The wave of demonstrations against Haiti’s President Jovenel Mo\u00efse and his government\u2019s mishandling of development funds has left a seventh protestor dead after a week of violent clashes in the Caribbean nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Haitians\u00a0took to the streets of the capital Port-au-Prince\u2019s once again\u00a0on Wednesday to demand the resignation of the country\u2019s\u00a0President Jovenel Mo\u00efse\u00a0as tensions continue to mount after a week of demonstrations marked by violent clashes with the police.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to AFP, a young man died at a crossroads near the presidential palace in Port-au-Prince and a\u00a0Haitian\u00a0journalist was wounded by gunshots during crossfire between\u00a0police\u00a0and protestors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The former French colony has been mired in a political crisis since February 7 that has left at least seven people dead and everyday life in the largest towns paralyzed by protests<\/a> and barricades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Demonstrators, who come mostly from poor neighbourhoods, are demanding Mo\u00efse\u2019s resignation over\u00a0graft scandals and for failing to tackle widespread poverty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis government is seen as incapable of tackling the economic crisis or the corruption,\u201d said Jake Johnston, researcher at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) and author of its\u00a0Haiti: Relief and Reconstruction Watch\u00a0blog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “It’s a popular uprising. Haitians are occupying the streets to make it clear that Jovenel (Mo\u00efse) has no choice but to resign,” said demonstrator Prophete Hilaire, who was marching across the capital. “A government that cannot give its people nourishment and water must step down,” he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Crippling crisis<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Haiti is the poorest country in the Americas and one of the poorest in the world, with three-fifths of the nearly 11 million population living below the national poverty line of $2 a day.\u00a0According to a United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs report\u00a0in July 2018, some 1.3 million Haitians depend on food assistance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Each year, thousands of young people flee as\u00a0illegal migrants, including to nearby Bahamas\u00a0and the Turks and Caicos islands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On January 2018, the country earned the unwanted distinction of being included in\u00a0US\u00a0President\u00a0Donald Trump’s list of\u00a0\u201cshithole countries\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But poverty\u00a0levels have been exacerbated by\u00a0plummeting economic conditions\u00a0in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSince 2016, the country has faced a two-digit inflation, the national currency lost half of its value over the course of the last four years. And half of this decline actually happened last year,\u201d Johnston said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Misappropriated development funds<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The current demonstrations kicked off when Mo\u00efse found himself at the heart of a corruption scandal over the Petrocaribe fund, under which\u00a0Venezuela\u00a0supplied Haiti and other Caribbean and Central American countries with oil for years at cut-rate prices and easy credit terms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Investigations have shown that nearly $2 billion intended for development projects were misused from the program. In January, a report on the case revealed that a company, then headed by Mo\u00efse, was a beneficiary of funds from a road construction project. The company never a signed contract, according to the report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Legitimacy crisis<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Mo\u00efse is not the only Haitian leader to have seen his legitimacy disputed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Johnston, \u201cthere is a crisis of legitimacy concerning Haitians politicians who weren\u2019t able to respond to the population\u2019s needs\u201d. Mo\u00efse\u2019s case is even worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Haiti\u2019s current president only came into power\u00a0in 2017 after a second poll, the first one having been cancelled over reports of massive fraud. \u201cWhen the second election took place, less than 20 percent of the voters showed up. Even though no irregularities were found during the second ballot, such turnout rate could never lead to a stable term,\u201d Johnston added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The wave of demonstrations against Haiti’s President Jovenel Mo\u00efse and his government\u2019s mishandling of development funds has left a seventh protestor dead after a week of violent clashes in the Caribbean nation. Haitians\u00a0took to the streets of the capital Port-au-Prince\u2019s once again\u00a0on Wednesday to demand the resignation of the country\u2019s\u00a0President Jovenel Mo\u00efse\u00a0as tensions continue to mount after a week of… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[130,131,12],"class_list":["post-3126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-haiti-2","tag-president","tag-protest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/78"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3126"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3127,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3126\/revisions\/3127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}