The Con­fer­ence of Haiti Bish­ops has ex­pressed con­cern over the cur­rent po­lit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion in the French-speak­ing Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM) coun­try, as they “de­mand” peace and uni­ty in the coun­try.

In a note pub­lished to co­in­cide with the day of the mem­o­ry of Saint Al­bert the Great (bish­op, doc­tor of the Church), the Catholic Bish­ops of Haiti stat­ed their mis­sion as bish­ops “oblig­es us to de­nounce these acts of vi­o­lence that are de­stroy­ing the coun­try and sow­ing end­less suf­fer­ing.”

“These acts cause the death of many in­no­cent peo­ple, and many peo­ple are forced to leave their homes,” the Bish­ops said.

They not­ed: “In these dark days, many of our broth­ers and sis­ters live in great fear, they have lost their fun­da­men­tal rights, such as the right to se­cu­ri­ty, the right to life and free­dom of move­ment.”

“Even planes are not spared. Tou­s­saint Lou­ver­ture air­port is closed, and this iso­lates us from all oth­er coun­tries. The cap­i­tal is blocked, schools are closed, ac­tiv­i­ties are par­a­lyzed. There is no re­al life in the coun­try,” the Bish­ops said, adding, “no one can ac­cept such a sit­u­a­tion.”

They said that vi­o­lence can nei­ther bring so­lu­tion nor sal­va­tion to the peo­ple.

“We can­not hope to find peace by sow­ing vi­o­lence. Peace is a gift from God, but it re­quires the ef­forts of all those who have good will to build a so­ci­ety,” the Bish­ops said.

The state­ment con­tin­ued: “We in­vite every­one, those who gov­ern the coun­try, mem­bers of civ­il so­ci­ety and all ac­tors who have re­spon­si­bil­i­ties in this cri­sis, whether or not they have weapons in their hands, to rec­og­nize that this sit­u­a­tion must not re­main as it is.”

“It is im­por­tant that we find the best way to gov­ern the coun­try and re­solve this prob­lem of in­ces­sant vi­o­lence. The fu­ture of the peo­ple is at stake,” the Bish­ops said, en­cour­ag­ing the Chris­t­ian faith­ful not to let them­selves be over­come by de­spair.

“Faith in God must in­spire us to work to­geth­er to build a fu­ture where jus­tice reigns, where the life of each per­son is re­spect­ed and pro­tect­ed. Our con­do­lences go to all the fam­i­lies who mourn the loss of a per­son in these events.”

Residents flee their homes to escape gang violence in the Nazon neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph)

Odelyn Joseph

“With all the peo­ple of God, we pray for the re­cov­ery of those who are hos­pi­tal­ized, that God will give much courage to those who are on the street or who are tak­ing refuge with a good neigh­bour. We wish courage to all those who suf­fer phys­i­cal­ly and men­tal­ly.”

”Let’s keep our hope in God, pray with­out ceas­ing and be in sol­i­dar­i­ty with one an­oth­er. May God be gra­cious to us, may he bless us! Let him pro­tect Haiti that we all love,” the Bish­ops said in their note.

Over the week­end, Haiti’s new­ly ap­point­ed Prime Min­is­ter, Al­ix Di­di­er Fils-Aimé, said the coun­try is ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a “crit­i­cal” sit­u­a­tion, and “there is no time to lose”.

Fils-Aimé, whose gov­ern­ment was ap­point­ed last Fri­day, re­it­er­at­ed that the pri­ma­ry ob­jec­tive is to pre­pare the ground for in­clu­sive and trans­par­ent elec­tions in a na­tion that, he ad­mit­ted, is go­ing through a crit­i­cal pe­ri­od and that Haitians live in an­guish and in­se­cu­ri­ty.

He in­vit­ed the new Cab­i­net “to ful­ly ap­pre­ci­ate the mag­ni­tude of the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties in­cum­bent on them” and con­sid­ered that “on­ly the par­tic­i­pa­tion and con­tri­bu­tion of all can pro­vide ef­fec­tive and last­ing re­spons­es to the prob­lems that be­set our coun­try.”

“Our mis­sion is clear: we must re­store hope to our peo­ple by fac­ing with de­ter­mi­na­tion the great chal­lenges fac­ing Haiti,” the new Prime Min­is­ter said.

He added: “In­se­cu­ri­ty in all its forms must be vig­or­ous­ly com­bat­ed, in par­tic­u­lar phys­i­cal, eco­nom­ic and food in­se­cu­ri­ty.” —PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti (CMC)