By Daniel Smith
Worthy of note is the fact that Haiti largely depends on tourism as one of the means of generating revenue. During holiday seasons, there is usually a surge in the number of tourists who travel to the country. The recent cases of kidnapping and insecurity in the country have greatly affected this trend in recent times. There was a notable drop in the number of tourists who visited the country from 1.3 million in the year 2018 to 938,000 in the year 2019 due to the deplorable state of the country’s security. As a result, the country’s tourism revenue dropped from $779 million to $703 million.
There is a possibility of a continuous drop in these numbers as history has shown that once there is a rise in insecurity and violence in the country, it often results in a reduction in the number of Haitian-Americans who are willing to return to their home country. The year 2020 was spectacularly different as the increasing number of Covid-19 cases caused public health officials to warn against domestic mass travels during the holiday periods. This too contributed to the reasons why the overall travel rates dropped last year. The International Air Transportation Association reported that international travel dropped by a whopping 66% last year.
The drop in the number of Haitians who were willing to return home seemed to have been a major cause of concern for Haiti’s President Movenel Moise, who admonished Haitians abroad to return home during the holidays. His Tweet on the sixth of November read: “We’re asking diasporas to return home for the end of the year. Come see your family. Come see your friends.” This didn’t quite sit well with Haitian-Americans, who lashed out at the president for what they considered to be an insensitive Tweet as they rejected his demands.
Junior Artiside, a 27-year-old filmmaker of Haitian origin who resides in the US, noted his dismay at the tweet. “I don’t understand his logic behind that because we’re still under a pandemic… How do you think people who live in the United States, or people all over the world, are going to feel when you encourage them to come to a country where you can’t even protect your own residents? That’s a joke,” he tweeted.
In the last days of December 2020, there was another sad event that probably caused Haitian-Americans to cement their resolve not to return home while the insecurity lingers. A Haitian-American Seventh-Day Adventist church leader Pastor Elie Henry, who was in Haiti with his daughter, was kidnapped alongside his daughter on Christmas Eve in Port-au-Prince. Their release was secured a few days later, unharmed. According to Haitian media, the kidnappers asked for a $5 million ransom. There was, however, no confirmation from either Henry’s family or the church as to whether or not a ransom was paid to secure their release.
Haitian-Americans and other Haitians remain curious about whether or not a ransom was paid for Pastor Henry’s release. It is believed that the Haitian kidnappers target people like Pastor Henry, who reside in the US, because they presume them capable of raising huge ransoms because of the mere fact that they live in the US. Notable Haitian-Americans seem to be the major target of the Haitian kidnappers. According to reports from human rights groups, kidnapping is currently becoming daily routine in Haiti.
According to the Adventists Church Inter-American secretary, Pastor Leonard Johnson, the church with large Haitians’ followers, does not intend to shy away from the country’s struggles. However, he confirmed that his church will now have to take the ransom abduction trends in Haiti more seriously than ever.
“We have a longstanding commitment with the people of Haiti to deliver the Gospel of Christ to people there, so we cannot be deterred by something like this, but the church takes the matter of safety seriously, and certainly, this event is a learning lesson for us,” he said.
The kidnapping of notable individuals like Pastor Henry now serves as a lesson to Haitians in the diaspora. Many of them now have to reconsider their decisions before making a trip to their home country. However, most of them do not think that it is safe for them even to do business in the country.
Farah Larrieuxx, a Haitian communication consultant who is resident in Florida, has this to say: “Every day you have another story: one more person has been kidnapped, more and more members of the diaspora who are kidnapped… And it’s like you’re asking yourself, ‘Are you next?” According to Farah, many Haitian-Americans in South Florida canceled their holiday plans to Haiti last year because of the fear for their safety.
Another notable issue of kidnapping in Haiti last year was the November abduction and eventual murder of a Port-au-Prince high school student whose family could not provide ransom in time. Her abductors abandoned her lifeless body in a dumpster by the roadside. This caused Haitians to stage protests on the streets, asking the president to take action. According to the protesters, the president seems to have lost his grip on the situation. There are also claims that the Haitian police are part of the abductors, although they have denied these allegations.
The United Nations posits a 200% rise in Haiti’s number of kidnappings from the 1st of January to the 31st of May, 2020. Among these reported cases, there were 57 male victims, 11 of whom were minors, and 35 female victims, including eight minors. Civil society groups, however, reported 161 abductions by October 2020. The American Overseas Security Advisory Council also reported that there were Haitian-Americans amongst those that were kidnapped during this period.
In the final week of the year 2020, among the 14 reported cases of kidnappings, there were US citizens and US permanent residents among the kidnapped Haitians. This has prompted the US Embassy in Port-au-Prince to reduce the number of unofficial travel by its direct staff members who are US citizens, ensuring that most journeys were within the Embassies neighborhood. These restrictions will continue until further notice.
The embassy also cautioned its citizens to desist from unimportant travels within Port-au-Prince and admonished them to be alert when they travel within the Haitian capital city.