Is it really accurate to call these groups gangs at this point? They are not gangs in the sense that people in the US or Europe would understand. They are not groups of criminals engaged primarily in economic crimes. They are basically armed autonomous militants. Their main activities are political and governmental. Most of the killing is for control of territory they oversee.
In essence Haiti has become a failed state and these groups are vying to control that power vacuum. The term gang is more misleading than clarifying and I have to wonder if there is some unconscious racial bias at play with media coverage.
Would we call cartels in Mexico ‘gangs’?
Maybe there’s a better more specific term, but the broader and more generalized one still seems to fit.
if they started calling them “militias” people would argue whether they were well-regulated
Yes they’re definitely autonomous militias not gangs. There’s even been dust ups with the Dominican military which is substantially more armed and trained (by US forces) than their Haitian counterparts.
Haiti is such a tragedy, they try to stand on their own and then they get nuked by an earthquake and chorlera, they try at democracy and their president gets assasinated - the country just cant get a fuckin break. Everyone’s mostly too poor to escape and the DR closed their borders, which honestly I can’t blame them, everyone else is trapped in the meat grinder. It’s the ultimate example of why colonialism scars for generations even after the occupiers leave.
I think it’s more trying to preemptively delegitimize any groups among them who could come to the fore while the UN policing response is still lacing their boots
Don’t want any of them to be able to claim they’re freedom fighters while the Kenyans are capturing the ones who cooperate and killing the ones who don’t
I don’t really see that as the role of the media. The media should inform people about what’s happening, not editorialize to support some hypothetical future military action.
Also, I mean, they are freedom fighters. That doesn’t mean I support them but they are violent radicals seeking the overthrow of the government. Freedom fighters is just how the media and governments refer to militants they want to make sound benign. You can argue that the Taliban were freedom fighters, as were the rebels in the US civil war. It’s kind of a nonsense term.
It should but it does not. The media demonizes the side that we want to kill and manufactures consent for you to do so. Then when you have been convinced that one side is good and the other one evil we can send in troops to coup the country and place a puppet regime.
Khadaffi was a great example of us killing a dictator and then leaving a power vacuum that was far worse.
If we actually cared about helping people not being killed we’d be stopping arms to israel by now.
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Unbelievable, but then again, who would have thought a gang would storm the capital and attempt a full blown coup here. Guess this is not out of the question here anymore either.
Ooff, that doesn’t sound like a good time. Haiti’s always been rather problematic, with the colonial history, dictators, extreme poverty, disasters, several coups, etc. Etc. In 2004, the UN also sent folks there to keep the peace. They were there until 2019 and accomplished…?
So now we’re back to another round of UN intervention probably. It really feels like Haiti will forever be incapable of proper self-governance. The people deserve better, but I doubt they’ll get it.
In 2004 the UN sent peacekeepers to solidify the US and French-backed coup d’état. It’s a mess, and the terrible series of natural disasters also hasn’t helped.
Man, I miss the peaceful world during the last pandemic.
My pet theory is some world leaders actually got covid brain fog and made stupid decisions after pandemics. E.g. Trump with January 6 (he got covid around late 2020). Maybe Putin got covid brain fog too and thought invading Ukraine was a good idea.
You don’t need COVID to explain either of these two being a power-hungry megalomaniac asshole.
Nah but it could help explain why they went full send on it since the crisis
That’s a very charitable interpretation of reality, it brightened my day a bit, thanks.
This is so scary.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Heavily armed gangs tried to seize control of Haiti’s main international airport on Monday, exchanging gunfire with police and soldiers in the latest attack on key government sites in an explosion of violence that includes a mass escape from the country’s two biggest prisons.
The attack occurred just hours after authorities in Haiti ordered a nighttime curfew following violence in which armed gang members overran the two biggest prisons and freed thousands of inmates over the weekend.
Prime Minister Ariel Henry traveled to Kenya last week to try to salvage support for a United Nations-backed security force to help stabilize Haiti in its conflict with the increasingly powerful crime groups.
The Biden administration, which has refused to commit troops to any multinational force for Haiti while offering money and logistical support, said it was monitoring the rapidly deteriorating security situation with grave concern.
The surge in attacks follows violent protests that turned deadlier in recent days as the prime minister went to Kenya seeking to move ahead on the proposed U.N.-backed security mission to be led by that East African country.
Kareen Ulysse who operates Centre Hospitalier de Fontaine, a hospital and orphanage in Cite Soleil, a suburb of Port au Prince, is also a Haitian American working in Haiti, CBS Miami reported.
The original article contains 1,201 words, the summary contains 213 words. Saved 82%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Don’t worry everyone, all these Haitian refugees will be welcomed with open arms by Democrats any day now…
AFAIK it was the House Republicans that blocked the border deal. Do right now, it’s 100% on the Republicans.
Republicans were never going to vote for this bill because it doesn’t do enough:
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too many people in before the automatic border closures start.
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the border closures time periods aren’t long enough or are too loosely defined.
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the “loopholes” that still allow asylum processing when the border is closed.
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too much aid for Ukraine, and Israel…without an real regulation (I know, Democrats hate to know where all the money is going.)
So, with that in mind, the REAL issue is why did FIVE Democrats vote against their own bill? Their own party wasn’t even united in favor for it…
The bill was designed with Republicans, but house Republicans were in bad faith, and are Russian puppets and traitors. So quit the bullshit.
“Russian puppets and traitors” oh please…stop it already. Republicans are just asking questions about why and where all this money is going. They are completely united with stopping Russia, they just don’t want to funnel endless money to the cause.
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