Gunmen Shot in Haiti Manhunt While Politicians Vie for Power

(Bloomberg) -- Haitian police said they gunned down four presidential assassins and arrested two more suspects while rival politicians jockeyed to fill the power vacuum left by the death of Jovenel Moise.

The nation was without clear leadership on Thursday morning, a day after a group of attackers stormed Moise’s official residence and carried out the first slaying of a Haitian head of state in more than a century.

The police said late Wednesday that they killed four men and arrested two others who were suspected of participating in the nighttime raid that shocked the nation and rattled the Caribbean region. They said they also freed three police officers who had been taken hostage by the gang.

Carl Henry Destin, a Haitian judge who visited the crime scene, told Le Nouvelliste, a local newspaper, that the assailants had entered Moise’s home about 1 a.m. on Wednesday and tied up a maid and another member of the household staff. He said the president had been shot at least 12 times.

Interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph -- who had been on the job for less than three months -- is seen to be in control of the nation of 11 million for the moment, and he spoke with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a call on Wednesday. But his grip on power is being challenged.

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Under Haiti’s constitution, Moise should have been replaced by the head of the Supreme Court -- or the highest-ranking judge -- and that person would be “invested temporarily with the duties of the president” by the National Assembly. But the chief justice died recently from Covid-19 and the country hasn’t had a functioning legislature since 2020.

Moise had plenty of enemies and had faced growing discontent in the months before his murder. Part of it was fueled by the fact that he’d been ruling by decree since January 2020, after parliamentary terms expired and legislative elections were not held.

Who’s in Charge?

To complicate matters, the day before his assassination, Moise had named Ariel Henry to fill the prime minister’s post, although he was never sworn in.

Henry told Le Nouvelliste, that he -- not Joseph -- is the prime minister, but said he favored dialog to keep from “igniting” the country.

Despite Haiti’s history of unrest and instability, it had not experienced the murder of a head of state in more than 100 years, Haiti’s U.S. Ambassador to Washington Bocchit Edmond told an emergency meeting of the Organization of American States.

Edmond said in a phone interview that, in the current, highly unusual circumstances, Joseph is the country’s legitimate leader.

If Joseph stays in power, it will be up to him to decide if the nation -- seized by gang violence, kidnappings, street protests -- can push ahead with presidential and legislative elections as scheduled Sept. 26.

Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Haiti, Helen La Lime, told reporters at the UN on Thursday that Joseph is the Prime Minister, and that the nation plans to go ahead with the first round in September with the second round in November.

Manhunt

In the meantime, the hunt for the rest of the killers continues, according to the police. In a French and Creole speaking country, at least some of the group spoke English and Spanish.

The assassins identified themselves as U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents, a ploy that reportedly helped them make it past security on the narrow and heavily guarded street that led to Moise’s residence on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince. The U.S. said the DEA had nothing to do with the incident.

Moise’s wife, Martine, was also shot and medically evacuated to Florida in stable but critical condition. The identity and motives of the killers, and their nationality, is still unclear.

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