Mario Andrésol, former captain of the Haitian Armed Forces and former Commander-in-Chief of the Haitian National Police (PNH) https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-19568-haiti-security-mario-andresol-receives-the-international-leadership-award.html reacted strongly in a document on the climate of insecurity in Haiti and the number of police officers who died on duty.

He recalls that "1,118 police officers in total died in the PNH since its inception in 1995, 450 of which fell under the murderous bullets of armed bandits. The institution has lost each year, for 22 years, on average, about fifty police including twenty killed by bullets [...]"

Stressing that if we add to this heavy balance sheet "the number of personalities and private citizens murdered or missing during this same period, we would realize that the State, which must ensure the protection and security of the population, never gave itself the means to try to accomplish this sovereign mission [...]"

He deplores that "the political authorities have always considered as a lost investment any release of funds for the prevention and the repression of the crime [...] to endow the persons in charge of the public force with a budget of operation and reasonable investment enabling them to respond to both immediate security needs and future security challenges. The latter, therefore deprived of sufficient financial means, are still unable to ensure effective management of order and security due to a lack of material capacity for action [...]"

It emphasizes that "the optimization of results in the fight against insecurity can only be achieved if the combined actions of the police and the judiciary are part of a criminal policy [...] the fight against crime requires measures both armed (implemented by the police), criminal (provided by judges), political (government-sanctioned) and legislative (dependent on parliament).

[...] The absence of public security policies makes that the measures and the devices taken by law enforcement officials have so far yielded only short-term results, since insecurity has never been fought in its roots."

Recalling that in the country, in terms of security "for decades and despite the return of democracy and 13 years of presence of the Minsutah in the country, we still have not divorced from these old practices that have given us worth, in time, so many disappointments, so many dead and disappeared..."

Mario Andrésol believes that in Haiti "investigations continue only by choice. Because, to a certain extent, the police always end up getting their hands on criminals. Cases of political killings or of opponents arrested for fictitious or real reasons and any other case related to politics, are treated according to the wishes of the Executive. This situation is not new today. The rule of law so much dreamed remains until now utopian [...]"

Concluding "It is time to complete the cycle of all the feelings experienced at the expense of the national self crucified by our ambitions and nourished with willful incompetence. This is the moment of citizen responsibility. This is the moment of sacrifice, of creation. This is the moment of transcendence. At this price alone, we will succeed in getting out of the nets of narcissism and megalomania of our upstarts."

HL/ HaitiLibre