Haiti thought it had hit rock bottom, but life just gets harder

Almost daily shootings have destroyed business in this once pulsing commercial hub, says Jean, whose friend, also a street vendor, was shot and killed a month ago. Many Haitians thought they had hit rock bottom in February, when the former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide was forced from power amid an armed revolt fuelled by a perpetual political conflict and a sinking economy. But since then the poorest nation on earth has become poorer and security has worsened, despite the presence of the United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Haiti.

Violence has racked Port-au-Prince since 30 September, when several thousand Aristide supporters staged a demonstration that was broken up when police fired into the crowd.

Since then, gunfire has crackled through the city centre most days and the streets are unusually silent at night, as the capital’s frightened residents hurry indoors at dusk.

The desperately poor slum of Cité Soleil has become a lawless battlefield, as rival gangs shoot each other and extort, rape and kill residents while police dare not enter. An unknown number of families have fled, businesses and schools are shuttered, and the slum’s only hospital is closed indefinitely.

The recent violence has buffeted an already moribund economy. Inflation has topped 22 per cent since January, according to Camille Chalmers, an economist with PAPDA, a Port-au-Prince-based think tank. Street vendors in poor neighbourhoods complain that prices have risen even more for staples such as rice, corn flour, beans and cooking oil.

To make matters worse, Haiti has suffered two devastating natural disasters this year: thousands died in mudslides and floods in the north-western coastal city of Gonaives from Tropical Storm Jeanne in September and near the border with the Dominican Republic from torrential rains in May.

The international community’s response to the country’s woes has been criticised.

So far, 4,500 soldiers and 1,000 police officers have joined the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti, short of the promised 6,700 soldiers and 1,622 police. Promises of international aid have so far proved largely empty. And all the while, the violence continues.

The prime minister, Gerard Latortue, has blamed Aristide supporters for trying to destabilise the government, accusing the former president of fomenting violence from exile in South Africa. The government has cracked down on members of Aristide’s Lavalas party, arresting leaders and staging raids in pro-Aristide areas, leading some human rights observers to accuse the government of abuses.

But some hard-liners are calling for an even tougher stance.

"Shoot them and ask questions later," said Jean Philippe Sassine, who is assistant mayor of Port-au-Prince. "Right now our country needs security. Unless you clean up the bad people, the gangs, there will be no progress. It will be a massacre, people will die. But let us do it or it will be worse."

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