JACMEL EN LARMES
In the dead of night this past 18 November Sunday, while the proud citizens of Jacmel slept, and while an electrical blackout was in effect, a man was shot to death in his home while trying to prevent the kidnapping of his three year-old nephew. Subsequently the kidnappers demanded a ransom of two hundred thousand dollars the exact amount the victim deposited into his bank account only two days before. This followed a spate of burglaries, murder and rape as armed “vagabonds et bandits” converged on the city in past months. In another recent case, kidnappers successfully extorted a large sum from a community gynecologist and in yet another, locals found a burglar stealing a mattress and almost beat him to death. A young waitress at a pizzeria told us last week she was afraid to go home at night even with an escort because of the troubles. Public outrage over police ineffectiveness has resulted in manifestations, tire burnings, and the shut down of businesses and government agencies. The main road has been blockaded in several places – strewn with rocks, glass and tree trunks. Our school is about five kilometres from Jacmel – very few of the students and staff have shown up over the past few days and we’ve had to cancel all classes. We were also warned not to leave the campus in case the public rancour turned towards us blancs in frustration. “La vigilance rouge” has been declared for the whole region of the southeast coast and the events have paralysed the Jacmel commune. The uprising is understandable: Jacmel with a population between 80,000 and 100,000 persons is serviced by only 36 police officers. No national army exists and the UN contingent here has no military capabilities. Add to this a non-existent infrastructure, systemic local corruption, national political leaders who are mostly away hobnobbing with their foreign masters, and you have indignation in the extreme. The problems have been compounded by a chronic shortage of electricity resulting in official power blackouts at regulated hours during the night – the times, victims say, when the acts of banditry and murder are committed.
Once on Lonely Planet’s list of top 8 Caribbean towns and called the pearl of the Caribbean, Jacmel was considered the most tranquil and friendly of Haiti’s towns. A former coffee and sugar trading port dating from early eighteenth century with its pastel-coloured French colonial mansions and merchant warehouses, and its rich traditions of papier-mâché and carnival, Jacmel was recently added to the UN list of world heritage sites. Although sustaining heavy damage in the 2010 earthquake, the city was chosen as the centre around which Haiti was to rebuild its tourist industry with plans for luxury hotels and new landscaping for its three kilometre white sand beach. But like the last gold coin in the bottom of a gambler’s purse, Jacmel was clumsily pulled out and squandered in desperation. Its colonial buildings are now boarded up, its narrow streets are filled with refuse, its atmosphere is dense with carbon and rancid odours. While riding my moto through the crowded streets one day, a wrong turn brought me to an unknown busy quarter that I thought was a market place with people leading animals and carrying large loads. In fact, it was a dead end in the road giving onto the half-dried riverbed – I was able to scan the horizon over a vast no-man’s-land where numerous plumes of smoke rose from piles of burning garbage and masses of people were in the act of bartering goods and animals in what seemed like a vision of biblical retribution. How will these proud citizens of Jacmel climb out of this quagmire?
Three days after the kidnapping of three year-old Johim Maxi, the Jacmel public had given the authorities one last chance – to find baby Johim and bring the criminals to justice – before organising region-wide demonstrations. Feeling the pressure, the mayor of Jacmel offered ten thousand American dollars to anyone with information leading to the child’s whereabouts. Two helicopters, looking like bloated versions of the local flying mantises, were flown into the area to give the impression that even the nation was taking the crimes seriously. Students and staff were unable again to get to school so classes were cancelled for the third consecutive day. Everywhere, the plight of the infant was on everyone’s lips and the tension was palpable- so much so that I got a message from our Canadian Embassy in Port au Prince asking if I was secure in the current strife – to which I replied in the affirmative. Luckily, total anarchy was averted: the family paid a portion of the ransom and the child was released unharmed – but the brigands are still at large, and probably will remain so unless the Haitian police are embarrassed once again into action. The locals I’ve spoken to attest to this sad fact – and so it is here in Haiti – like the devastating storms that come and go – the country lives from crisis to crisis with neither justice nor satisfaction only the deep rooted belief that they are being cursed or punished by forces beyond their control.
