Bishop Dumas: ‘Haitians must become protagonists of their own history'
By Jean-Charles Putzolu and Linda Bordoni
Widespread gang violence has plagued Haiti for nearly two years as rival gangs battle for control in the power vacuum created by the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenal Moise.
Prime Minister Ariel Henry’s attempts to chart a political transition for the poor Caribbean Island nation have failed and widespread gang violence impedes access to healthcare, has closed schools and worsened food insecurity. Haitians are taking the law into their own hands and a wave of vigilantism is heightening the country’s already sky-rocketing levels of violence.
The situation is such that the United Nations is pushing for an international force to be sent to Haiti to respond to the violence.
Haitian Bishop Pierre-André Dumas of Anse-à-Veau spoke to Vatican Radio about the critical situation and about how the Church is struggling to support and reassure the people.
As violence affects all sectors of society, Bishop Dumas said, “at the level of the local Church, at the level of my diocese, we try to be among the people and to reassure them that violence will not have the last word.”
“We also work to ensure that there are many places for listening, sharing and dialogue so that people may regain confidence,” he said.
Gang violence
Regarding the widespread levels of violence in certain neighbourhoods or lawless areas, the Bishop explained that even children and very young people are forced to join criminal street gangs. However, he added the population is starting to react.
“Gang members are becoming afraid and it is said that insecurity has changed sides,” he said, adding that it is crucial that chaos and anarchy be curbed.
“I believe that the police, as such, have a very important role to play, so that people are able to regain confidence and to show that the State exists and is organised,” the Bishop said.
Meanwhile, he added “On our part, our advocacy aims to help people to welcome the other as a brother, to make sure that fraternity is really lived. But above all, we must not take the law into our own hands.”
Asked how families can try and protect their children and prevent them from being recruited into street gangs, Bishop Dumas said it is necessary to start from the beginning.
The consequences of poverty
“We have reached this point because for a long time, we have seen children abandoned in the streets, children left to themselves, to their own devices, without a family,” he said that all too often “extreme poverty has pushed families to abandon their children.”
It is these children, he continued, who have been given weapons by politicians.
“These young people have taken up arms, they have grown up and they are moving away from these politicians, thinking that they can earn money on their own. So they kidnap and hold people for ransom, and to get paid they use a lot of violence. Sometimes they torture people,” he explained.
What is needed, he said, is to reinforce family values, create jobs for young people, and promote integral human development for the country.
Regarding the authorities’ lack of capacity to fight the street-gang phenomenon, Bishop Dumas said that Haiti has been in an extremely delicate political situation for a long time.
“There was no stability and the whole dynamic of the tourism sector broke down,” he said.
We are at a time, he added, that the Haitian people need accompaniment, not decisions that come from outside, but solutions that come from within.
“The people must assume responsibility, become protagonists of their own history and accept to pave the way for future generations. Every time a solution is imposed from elsewhere, it lasts a few years and then we end up back where we started,” he said.
The right kind of support
This appears to be in contraposition to the UN proposal that an international intervention force be sent into Haiti. Bishop Dumas reiterated his opinion that Haiti must be “accompanied” with the right kind of support.
The UN Secretary-General, he noted, has been asking for this intervention for a long time, and the international community is aware that Haiti will not be able to find a solution alone.
“At the same time, not just any kind of intervention is possible. We really need to support, consolidate, professionalise and reform the police, and make them much more effective and efficient,” he said.
I believe, he added, that we have reached a point where we really have to take action: “It’s not for me to say yes or no to an international force, but I think we have the right to accompany the population in a concrete way, to help them find solutions and to ensure that nations agree to find a way out and help Haiti to get back on its feet, to stabilise, to take charge and, at the same time, to help the people regain the dignity it once had; a people who helped the world put an end to the atrocity of slavery.”
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