Two dozen professional killers were hung out to dry after they whacked the unpopular president of Haiti. Somebody failed to give the highly skilled specialists extraction from the island after the operation was complete.
Professional panic in Haiti
Along Route de Kenscoff near the private residence of murdered Haitian President Jovenel Moise, “burned-out cars, spent bullet casings, bloodstains and bullet-pocked walls” were stark evidence of the shootout between the police and some of the suspected professional assassins.
According to Haitian authorities in Port-au-Prince, three of the “burned-out cars belonged to members of the armed group who assassinated Moise.” They’ve already become a tourist attraction.
The armed group of “professional killers” numbers at least two dozen, mostly Columbian. Along with 13 retired members of the Colombian military were two Americans. Originally from Haiti, both James Solages and Joseph Vincent were naturalized U.S. citizens.
Something apparently went terribly wrong or else whoever paid to smuggle them in didn’t bother to supply a ride home, expecting them to be caught as a way to confuse the back trail to whoever really hired them. So far, “little is known about the suspected masterminds” or “their motivation for the attack.” So far police have 20 suspects in custody and “a mass, countrywide manhunt is underway for at least five additional suspects.”
Nineteen of the suspects have been named, including the two Americans. The other seventeen were Columbian. “Shortly afterward, police announced that an additional Colombian suspect had been arrested.” Three more were killed in the initial attack. Authorities have tracked how all but one of the men entered the country and it shows how professional the team was.
That also underscores the confusion of why they didn’t have an exit strategy. At one point, 11 of the desperate fleeing fugitives stormed the grounds of Taiwan’s embassy. Their spokesperson, Joanne Ou relates that after their security guards reported the incursion, 11 mercenaries were “arrested at 4 p.m. inside the embassy without resistance and only a few doors and windows were damaged.”
From Bogota to Santo Domingo
The thirteen “retired members of the Colombian Army” all trickled in through the Dominican Republic over the past few months. As reported by Colombian National Police Chief General Jorge Vargas. Two of the professional hit team, “Giraldo Duberney Capador, who was killed during an operation by Haiti Police, and Alejandro Rivera Garcia, detained by Haiti Police, flew from Bogota to Santo Domingo via Panama on May 6 and from Santo Domingo flew to Port-au-Prince on May 10.”
The other Colombians “flew from Bogota El Dorado airport to Punta Cana Airport in the Dominican Republic on June 4 and entered Haiti via land border on June 6.” They have no idea how Mauricio Javier Romero got to the party. He’s a ghost on paper.
In the wake of the professional killing of Jovenel Moise, there is chaos and confusion everywhere. Nobody is real sure who’s officially in charge with two men claiming control. That’s nothing new to Haitian citizens who are used to listening to whoever controls the TV station on any particular day.
They all run around with guns so it doesn’t much matter who gives the orders. Even before the assassination, for weeks, “Port-au-Prince has been reeling from violence which has claimed the lives of many citizens.”
Professional humanitarian activists are complaining that this new madness “is playing out under the backdrop of extreme violence in Haiti’s capital, with rival groups battling one another or the police for control of the streets, displacing tens of thousands of people and worsening the country’s humanitarian crisis.”
Both alleged leaders are yelling for help from the U.S. and UN to send troops. They need help to “secure the country’s ports, airports and oil terminals.”
