Let the People Decide: Former Haitian Gov't Minister on Political Chaos After President Assassinated

Political turmoil continues in Haiti following the assassination of President Jovenel Moise, with multiple people claiming leadership of the country and gangs unleashing a new wave of violence in the streets. Haitian police say they have arrested a key figure in the assassination, 63-year-old Christian Emmanuel Sanon, a Haitian-born doctor based in Florida who arrived in Haiti in June with political objectives." Sanon is one of three Haitian Americans now arrested in the attack, along with 18 Colombians. Five Colombians are still at large, and three were reportedly killed. The United States, meanwhile, has sent Homeland Security and FBI officials to Haiti to aid in the investigation but has so far declined a request to send military forces to the country. We are in an extraconstitutional situation," says Magali Comeau Denis, a former Haitian minister of culture and communication who acts as coordinator for the Commission to Find a Haitian Solution, a civil society group to resolve the ongoing political crisis. She says none of the people claiming authority in the country right now has any legitimacy, and that political actors and civil society groups need to come together to create a broad consensus on how to move forward. There is no other legal answer to that situation of exception."