Nearly 200 Haitians in Port-au-Prince were killed over the weekend on the orders of a powerful gang leader who reportedly targeted elderly practitioners of voodoo because he blamed them for sickening his son. The massacre is the latest chapter in Haiti’s ongoing political crisis, with gangs now controlling much of the capital despite a Kenyan-led security mission to stabilize the country and support the U.S.-backed Transitional Presidential Council. Earlier this week, Human Rights Watch called for what it described as a “full-fledged United Nations mission to Haiti.” Human rights lawyer Brian Concannon, director of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, says what we are seeing is “the predictable result of dismantling democracy” by successive U.S. administrations, though foreign interference in Haiti goes back two centuries. He says that given the security situation today, it is “absolutely indefensible” for the Biden administration to continue deportations at this time, which the Trump administration is poised to intensify.
