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Well, proportionally there aren’t a lot of kidnappers and they’re well hated. I suppose something like growing up with absolutely nothing and having zero prospects for the future would make some think it’s a viable option.
When you grow up in those conditions your capacity to act and think like a human with all the advantages can be quite diminished. So, when some of these guys see people making money kidnapping, they think they can as well.
Not an excuse to kidnap or do any number of other fucked up atrocious things but that’s my take on it.
They only began going in recently with the UN. They still do not go alone. This is the first time they’ve been since 2004. Both police stations were burnt down then and the police were forced out. But I really don’t know what they were doing before or to what capacity. I can’t imagine that they did anything. I know they still must be scared shitless every time they go in.
I remember in 2006 talking to a PNH officer as he was sitting in his car outside of Cité Soleil in Aviation. There was a gun shot pretty close to where his head was in the windshield and the look on his face reminds me of when a Haitian radio journalist I was working with in Cite Soleil in Oct. 2007 was nearly killed by the Colonel, this enormous guy with biceps as big as my thighs and aviator sunglasses, sleeveless shirt and an M16. He was a truly bad ass looking guy and has since been killed by the UN.
Kidnappers have become pretty much intolerable to the population and the people will kill them if they are recognized. My girlfriend was asking me if I had heard about anything happening cos she had been told to stay at home and to absolutely not go downtown for a few days but wasn’t told why. And this was the reason why. People were on the lookout for this guy and a few others. When he was found, they lynched him.
The police will not investigate cos there is no need. The people did what they could not do.
On December 20, 2006, a mob attacked the sous-commasariat on Delmas because the police were protecting suspected kidnappers. They tore shit up. They just wanted to kill the guys on the spot and be done with it.
I remember at some point in ’06 or ’07 being downtown at the police headquarters with the the chief of police and during the hour that I was in his office, several kidnappings were reported in the capital, many just a few kilometres away in the marketplace. That’s a lot of freaking kidnappings. That poor guy had way too much on his plate and shit for resources.
Port-au-Prince has pretty much returned to normal. It’s quiet and the elite are back on the streets in Petionville. But there was a time when people were getting kidnapped by the dozen or dozens everyday. It was so pervasive that no one was left unaffected, including me.
The trend now is kidnapping small children and infants and killing them before ransom is received. Pretty grizzly shit. They picked up a bit this month. Maybe 30 or so now, I am not sure.
Forgot to mention that the police were doing their part kidnapping too. Sucks when the people who are supposed to protect you are kidnapping you instead. Mario Andresol has been trying to vet and overhaul the PNH but it’s an uphill battle. During the unelected interim government the police were responsible for a lot of summary executions and other unsavory acts like the soccer massacre in ’05 in Gran Ravine. It was a soccer match for peace sponsored by USAID. The police went in with lame ti machet, the little machete army, and butchered the place while the UN was outside the stadium. Fucked up. I think Reed Lindsay has some footage of it online but it might have been another one of the massacres in that area.
Thanks gentlemen, that’s pretty much what I had expected.
Lee, I understand exactly what you’re saying about contacts. No hard feelings whatsoever. I’m loathe to give anyone mine either.
I’ve been here and there. Looking to get outta this joint again soon. Too long on terra firma. Kurdistan would be simply wonderful right now.
It took me three months to get to talk to the editor of the local paper. I called and emailed him a few times a wekk. I made contacts with photographers and writers who worked for the paper and they emailed him on my behalf. I showed them my work to get them behind me.
I think, in the end, he just got sick of me calling and emailing and finally talked to me to get rid of me. But that’s how it starts initially. At least for me. I was just relentless.
@Debris wrote:
Do you actually think that this is like Bosnia in the early nineties?
C´mon
I don’t think that’s what he’s implying.
Sounds like that’ll be an awesome trip LS. My uncle works in Baku on the oil rigs. Says the mafia lives in the appt below him. Was telling me that he’s walking into his appt one day and the mafia is walking out with machetes. So I tell him he should have them over for some vodka.
I feel the same way about China. You need months there just to see it all. Even a month is whirlwind.
Everything here is excellent. Going back to Haiti in Sept.
