Thread: Last week I returned to the Maranatha school near Haiti’s Grand Ravine neighborhood. In November, a police operation gone wrong resulted in a civilian massacre on the campus. theintercept.com/2018/01/10/hai…
The courtyard that was bloodstained and full of bullet shells and tear gas canisters last time I was there, was instead full of children playing.
In one classroom, seniors were learning Spanish. In another, a professor was teaching math to younger students. The director, arrested the day of the massacre, was finally back in his office – back at the school he has led for 30 years.
And yet, life at the school has not returned to normal. Not by a long shot. Violence in the surrounding neighborhood has gotten worse, not better, since the November police operation.
At least one professor was killed in November, and now, it’s even harder to find new ones. When administrators tell potential hires where the school is located, they rarely remain interested.
I met a young kid, he couldn’t have been older than 5, who complained of having dreams where gangs or police officers came back to the school and killed everyone.
After I left, I received a text message: gun shots had just rung out on the street that borders the school. A few days later, another message: a rival gang came into the neighborhood and killed someone – likely a member of the local gang (that was yesterday).
Last week, local press reported that Tet Kale, who had consolidated control over this area before his arrest (with a US visa, at the international airport) in December 2016, would soon be released from prison. His potential return will likely only exacerbate the conflict.
Since I was there in November, not a single journalist – local or foreign – has been to the school. Two months ago a local journalist disappeared in the neighborhood and is presumed dead. There is an information blackout.
As for the police, the UN – who helped plan the operation – and the government, there has been virtually zero follow up. The director told me nobody had been to the school to investigate – or even to provide support.
A judge called the school’s director to get his story, but didn’t seem to believe him. It was the same judge that ruled to release Tet Kale from prison last week.
The director, Armand Louis, has been warned to stay away; and not to speak out. But he believes education is the only hope these kids have in the neighborhood. Without the school, there is little else. The government is nonexistent there.
But, everyone knows that politics are not nonexistent there. The gangs that have become increasingly bold, increasingly violent – they get their weapons from someone. Political actors? Private sector actors? Yes, it’s an open secret, but nobody knows exactly who, or exactly how.
What is clear is that further raids into this neighborhood will not break the cycle of violence. The absence of the state, and the absence of opportunity, means there is often no choice for the youth outside of gangs. Criminalization of the urban poor is no solution.
And so long as the political and business networks that provide the guns, ammunition, and support to the city’s gangs remain untouched – so too will the levels of violence. Six months after the Grand Ravine police massacre, impunity still reigns. Fin.
