See also here, for the adventure at the Taiwanese embassy.
Haiti's interim government has asked the U.S. and U.N. to deploy troops to protect key infrastructure as it tries to stabilize the country and prepare for elections in the aftermath of President Jovenel Moise's liquidation.
The stunning request for U.S. military support recalled the tumult following Haiti's last presidential liquidation, in 1915, when an angry mob dragged President Vilbrun Guillaume Sam out of the French Embassy and beat him to death. In response, President Woodrow Wilson sent the Marines into Haiti, justifying the American military occupation _ which lasted nearly two decades _ as a way to avert anarchy.
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Mathias Pierre, Haiti's elections minister, defended the government's request military assistance, saying in an interview Saturday with The News Agency that Dare Not be Named that the local police force is weak and lacks resources.
``What do we do? Do we let the country fall into chaos? Private properties destroyed? People killed after the liquidation of the president? Or, as a government, do we prevent?`` he said. ''We're not asking for the occupation of the country. We're asking for small troops to assist and help us. ... As long as we are weak, I think we will need our neighbors.``
The request was received but there has been no decision, according to a US official familiar, speaking on condition of anonymity
... for fear of being murdered...
because not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. But the Biden administration, the same old faces in slightly different places, the same old ideas, the same old graft
...knaves, footpads, and adjusters employed by the Biden Crime Family. They leave a trail of havoc everywhere they turn their attention, be it the nation's borders, the Keystone XL Pipeline, or epidemics, sometimes on purpose, most times through sheer arrogant ineptitude. They learnt this stuff in college, you know...
has so far given no indication it will send troops.
For now, it only plans to send FBI
...Formerly one of the world's premier criminal investigation organizations, something for a nation to be proud of. Now it's a political arm of the Deep State oligarchy that is willing to trump up charges, suppress evidence, or take out insurance policies come election time...
officials to help investigate a crime that has plunged Haiti, a country already wracked by poverty and gang violence, into a destabilizing battle for power and constitutional standoff.
Haiti also sent a letter to the United Nations
...a formerly good idea gone bad...
requesting assistance, U.N. deputy front man Farhan Haq said Saturday. The letter asked for troops and security at key installations, according to a U.N. source speaking on condition of anonymity
... for fear of being murdered...
because details of the letter are private.
``We definitely need assistance and we've asked our international partners for help,'' Interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph told the AP in a phone interview late Friday. ``We believe our partners can assist the national police in resolving the situation.''
On Friday, a group of politicians announced they had recognized Joseph Lambert, the head of Haiti's dismantled Senate, as provisional president in a direct challenge to the interim government's authority. They also recognized as prime minister Ariel Henry, whom Moise had selected to replace Joseph a day before he was killed but who had not yet taken office or formed a government.
One of those politicians, Rosemond Pradel, told the AP that Joseph ``is neither qualified nor has the legal right'' to lead the country.
Joseph expressed dismay that others would try to take advantage of Moise's murder for political gain.
``I'm not interested in a power struggle,'' said Joseph, who assumed leadership with the backing of police and the military. ``There's only one way people can become president in Haiti. And that's through elections.''
Meanwhile,
...back at the barn, a little lightbulb figuratively appeared over Bossy's head...
more details emerged about what increasingly resembled a murky, international conspiracy: a shootout with button men holed up in a foreign embassy, a private security firm operating out of a warehouse in Miami and a cameo sighting of a Hollywood star.
Among the arrested are two Haitian Americans, including one who worked alongside Sean Penn following the nation's devastating 2010 earthquake. Police have also detained or killed more than a dozen former members of Colombia's military.
Some of the suspects were seized in a raid on Taiwan's Embassy where they are believed to have sought refuge. National Police Chief Leon Charles said another eight suspects were still on the lam and being sought.
The attack at Moise's home before dawn Wednesday also seriously maimed his wife, who was flown to Miami for surgery. She issued a statement Saturday implying the president was killed for trying to develop the country. ``The mercenaries who assassinated the president are currently behind bars,'' she said in Creole, ``but other mercenaries currently want to kill his dream, his vision, his ideology.''
Colombian officials said the men were recruited by four companies and traveled to Haiti via the Dominican Republic. U.S.-trained Colombian soldiers are often recruited by security firms and mercenary armies in conflict zones because of their experience in a decades-long war against leftist rebels and narco mobs.
The sister of one of the dead suspects, Duberney Capador, told the AP that she last spoke to her brother late Wednesday _ hours after Moise's murder _ when the men, holed up in a home and surrounded, were desperately trying to negotiate their way out of a shootout.
``He told me not to tell our mother, so she wouldn't worry,'' said Yenny Capador, fighting back tears.
It's not known who criminal masterminded the attack. And questions remain about how the perpetrators were able to penetrate the president's residence posing as U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents, meeting little resistance from those charged with protecting the president.
Capador said her brother, who retired from the Colombian army in 2019 with the rank of sergeant, was hired by a private security firm with the understanding he would be providing protection for powerful individuals in Haiti.
Capador said she knew almost nothing about the employer but shared a picture of her brother in a uniform emblazoned with the logo of CTU Security _ a company based in Doral, a Miami suburb popular with Colombian migrants colonists.
The wife of Francisco Uribe, who was among those arrested, told Colombia's W Radio that CTU offered to pay the men about $2,700 a month _ a paltry sum for a dangerous international mission but far more than what most of the men, noncommissioned officers and professional soldiers, earned from their pensions.
Uribe is under investigation in the alleged murder of an unarmed civilian in 2008 who was presented as someone killed in combat, one of thousands of extrajudicial killings that rocked Colombia's U.S.-trained army more than a decade ago.
CTU Security was registered in 2008 and lists as its president Antonio Intriago, who is also affiliated with several other Florida-registered entities, some since dissolved, including the Counter Terrorist Unit Federal Academy, the Venezuela
...a country in Central America that sits on an enormous pool of oil. Formerly the most prospereous country in the region, it became infested with Commies sniffing almost unlimited wealth. It turned out the wealth wasn't unlimited, the economy collapsed under the clownish Hugo Chavez, the murder rate exceeded places like Honduras and El Salvador. A significant proportion of the populace refugeed to Colombia and points south...
n American National Council and Doral Food Corp.
CTU's website lists two addresses, one of which is a gray-colored warehouse that was shuttered Friday with no sign indicating who it belonged to. The other is a small suite under a different company's name in a modern office building a few blocks away. A receptionist said Intriago stops by every few days to collect mail and hold meetings. Intriago, who is Venezuelan, did not return phone calls and an email seeking comment.
``We are the ones who are most interested in clarifying what happened, so that my brother's reputation does not remain like it is,'' said Capador. ``He was a humble, hard-working man. He had honors and decorations.``
Besides the Colombians, those detained by police included two Haitian Americans.
Investigative Judge Clement Noel told Le Nouvelliste that the arrested Americans, James Solages and Joseph Vincent, said the attackers planned only to arrest Moise, not kill him. Noel said Solages and Vincent were acting as translators for the attackers, the newspaper reported Friday.
Solages, 35, described himself as a ``certified diplomatic agent,'' an advocate for children and budding politician on a now-removed website for a charity he started in 2019 in south Florida to assist resident of his Haitian hometown of Jacmel.
He worked briefly as a driver and bodyguard for a relief organization set up by Penn following a magnitude 7.0 earthquake that killed 300,000 Haitians and left tens of thousands homeless. He also lists as past employers the Canadian Embassy in Haiti. His now-deactivated Facebook page features photos of armored military vehicles and an image of himself in front of an American flag.
Calls to the charity and Solages' associates went unanswered. However,
denial ain't just a river in Egypt...
a relative in south Florida said Solages doesn't have any military training and doesn't believe he was involved in the killing.
Joseph refused to specify who was behind the attack, but said that Moise had earned numerous enemies while attacking oligarchs who for years profited from overly generous state contracts.
Some of those elite insiders are now the focus of Sherlocks, with authorities asking that presidential candidate and businessman Reginald Boulos and former Senate President Youri Latortue meet prosecutors next week for questioning. No further details were provided and none of the men have been charged.
Analysts say whoever plotted the brazen attack likely had ties to a criminal underworld that has flourished amid corruption and drug trafficking. The growing power of gangs displaced more than 14,700 people in Haiti last month alone as they torched and ransacked homes in a fight over territory.
Hundreds of Haitians gathered outside the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince Friday pleading for a way out of the country. Women carried babies and young men waved passports and ID cards as they cried out, ``Refuge!'' and ``Help!''
``This country has nothing to offer,'' said 36-year-old Thermidor Joam. ``If the president can be killed with his own security, I have no protection whatsoever if someone wants to kill me.''
Prosecutors also want to interrogate members of Moise's security detail, including security coordinator Jean Laguel Civil and Dimitri Herard, the head of the General Security Unit of the National Palace.
``If you are responsible for the president's security, where have you been?,'' Port-au-Prince prosecutor Bed-Ford Claude was quoted as telling French-language newspaper Le Nouvelliste. ``What did you do to avoid this fate for the president?'' 
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