The situation of insecurity does not allow for change in the near future, hence the call for a general strike by the unions.
Several Haitian trade unions, including the transportation and subcontracting trade unions said on Thursday that they would go on strike next Monday, October 4, against the climate of insecurity, kidnappings, the fuel crisis and what they consider the lousy handling of the deportation of migrants from the United States.
The trade unionists confirmed that Monday would be the day of a national strike to denounce the increase in kidnappings for ransom, “which threatens everyone,” while the price of the illegal sale of fuel has increased twofold or threefold in the illicit market, Jacques Anderson Desroches, a spokesman for the union forces to save Haiti, said.
The spokesman for the Union Force to Save Haiti (
Fòs Sendikal pou Sove Ayiti, FOSSA), Jacques Anderson Desroches, pointed out that the national strike will serve as a denunciation of the increase in kidnappings to demand ransom, “which threatens everyone”; as well as the illegal sale of fuel, which has increased twofold or threefold in the black market in relation to the official one.
Desroches condemned the State for having manufactured “the fuel crisis (shortage) to decapitalize the poor”, in the absence of measures to control these illegal actions committed by the armed gangs that control several districts of Port-au-Prince (the capital) and other cities in the country.
country.
“The State has taken advantage of the widespread insecurity, legalizing theft, rape and kidnapping”, he said, while criticizing Prime Minister Ariel Henry for not condemning the inhumane treatment suffered by the Haitian immigrants to the United States similar to that inflicted on enslaved people. “We did not hear Mr. Ariel Henry request a moratorium on the deportation of Haitians”, he said.
The trade unionists' call for a strike adds to the Protestant religious sector's proposal to close all its institutions with the exception of health centers, in protest of the growing insecurity, and after the murder of a deacon on Sunday 26 in a church in Port-au-Prince and the kidnapping of his wife.
Meanwhile, non-governmental and progressive organizations agreed to demonstrate peacefully this Thursday in front of the US embassy in that Caribbean nation against Washington, D.C.'s interference in their internal affairs.
A few weeks ago, the Association of Petroleum Professionals (
Asosyasyon Pwofesyonèl Petwòl, APP) had issued in a letter, an SOS to the authorities about the siege of oil terminals by armed gangs, including Terminal Varreux, which represents 70 percent of the country's storage capacity.
Additionally, in the absence of normality in the near future, gas station owners are suffering losses due to the actions of bandits who steal cargo and demand money to return fuel trucks.
On the other hand, about 4,000 Haitians were deported from the United States from September 19 to date, when a series of massive deportations began that triggered the immigration crisis that brought some 15,000 people to the city of Del Río, Texas, mostly Haitians.
Haitian trade unions to go on strike amidst insecurity