we really had to wait eight days to transport people by air to an operating room," he added.
But the charities have also fostered an unhealthy dependence, some expert say. And even the best intentions have sometimes taken a wrong turn.
After the earthquake in 2010 killed more than 200,000 in Haiti, the United States led a mass international adoption effort that saw many safeguards dropped to speed the evacuation of children. Some were sent to the United States without adequate paperwork or screening to make sure they weren't improperly taken from relatives. An unknown number were left in the American foster care system because adoptive families had not been formally arranged or backed out.
The aid effort in response to the earthquake also brought other problems. A group of United Nations peacekeepers sent to Haiti in the aftermath brought cholera with them, and the outbreak that followed has killed as many as 10,000 people since then. The United Nations only acknowledged its role in the outbreak nearly six years later, and faced criticism for its unwillingness to hold itself accountable.
Oxfam, a British charity, fired at least four of its staff members over "sexual misconduct" in Haiti after a news report revealed that employees had hired prostitutes and organized orgies. Three others resigned, including the organization's Haiti director.
Constant Méheut contributed reporting.
Did Trump Financially Back Medical Mission to Hati
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/10/17/world/missionaries-kidnap-haiti
0 Response to "Did Trump Financially Back Medical Mission to Hati"
Post a Comment