The wife of&nbsp;Haiti's murdered president, seriously wounded in the very attack that killed her husband, listened in terror as the gunmen ransacked their home, she said in her first interview since the assassination.

The killers eventually found what they were looking for in president Jovenel Moise's residence, and made cursory efforts on their way out to see if first lady Martine Moise was still alive. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

"When they left, they thought I was dead," she told the New York Times in an interview published Friday, weeks after the July 7 assassination that heaped a fresh crisis on the fragile Caribbean nation.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/they-riddled-him-with-bullets-didnt-let-him-say-a-word-haiti-presidents-widow-speaks-up-on-his-assassination-397263">They riddled him with bullets, didn't let him say a word: Haiti president's widow speaks up on his assassination</a>

She survived and was rushed for emergency treatment to the United States, where she spoke to the newspaper while flanked by security guards, diplomats and family.

Martine is left wondering what happened to the 30 to 50 men usually posted to guard her husband at the house. None of those guards were killed or even wounded.

"Only the oligarchs and the system could kill him," she said.

Haitian police have arrested the head of Jovenel Moise's security, as well as some 20 Colombian mercenaries, over the plot they say was organized by a group of Haitians with foreign ties.&nbsp;

Jovenel Moise had been ruling the impoverished and disaster-plagued nation by decree, as gang violence spiked and <a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/coronavirus">COVID-19</a> spread.

His widow told the New York Times that the couple had been asleep when the sound of gunfire woke them.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/martine-moise-widow-of-assassinated-president-returns-to-haiti-398790">Martine Moise, widow of assassinated president, returns to Haiti</a>

He called his security team for help, but soon the killers were shooting in the bedroom. She was struck in the hand and elbow.

As she lay bleeding, her husband dead or dying in the same room, she felt like she was suffocating because her mouth was so full of blood.

The killers spoke only Spanish --&nbsp;Haiti's languages are Creole and French -- and were communicating by phone with someone while they carried out the attack.

She said she doesn't know what the assassins took, but that it came from a shelf where her husband kept his files.

<div class="videoWrapper trancodeVideo"><iframe allowfullscreen="" autoplay="1" class="includeVideo" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.wionews.com/videos/haiti-assassination-aftermath-haitian-first-lady-martine-moise-recounts-the-attack-397307/embed" style="width:100%;max-width:560px;" width="560"></iframe></div>

Martine Moise wants the killers to know she is not afraid and is seriously considering a run for the presidency once she is healthy.

"I would like people who did this to be caught, otherwise they will kill every single president who takes power," she said. "They did it once. They will do it again."

The wife of Haiti's murdered president, seriously wounded in the very attack that killed her husband, listened in terror as the gunmen ransacked their home, she said in her first interview since the assassination.

The wife of Haiti's murdered president, seriously wounded in the very attack that killed her husband, listened in terror as the gunmen ransacked their home, she said in her first interview since the assassination. The killers eventually found what they were looking for in president Jovenel Moise's residence, and made cursory efforts on their way out to see if first lady Martine Moise was still alive. "When they left, they thought I was dead," she told the New York Times in an interview published Friday, weeks after the July 7 assassination that heaped a fresh crisis on the fragile Caribbean nation. Also read | They riddled him with bullets, didn't let him say a word: Haiti president's widow speaks up on his assassination She survived and was rushed for emergency treatment to the United States, where she spoke to the newspaper while flanked by security guards, diplomats and family. Martine is left wondering what happened to the 30 to 50 men usually posted to guard her husband at the house. None of those guards were killed or even wounded. "Only the oligarchs and the system could kill him," she said. Haitian police have arrested the head of Jovenel Moise's security, as well as some 20 Colombian mercenaries, over the plot they say was organized by a group of Haitians with foreign ties. Jovenel Moise had been ruling the impoverished and disaster-plagued nation by decree, as gang violence spiked and COVID-19 spread. His widow told the New York Times that the couple had been asleep when the sound of gunfire woke them. Also read | Martine Moise, widow of assassinated president, returns to Haiti He called his security team for help, but soon the killers were shooting in the bedroom. She was struck in the hand and elbow. As she lay bleeding, her husband dead or dying in the same room, she felt like she was suffocating because her mouth was so full of blood. The killers spoke only Spanish -- Haiti's languages are Creole and French -- and were communicating by phone with someone while they carried out the attack. She said she doesn't know what the assassins took, but that it came from a shelf where her husband kept his files. Martine Moise wants the killers to know she is not afraid and is seriously considering a run for the presidency once she is healthy. "I would like people who did this to be caught, otherwise they will kill every single president who takes power," she said. "They did it once. They will do it again."

'Assassins will kill every president that comes to power': Slain Haiti leader’s wife Martine Moise

Heckled by protesters and surrounded by phalanxes of heavily armed guards, foreign diplomats and Haitian politicians attended the funeral of Haiti’s assassinated president Friday at his family homestead, an event that laid bare a fractured nation’s problems instead of providing an opportunity for healing.

Less than a half-hour into the funeral, the U.S. delegation, led by Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, departed. It was not immediately clear why but there were unconfirmed reports of shooting outside, raising additional security concerns.

As the flag-covered coffin President Jovenel Moïse was brought onto a central stage lined with white curtains, carried by men in military uniforms, a moment that many had hoped would help promote reconciliation was overshadowed by tensions that had exploded in the streets the day before.

A line of Moïse’s supporters stood by the entrance and yelled at arriving politicians, shouting “Justice for Jovenel!”

When Haiti’s national police chief, Leon Charles, arrived, the crowd surged around him and erupted into shouting and finger pointing. As he passed a grandstand of invited guests, many there also jumped to their feet to holler their displeasure.

“He killed the president!” shouted Marie Michelle Nelcifor, adding that she believed Moïse had telephoned Charles while assassins attacked his home but that Charles had not sent police officers to defend him. “Where were the security guards?” she asked.

Others were angry that the president would be buried before the investigation into his assassination was completed. “They are burning him surrounded by his assassins!” shouted Kettie Compere, a mother of two looking up at the grandstand of diplomats and Haitian politicians where Charles had settled.

When Martine Moïse, the president’s widow, arrived dressed in black with a large black hat and a mask with a photo of her husband affixed to it, the crowd surged around her, singing “arrest them, arrest them.”

In remarks after the delegation’s arrival at Cap-Haïtien’s airport earlier Friday, Thomas-Greenfield said: “Our delegation is here to bring a message to the Haitian people: You deserve democracy, stability, security and prosperity, and we stand with you in this time of crisis. So, we come here in solidarity with the Haitian people during this difficult time.”

The July 7 killing of Moïse, 53, in the bedroom of his home near Port-au-Prince, the capital, has plunged the Caribbean nation of 11 million into one of its deepest crises. Officials have blamed a group of Colombian mercenaries, but many questions remain unanswered, including who planned the assassination and why no members of his security detail were hurt. Several members of that security detail have been questioned and taken into custody.

Pressured by Western countries led by the United States, Haiti’s other political leaders, jostling for power, have pledged an orderly transition and a democratic process. But it was clear even before the funeral that deep divisions would shape and possibly subvert what many hoped would be a venue for reconciliation.

Just hours earlier, the northern city of Cap-Haïtien — 30 minutes from his family homestead — had burned with anger and frustration, exposing Haiti’s the distrust of the elite in the country’s less developed north.

On Thursday, the streets billowed with the black smoke of burning tires, a common form of protest in a country split by geography, wealth and power. Large crowds of demonstrators ran though the narrow colonial streets, chanting, “They killed Jovenel, and the police were there.”

“We sent them someone alive; they sent him back a cadaver,” screamed Frantz Atole, a 42-year-old mechanic, promising violence. “This country is not going to be silent.”

A new government was installed in the capital this week, and its leaders vowed to get to the bottom of the killing and to build consensus among the country’s political factions and its civic groups.

Yet the unrest Thursday threatened to turn hopes of consensus into a naive, unrealized dream.

“The bourgeoisie from Port-au-Prince are responsible. They are the reason for all of this,” said Emmanuella Joseph, a 20-year-old secondary school student, crying into a face cloth on the side of the road at the tail end of a running protest.

She added that the president’s killers were outsiders who had long meddled with the country’s destiny. “What kind of nation comes and kills a president?”

Cap-Haïtien was once the capital of the French colony of St. Domingue, which claimed one of the most brutal slave plantation economies in the world and was later overwhelmed by the world’s most successful slave rebellion. Banners strung across its roads read “Justice for President Jovenel” and “Thank you President Jovenel. You gave your life for the people’s fight and it will continue.”

Just off the city’s main stone square, where rebel leaders were executed more than two centuries ago, mourners lined up Thursday to sign condolence books and light candles before a large photo of the president in a government building.

“We are living in a time that’s so fragile,” said Maxil Mompremier, standing outside the colonial-era Notre Dame de L’Assomption Cathedral, where Moïse’s supporters had gathered earlier for a service. “Nobody understands what happened. A lot of people are afraid.”

Hailing from the north of the country, Moïse was not well-known in the country’s power center of Port-au-Prince when the governing party chose him as its candidate in the 2015 election. He was born in the town of Trou-du-Nord, and later began his entrepreneurial career from Port-de-Paix, where he became president of the Chamber of Commerce.

That he was killed far away in Port-au-Prince inflamed old divisions between the less developed north and the country’s capital and economic center. It also deepened the rifts between the country’s small elite and its destitute majority.

“It comes back incessantly in all the history of Haiti,” said Emile Eyma Jr., a historian based in Cap-Haïtien, speaking of the resentment felt by northerners.

Heckled by protesters and surrounded by phalanxes of heavily armed guards, foreign diplomats and Haitian politicians attended the funeral of Haiti’s assassinated president Friday at his family homestead, an event that laid bare a fractured nation’s problems instead of providing an opportunity for healing.

Heckled by protesters and surrounded by phalanxes of heavily armed guards, foreign diplomats and Haitian politicians attended the funeral of Haiti’s assassinated president Friday at his family homestead, an event that laid bare a fractured nation’s problems instead of providing an opportunity for healing. Less than a half-hour into the funeral, the U.S. delegation, led by Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, departed. It was not immediately clear why but there were unconfirmed reports of shooting outside, raising additional security concerns. As the flag-covered coffin President Jovenel Moïse was brought onto a central stage lined with white curtains, carried by men in military uniforms, a moment that many had hoped would help promote reconciliation was overshadowed by tensions that had exploded in the streets the day before. A line of Moïse’s supporters stood by the entrance and yelled at arriving politicians, shouting “Justice for Jovenel!” When Haiti’s national police chief, Leon Charles, arrived, the crowd surged around him and erupted into shouting and finger pointing. As he passed a grandstand of invited guests, many there also jumped to their feet to holler their displeasure. “He killed the president!” shouted Marie Michelle Nelcifor, adding that she believed Moïse had telephoned Charles while assassins attacked his home but that Charles had not sent police officers to defend him. “Where were the security guards?” she asked. Others were angry that the president would be buried before the investigation into his assassination was completed. “They are burning him surrounded by his assassins!” shouted Kettie Compere, a mother of two looking up at the grandstand of diplomats and Haitian politicians where Charles had settled. When Martine Moïse, the president’s widow, arrived dressed in black with a large black hat and a mask with a photo of her husband affixed to it, the crowd surged around her, singing “arrest them, arrest them.” In remarks after the delegation’s arrival at Cap-Haïtien’s airport earlier Friday, Thomas-Greenfield said: “Our delegation is here to bring a message to the Haitian people: You deserve democracy, stability, security and prosperity, and we stand with you in this time of crisis. So, we come here in solidarity with the Haitian people during this difficult time.” The July 7 killing of Moïse, 53, in the bedroom of his home near Port-au-Prince, the capital, has plunged the Caribbean nation of 11 million into one of its deepest crises. Officials have blamed a group of Colombian mercenaries, but many questions remain unanswered, including who planned the assassination and why no members of his security detail were hurt. Several members of that security detail have been questioned and taken into custody. Pressured by Western countries led by the United States, Haiti’s other political leaders, jostling for power, have pledged an orderly transition and a democratic process. But it was clear even before the funeral that deep divisions would shape and possibly subvert what many hoped would be a venue for reconciliation. Just hours earlier, the northern city of Cap-Haïtien — 30 minutes from his family homestead — had burned with anger and frustration, exposing Haiti’s the distrust of the elite in the country’s less developed north. On Thursday, the streets billowed with the black smoke of burning tires, a common form of protest in a country split by geography, wealth and power. Large crowds of demonstrators ran though the narrow colonial streets, chanting, “They killed Jovenel, and the police were there.” “We sent them someone alive; they sent him back a cadaver,” screamed Frantz Atole, a 42-year-old mechanic, promising violence. “This country is not going to be silent.” A new government was installed in the capital this week, and its leaders vowed to get to the bottom of the killing and to build consensus among the country’s political factions and its civic groups. Yet the unrest Thursday threatened to turn hopes of consensus into a naive, unrealized dream. “The bourgeoisie from Port-au-Prince are responsible. They are the reason for all of this,” said Emmanuella Joseph, a 20-year-old secondary school student, crying into a face cloth on the side of the road at the tail end of a running protest. She added that the president’s killers were outsiders who had long meddled with the country’s destiny. “What kind of nation comes and kills a president?” Cap-Haïtien was once the capital of the French colony of St. Domingue, which claimed one of the most brutal slave plantation economies in the world and was later overwhelmed by the world’s most successful slave rebellion. Banners strung across its roads read “Justice for President Jovenel” and “Thank you President Jovenel. You gave your life for the people’s fight and it will continue.” Just off the city’s main stone square, where rebel leaders were executed more than two centuries ago, mourners lined up Thursday to sign condolence books and light candles before a large photo of the president in a government building. “We are living in a time that’s so fragile,” said Maxil Mompremier, standing outside the colonial-era Notre Dame de L’Assomption Cathedral, where Moïse’s supporters had gathered earlier for a service. “Nobody understands what happened. A lot of people are afraid.” Hailing from the north of the country, Moïse was not well-known in the country’s power center of Port-au-Prince when the governing party chose him as its candidate in the 2015 election. He was born in the town of Trou-du-Nord, and later began his entrepreneurial career from Port-de-Paix, where he became president of the Chamber of Commerce. That he was killed far away in Port-au-Prince inflamed old divisions between the less developed north and the country’s capital and economic center. It also deepened the rifts between the country’s small elite and its destitute majority. “It comes back incessantly in all the history of Haiti,” said Emile Eyma Jr., a historian based in Cap-Haïtien, speaking of the resentment felt by northerners.

Haitian president’s funeral exposes bitterness and rifts

According to a top&nbsp;official,&nbsp;Haiti’s interim prime minister Claude Joseph will&nbsp;resign from his post.&nbsp;The move comes in the wake of the July 7 assassination of president Jovenel Moise.&nbsp;

Negotiations are still ongoing, but Ariel Henry, who&nbsp;Moise had designated to replace&nbsp;Joseph a day before he was killed, will lead the country, said&nbsp;elections minister Mathias Pierre as per&nbsp;a report.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Earlier,&nbsp;Martine Moise, the widow of Haiti's assassinated president Jovenel Moise, returned to the Caribbean nation for his funeral after she was treated in a Miami hospital for injuries sustained during the attack at their private residence.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Jovenel Moise was shot dead when assassins armed with assault rifles stormed his home in the hills above Port-au-Prince, tipping the country into uncertainty and sparking a frenzied investigation to identify the authors of the plan.&nbsp;

The Prime Minister's office tweeted a video of Martine Moise arriving back at the Haitian capital's Toussaint Louverture international airport, wearing all black clothing, donning a bullet proof vest and with her right arm in a sling.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Martine Moise had tweeted earlier this week while in Miami that she was still coming to terms with the killing of her husband and had thanked a "team of guardian angels who helped me through this terrible time."&nbsp;

Earlier on Saturday, the important Core Group of international ambassadors and representatives had urged "the formation of a consensual and inclusive government".&nbsp;

"To this end, we strongly encourage the designated Prime Minister Ariel Henry to continue the mission entrusted to him to form such a government," the group said. Henry, who Moise designated Prime Minister shortly before being killed, has not been sworn into his position and the country is being led by Joseph.&nbsp;

The Core Group is made up of ambassadors from Germany, Brazil, Canada, Spain, the United States, France, the European Union and special representatives from the United Nations and the Organization of American States.&nbsp;

"As Haiti faces serious dangers, the members of the group express the wish that all political, economic and civil society actors in the country fully support the authorities in their efforts to restore security throughout the country," it said.&nbsp;

The group also called for the organization of "free, fair, transparent and credible legislative and presidential elections as quickly as possible".&nbsp;

(With inputs from agencies)&nbsp;&nbsp;

According to a top official, Haiti’s interim prime minister Claude Joseph will resign from his post. The move comes in the wake of the July 7 assassination of president Jovenel Moise.

According to a top official, Haiti’s interim prime minister Claude Joseph will resign from his post. The move comes in the wake of the July 7 assassination of president Jovenel Moise. Negotiations are still ongoing, but Ariel Henry, who Moise had designated to replace Joseph a day before he was killed, will lead the country, said elections minister Mathias Pierre as per a report. Earlier, Martine Moise, the widow of Haiti's assassinated president Jovenel Moise, returned to the Caribbean nation for his funeral after she was treated in a Miami hospital for injuries sustained during the attack at their private residence. Jovenel Moise was shot dead when assassins armed with assault rifles stormed his home in the hills above Port-au-Prince, tipping the country into uncertainty and sparking a frenzied investigation to identify the authors of the plan. The Prime Minister's office tweeted a video of Martine Moise arriving back at the Haitian capital's Toussaint Louverture international airport, wearing all black clothing, donning a bullet proof vest and with her right arm in a sling. Martine Moise had tweeted earlier this week while in Miami that she was still coming to terms with the killing of her husband and had thanked a "team of guardian angels who helped me through this terrible time." Earlier on Saturday, the important Core Group of international ambassadors and representatives had urged "the formation of a consensual and inclusive government". "To this end, we strongly encourage the designated Prime Minister Ariel Henry to continue the mission entrusted to him to form such a government," the group said. Henry, who Moise designated Prime Minister shortly before being killed, has not been sworn into his position and the country is being led by Joseph. The Core Group is made up of ambassadors from Germany, Brazil, Canada, Spain, the United States, France, the European Union and special representatives from the United Nations and the Organization of American States. "As Haiti faces serious dangers, the members of the group express the wish that all political, economic and civil society actors in the country fully support the authorities in their efforts to restore security throughout the country," it said. The group also called for the organization of "free, fair, transparent and credible legislative and presidential elections as quickly as possible". (With inputs from agencies)

Haiti’s acting PM to resign in wake of Moise’s assassination: Report 

For years, the United States has adopted a wary tolerance of Haiti, batting aside the horror of kidnappings, murders and gang warfare. The more convenient strategy generally seemed to be backing whichever government was in power and supplying endless amounts of foreign aid.

Donald Trump supported President Jovenel Moïse mainly because Mr. Moïse supported a campaign to oust President Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela. And in February, the Biden administration accepted Mr. Moïse’s tenuous argument that he still had another year to serve despite opposition calls for his departure and large street protests. Mr. Moïse, though initially elected to a five-year term due to end in 2021, did not take office until 2017, thus his claim to an extra year as president.

There had appeared to be a tacit understanding during Mr. Moïse’s rule: Haiti is turbulent and difficult, a bomb waiting to explode in the hands of anyone who attempts to defuse it. After all, why should Mr. Biden take on the unrewarding task of “fixing” Haiti when there was already an elected president in office who could bear the brunt of criticism about the deteriorating political situation there?

But the assassination of Mr. Moïse on Wednesday will now force a reluctant administration to focus more carefully on the next steps it wants to take concerning Haiti. There are no simple options.

The killing has destroyed the Biden administration’s hopes (however far-fetched) for a peaceful transfer of power with elections presided over by Mr. Moïse. But that’s not to say that Haiti’s future is entirely up to the United States nor should it be. When the United States has stepped in, Haitians have ended up worse off. When President Jean Vilbrun Guillaume Sam was killed by an angry crowd in 1915, U.S. Navy ships lay on the Haitian coast waiting to quell unrest to keep Haiti stable for American business interests there. In the wake of the killing, U.S. Marines occupied Haiti and remained there for 19 years.

U.S. interventions didn’t stop there. In 1986, the dictatorship of Jean-Claude Duvalier (and his father before him) fell to a combination of popular unrest in Haiti and political maneuvering by Washington. The country managed to hold its first free and fair elections in 1990, in which Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a former liberation-theology priest, was elected. Three years after Mr. Aristide was removed in a coup, the Clinton administration reinstated him.

Haiti was never able to shake off the foreign yoke, except, one might argue, during the darkest days of the Duvalier regime. Over the years it has been at the mercy of the United States, of course, and of the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank, the Organization of American States and the United Nations, which deployed a peacekeeping force there from 2004 until 2017. Yet Haiti has ended up just as poor and unstable as ever, if not more so. And the country never truly recovered from a devastating earthquake in 2010.

Drug cartels and their Haitian connections have also played a damaging role. Observers say that much of the violence in recent years has stemmed from turf wars between street gangs operating in a largely lawless environment.

The presidential mandate of Mr. Moïse itself was iffy, to say the least. Only 21 percent of the electorate voted in that election. Nevertheless, it was easier for the United States and other parties to tolerate Mr. Moïse and wait for the next elections, no matter how flawed they were likely to be, than to deal with a void created by his assassination.

President Biden has called Mr. Moïse’s killing “very worrisome.” But Haiti was very worrisome even before the killing. Now the United States is confronted by an even murkier situation there: no leader, no legislature, a justice system in disarray, a nonfunctioning and dispirited police and army, and gangs roaming the streets. It’s not clear what will emerge from the vacuum at the top — perhaps a new strongman or, less likely, an interim government.

Despite that precariousness, the United States has still called for elections before the end of the year. But it’s hard to imagine how elections can proceed in an atmosphere of security and freedom, leading to a truly democratically elected president and legislature. As it stands, two men are claiming the role of prime minister, accentuating the sense of instability.

Haiti’s problems cannot be solved by U.S. intervention. The United States no longer has the standing, the stomach or even the desire to impose its vision on Haiti. The best option right now for the United States is to wait and watch and listen not just to the usual suspects but to a broad new generation of Haitian democrats who can responsibly begin to move toward a more workable Haitian polity.

Haiti still needs the cooperation of international friends who pay attention to the character and the goals of those to whom they extend financial and political support, rather than choosing a convenient candidate in a quickie election, with the catastrophic results for the country that we’ve seen in the past.

A majority of Haitians want to build back their institutions and return to a normal life: schools, clinics and businesses opening again, a plan to deal with the Covid-19 crisis, produce markets functioning and safe streets free from the threat of armed gangs. This is the best of all possible outcomes for Haiti — but sadly, it’s improbable, at least in the near future.

For years, the United States has adopted a wary tolerance of Haiti, batting aside the horror of kidnappings, murders and gang warfare. The more convenient strategy generally seemed to be backing whichever government was in power and supplying endless amounts of foreign aid.

For years, the United States has adopted a wary tolerance of Haiti, batting aside the horror of kidnappings, murders and gang warfare. The more convenient strategy generally seemed to be backing whichever government was in power and supplying endless amounts of foreign aid. Donald Trump supported President Jovenel Moïse mainly because Mr. Moïse supported a campaign to oust President Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela. And in February, the Biden administration accepted Mr. Moïse’s tenuous argument that he still had another year to serve despite opposition calls for his departure and large street protests. Mr. Moïse, though initially elected to a five-year term due to end in 2021, did not take office until 2017, thus his claim to an extra year as president. There had appeared to be a tacit understanding during Mr. Moïse’s rule: Haiti is turbulent and difficult, a bomb waiting to explode in the hands of anyone who attempts to defuse it. After all, why should Mr. Biden take on the unrewarding task of “fixing” Haiti when there was already an elected president in office who could bear the brunt of criticism about the deteriorating political situation there? But the assassination of Mr. Moïse on Wednesday will now force a reluctant administration to focus more carefully on the next steps it wants to take concerning Haiti. There are no simple options. The killing has destroyed the Biden administration’s hopes (however far-fetched) for a peaceful transfer of power with elections presided over by Mr. Moïse. But that’s not to say that Haiti’s future is entirely up to the United States nor should it be. When the United States has stepped in, Haitians have ended up worse off. When President Jean Vilbrun Guillaume Sam was killed by an angry crowd in 1915, U.S. Navy ships lay on the Haitian coast waiting to quell unrest to keep Haiti stable for American business interests there. In the wake of the killing, U.S. Marines occupied Haiti and remained there for 19 years. U.S. interventions didn’t stop there. In 1986, the dictatorship of Jean-Claude Duvalier (and his father before him) fell to a combination of popular unrest in Haiti and political maneuvering by Washington. The country managed to hold its first free and fair elections in 1990, in which Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a former liberation-theology priest, was elected. Three years after Mr. Aristide was removed in a coup, the Clinton administration reinstated him. Haiti was never able to shake off the foreign yoke, except, one might argue, during the darkest days of the Duvalier regime. Over the years it has been at the mercy of the United States, of course, and of the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank, the Organization of American States and the United Nations, which deployed a peacekeeping force there from 2004 until 2017. Yet Haiti has ended up just as poor and unstable as ever, if not more so. And the country never truly recovered from a devastating earthquake in 2010. Drug cartels and their Haitian connections have also played a damaging role. Observers say that much of the violence in recent years has stemmed from turf wars between street gangs operating in a largely lawless environment. The presidential mandate of Mr. Moïse itself was iffy, to say the least. Only 21 percent of the electorate voted in that election. Nevertheless, it was easier for the United States and other parties to tolerate Mr. Moïse and wait for the next elections, no matter how flawed they were likely to be, than to deal with a void created by his assassination. President Biden has called Mr. Moïse’s killing “very worrisome.” But Haiti was very worrisome even before the killing. Now the United States is confronted by an even murkier situation there: no leader, no legislature, a justice system in disarray, a nonfunctioning and dispirited police and army, and gangs roaming the streets. It’s not clear what will emerge from the vacuum at the top — perhaps a new strongman or, less likely, an interim government. Despite that precariousness, the United States has still called for elections before the end of the year. But it’s hard to imagine how elections can proceed in an atmosphere of security and freedom, leading to a truly democratically elected president and legislature. As it stands, two men are claiming the role of prime minister, accentuating the sense of instability. Haiti’s problems cannot be solved by U.S. intervention. The United States no longer has the standing, the stomach or even the desire to impose its vision on Haiti. The best option right now for the United States is to wait and watch and listen not just to the usual suspects but to a broad new generation of Haitian democrats who can responsibly begin to move toward a more workable Haitian polity. Haiti still needs the cooperation of international friends who pay attention to the character and the goals of those to whom they extend financial and political support, rather than choosing a convenient candidate in a quickie election, with the catastrophic results for the country that we’ve seen in the past. A majority of Haitians want to build back their institutions and return to a normal life: schools, clinics and businesses opening again, a plan to deal with the Covid-19 crisis, produce markets functioning and safe streets free from the threat of armed gangs. This is the best of all possible outcomes for Haiti — but sadly, it’s improbable, at least in the near future.

Haiti is in peril, and there are no simple options

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