The killing of its president came amid growing violence, poverty and disaffection with politics
On Friday, Haiti buried its assassinated president, Jovenel Moïse, at a funeral itself marred by unrest, with shots fired outside. The truth about his killing may have gone to the grave with him. Much remains uncertain, and a senior government minister has suggested that the “big fishes” behind it are still at large.
But the more important question is what the future holds for a desperately poor, unequal and troubled country. The murder is the latest iteration of a long-running political crisis, in which Haitian elites and foreign powers call the shots while ordinary people suffer. It is a bitter paradox that the people of the world’s first black republic, born of a successful slave revolt, have rarely had a chance to seize their destiny since.
