Caribbean & Central America - September 2012 (ISSN 1741-4458)

Haiti’s President Michel Martelly has replaced his interior minister and appointed a new police chief. The shake-up comes as newly released figures show that the murder rate in Port-au-Prince is escalating alarmingly.

Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe named Ronsard Saint Cyr to replace Thierry Mayard Paul at the ministry of the interior and territorial collectivities. Saint Cyr, who had been serving as minister of social affairs and labour, was part of a mini cabinet reshuffle on 6 August (see sidebar), which also saw Lamothe pick up the planning portfolio from Josefa Gauthier, who in turn steps into Saint Cyr’s old shoes.

Some three weeks later, on 29 August, the senate ratified President Martelly’s pick as the new director general of the Haitian national police (PNH). Godson Aurélus, 44, picks up the post from Mario Andrésol, with a constitutional mandate of three years.

Andrésol had headed the institution for seven years during which time he had worked closely with the UN stabilisation mission (Minustah) to make the PNH a more efficient crime-fighting force. Andrésol’s term officially ended on 18 August when Aurélus took over from him as acting police chief. There were some rumblings of dissent on the senate floor that Aurélus had been permitted to take over the country’s top policing job before his formal ratification, but this did not stop him from winning overwhelming support when it came to the vote: a total of 17 senators voted in favour of his appointment, while just one senator abstained.

Aurélus spoke frankly during a press conference after his ratification. He said that the PNH performed a dangerous job in Haiti and deserved greater reward as a result. He said police officers were poorly paid and lacked sufficient social security cover, especially in the face of serious risk of injury or worse, and other benefits.

Aurélus could struggle to get much change out of Martelly who seems more concerned about restoring the disbanded army than beefing up the pay and conditions of the PNH, which has only 10,000 police officers, about one for every 1,000 inhabitants.

And yet there are signs that the security situation has taken a turn for the worse in Haiti, especially Port-au-Prince. “The crude murder rate for Port-au-Prince increased from 60.9 to 76.2 murders per 100,000 between February and July 2012, with residents of ‘popular zones’ being 40 times more likely to be murdered than other urban dwellers,” according to a report of monthly household surveys carried out by Brazil’s security and development think tank, the Instituto Igarapé, entitled ‘The Economic Costs of Violent Crime in Urban Haiti (August 2011-July 2012)’. Two of the authors of the report, Athena Kolbe of Michigan University and Robert Muggah the research director of Instituto Igarapé, noted that the homicide rate in Port-au-Prince had been as comparatively low as 10 per 100,000 in just 2007.

The report also found that police bribes had increased between August 2011 and July 2012: “nearly 25 per cent of victims of physical assaults and 19 per cent of victims of property crime said they were asked for or paid a bribe to police to facilitate the progress of their case.” Perhaps most disturbing, however, was the implicit indictment of the efforts to transform the PNH: “Paradoxically, in spite of increased international investment in restoring the capacities of the Haitian National Police, ordinary Haitians struggle to access basic policing services.”

• Reshuffle

In further cabinet changes, Prime Minister Lamothe ceded control of the foreign affairs ministry to Pierre Richard Casimir, who was serving as secretary of state at the ministry. Jean Vilmont Hilaire replaced Joseph Ronald Toussaint (who had formed part of the ruptured opposition party Inité) at the environment ministry, while Vanneur Pierre came in for Réginald Paul at the education ministry.