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HAITI: Kidnappings Rise as Economic Woes Deepen

Elizabeth Eames Roebling

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Jun 5 2008 (IPS) - Several thousand people, including remnants of the wealthy and educated class who remain in Haiti, took to the streets of Port-au-Prince Wednesday to rail against what they say is government inaction amid a rise in kidnappings.

After two years of relative calm, there were 30 kidnappings in Haiti last month. The most recent was a kidnapping of a 13-year-old girl who was killed. It is estimated that as many as 15 percent of the victims are children, who are often killed even if the ransom money is paid.

The march, organised by 113 civic groups, including the Catholic and Protestant Churches, and the Voudousants, as well as universities, civil society groups and the Chamber of Commerce, was billed as completely non-violent. Participants were asked to wear all black or white and organisers reserved the right to confiscate any signs that did not conform to the spirit of the march.

Marchers who started out from the Church of Sacre Couer received T-shirts, printed in Kreyole, that read: “Koukouwouj san Pran souf kon Kidnapin” (continue the fight against kidnapping).

Walking 10 abreast, clapping in unison and chanting “Nou bouke” (We are fed up), the crowd – containing more light-skinned faces than are usually seen in any picture of Haiti, reflecting the country’s economic and racial divides – grew as it headed downhill to confront officials at the Palais du Justice. There were only a few members of the Haitian National Police in attendance, most of them content to direct traffic away from the march.

Some here speculate that the kidnappings are done within families, by poorer relatives against richer ones who are unwilling to help them. Others blame the problem on organised criminal gangs.

About 80 percent of Haiti’s 8.5 million people live on less than two dollars per day, most of it going to cover food costs.

In February, Port au Prince was rocked with protests over the rising cost of rice, the mainstay of the national diet. But even as food prices in Haiti were inflating at a rate exceeding 20 percent in April, according to the World Bank, business interests have been battling Congress to cut the minimum wage from 150 gourde a day (1 gourde /37 U.S. cents) to 78 gourde.

While only 15 percent of the population in the capital receives a public education, private school fees, many of which must be paid in U.S. dollars, can run as high as 5,000 dollars a year for tuition alone. Transportation costs are 10 gourde each way for a ride on a crowded bus, and a gallon of purified water costs 25 gourde.

Since the food protests, Haiti has received some international aid to feed the hungry, but addressing the problem over the long term will require massive investment in the languishing agriculture sector, local experts say.

Wednesday’s crowd, about 8,000 strong, came to a halt in front of the Palais du Justice, and cheered as the doors opened and employees came down the steps to listen to them. A chant went up: “If the judges are not the kidnappers, then they must send them to jail.”

Vendors went through the crowd selling bags of salted dried plantain chips and iced ginseng drinks. Three armed Haitian police, wearing flack jackets, huddled near the fence, appearing more concerned for themselves than for the justice ministers.

Having had their say, the crowd moved on to the white domed Presidential Palace, across from the green park known as the Champs de Mars.

Robert Monde, a congressman from Nippess, when asked what he thought the government could do to respond to the population’s concerns, said: “I and other Congressman are presenting legislation to Congress to call on the president to exercise extra-constitutional powers and introduce the death penalty for kidnapping. This is not permitted under our Constitution. It is not historically in our nature. Yet this is an extraordinary crime wave and we wish to have it stop.”

When asked if he thought the deportees who were returned from the United States after serving time in prisons there were implicated in the recent crime wave, Deputy Monde said: “No, they come back with an imperialist attitude, but they are just petty criminals, most of them drug dealers. What we are dealing with here is a fully organised gang of operators.”

At high noon, members of the crowd took pieces of rock to the rows of flag poles to produce a clanging sound in imitation of the “concert de cassorolles” called for by organizers. A wail of pain, a great scream rose up from thousands of throats, broadcast live from the tape recorders and cell phones of the Haitian press corps.

As the crowd dispersed, one of the giant white U.N. tanks that patrol the streets of Port au Prince, whose troops pointed weapons loaded with live ammunition at the peaceful gathering, parted the crowd. The crowd surged toward it in rage, making angry gestures with their hands.