Every kind of gun is flooding into Port-au-Prince. Haitians are blaming the US.

“All the guns here are from the US, everybody knows it. If the US wants to stop this, they could easily do it one month!” He pleads: “We are asking the US to give us a chance to live, just give us a chance.”

For a country that does not manufacture weapons, a UN report in January found every type of gun was flooding Port-au-Prince: high-powered rifles such as AK47s, 9mm pistols, sniper rifles and machine guns.

The weapons are fuelling the staggering surge in Haiti’s gang-related violence.

There is no exact number for how many trafficked firearms are currently in Haiti.

The UN report said some estimates put it at half a million legal and illegal weapons here as of 2020.

It reported that guns and ammunition were being smuggled in from land, air and sea from US states such as Florida, Texas and Georgia.

  • @Altofaltception@lemmy.world
    33•8 months ago

    Haiti made the wrong choice of demanding freedom from slavery before European powers were ready to adapt to life without human chattel. We’ve never let them forget that.

    • @JimboDHimbo@lemmy.ca
      9•8 months ago

      Fuck the European powers of old and fuck slavery. I wish that all my ancestors killed their masters tbh.

      How can you say it’s the wrong choice for anyone to try to defeat an oppressive evil such as slavery?

      • @Sylvartas@lemmy.world
        8•8 months ago

        Well, Haiti did kill most of their masters when they rebelled against them. (Which I honestly can understand given the especially awful brand of slavery that was going on there)

        Also, while France is to blame for the insane “reparations” that have been forced upon Haiti, they ultimately sold their debt to some wall street banks, who pressured the US government to invade Haiti (on more than one occasion iirc) to force them to take loans with high interest rates in order to repay the debt (and create more).

        When I learned about that I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that forgiving the debt was apparently never an option for anyone involved. So, fuck the banks and also fuck the USA.

      • @Altofaltception@lemmy.world
        3•8 months ago

        How can you say it’s the wrong choice for anyone to try to defeat an oppressive evil such as slavery?

        It was a wrong choice from the perspective of their masters.

    • @sugarfree@lemmy.worldEnglish
      -11•8 months ago

      They “demanded freedom from slavery”, and then shortly afterwards engaged in slave raids in what is today the Dominican Republic.

      • @Altofaltception@lemmy.world
        7•8 months ago

        That’s literally the opposite of what happened.

        Once Haiti declared independence, they invaded Santo Domingo, effectively ending Spanish occupation of that part of the island. Slavery ended up being abolished by default once the Spanish were removed in 1822.