President Jovenel Moise: “You Died For Us”
“Since I was a child, I was always wondering why people were living in such conditions while enormous lands were empty,” he said. “I believe agriculture is the key to change for this country.”
—
Haiti’s 43rd President, Jovel Moise, was tortured and shot dead in his home in Port-au-Prince on July 7, 2021. It was 1 a.m. when the attackers stormed the President’s private residence in Petion-Ville, a suburb of Haiti’s capital, shooting Moise 16 times, according to former Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe.
A businessman from northern Haiti, Moise had no political experience before being hand-picked by exiting President Michel Martelly as his Pati Ayisyen Tèt Kale (PHTK) candidate, translated to Bald Heads Party in Haitian Kreyol. He ran a large produce cooperative that employed 3,000 farmers. He was the former president of the chamber of commerce in Port-de-Paix, the country’s northwest region, when he ran for president.
President Moise won the 2015 election with nearly 56 percent of the votes cast in the November 20 election. Amid allegations of fraud in the 2015 elections, Martelly resigned the presidency on 10 February 2016, leaving Haiti without a president for a week. Moise later won the November 2016 elections with 21% voter turnout.
Jovenel Moïse was born June 26, 1968 in Trou du Nord. His father was a farmer and mechanic, his mother a seamstress.
He sold his vision of a bio-ecological agriculture as the engine of the Haitian economy, to create jobs and generate wealth for a population which was over 50% was rural. He put forth agriculture as the basis for economic recovery. His policy also included: education for all, access to health, energy reform, the rule of law, the creation of sustainable jobs, environmental protection, and development of Haiti as a tourist destination by adding eco-tourism and agro-tourism.
In 1996, he left the capital and moved to Port-de-Paix where he set up a plantation of 25-acres of bananas in the Northwest Department.
In 2001, in a partnership with the company Culligan of Port-au-Prince and combined loans from financial institutions and individuals, he started a water plant for distribution of drinking water in the North-West and North-East.
In 2008, he formed the Haitian Energy Company SA (COMPHENER SA), which aimed to bring solar and wind energy to 10 communes of the Northwest department.
In 2012, in Trou du Nord, he founded AGRITRANS SA, bringing the agricultural project NOURRIBIO, a model for the development of agriculture in Haiti. The project NOURRIBIO enabled the emergence of more than a dozen agricultural projects that created almost 3,000 direct jobs and 10,000 indirect jobs… it’s considered the most innovative in Haiti and the largest in the Caribbean.
Jovenel Moise took office in February 2017, pledging to strengthen institutions, fight corruption and bring more investments and jobs. He was the keynote speaker in the 2017 Haiti Tech Summit held June 6–7 in Port-au-Prince.
He was assassinated in his home early Wednesday July 7, 2021 at the age of 53. His lifeless bullet-ridden body was found “out of bed, dressed in pants and with multiple broken bones. Everything indicated that Moise had been brutally beaten with something like a machete or a baseball bat.”
Questions have also been raised about why not a single member of the presidential guard was injured in the attack.
One of Haiti’s most powerful gang leaders said his men would take to the streets to protest against the assassination. He railed against police and opposition politicians whom he accused of colluding with the “stinking bourgeoisie” to “sacrifice” Mr. Moïse.
—
“Injustice anywhere, is a threat to justice everywhere.” -Martin Luther King Jr.
