First, Haiti:
Haiti’s capital has been thrown into further chaos after its top warlord ordered his soldiers to “burn every house you find” – as the nation struggles to usher in a new government.
Notorious gang leader Jimmy “Barbeque” Cherizier, 47, was heard on social media messages on Sunday inciting his men to clash against police and burn down homes indiscriminately across Port-au-Prince, including Lower Delmas where he grew up.
“Continue burning the houses. Make everybody leave,” says a man in the audio recordings who is believed to be Cherizier.
“No need to know which house. Burn every house you find. Set the fire,” he adds, claiming to have sent jugs of gasoline to the gangsters.
Local residents have verified that houses have been set a blaze in the capital, with Radio Tele Galaxie reporting loud blasts and gunfire echoing across city hall as Lower Delmas has turned into “a battlefield between police and armed gangs.”
Along with the gunfights along city hall and the National Palace, gangsters also looted the State University of Haiti’s medical facility overnight, local Radio RFM reports.
With officials and human rights groups estimating that as much as 90% of the capital is now controlled by violent gangs, fears have grown that Cherizier has united them in an effort to seize control of the nation during a period of transition.
Sunday’s order to attack came ahead of the installation of a transitional council preparing to establish a new government after Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry fled the nation.
There's more at the link.
As we've mentioned before in these pages, successive Haitian governments (if that's a valid description of them) have allied with various gangs in order to achieve political power, then plunder the national treasury under the guise of governing. The inevitable result is that the gangs have grown tired of ruling through middlemen, and want to govern directly, without giving up a cut of the loot to politicians. Tragically, the people of Haiti have never risen up and demanded proper government. If they had, this could have been nipped in the bud years ago. They didn't; so now they're paying the price.
Contrast this with El Salvador, where the people got fed up with the gangs, the corruption and the criminality of their society, and did something about it.
The man who transformed El Salvador from one of the most dangerous countries in the world to one of the safest, President Nayib Bukele, is despised by liberals.
. . .
In 2022, after a gang war resulted in the deaths of 87 people over a period of just three days, Bukele took action against crime. He constructed the country’s largest prison, the Terrorism Confinement Center (Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo or CECOT), with a capacity for 40,000 gang members. And he began filling it.
Out of gratitude for restoring peace in the country, voters reelected him with 85% of the vote. Human rights groups, who live in safe, wealthy Western nations, have criticized Bukele for violations of the rights of suspects.
But the logic is flawless. Only gang members have gang tattoos. If anyone else gets a gang tattoo, they will be killed by the gang. The same is true for tattoo artists.
They would be killed for giving gang tattoos to non-gang members. Additionally, part of the initiation to joining a gang is to commit a serious crime, often murder. Once they become a member, their full-time job is to commit crimes. So, logically, anyone with a gang tattoo is a gang member and has committed crimes.
. . .
The state of emergency he declared in 2022, and has renewed several times since, suspends the constitutional rights of the gang members and bypasses the corrupt courts and justice system, which had allowed the criminals to reign for decades. Since then, 75,000 gang members have been arrested, and 7,000 have been released.
Again, more at the link.
Notice how President Bukele's measures completely bypass and render impotent the corrupt liberal institutions of "justice". You won't find progressive prosecutors letting off offenders with a token slap on the wrist, or setting them free the same day they're arrested after making them promise to attend court when summoned. Those offenders, under El Salvador's system, are checked for gang tattoos, and video of them outside and inside jail is scrutinized. One gang tattoo, one flashed gang sign, and they're automatically classified as gang members and imprisoned. They have the right to argue their detention, and about 10% have been released; but most can't demonstrate their innocence, and they're still locked up. The people of El Salvador, delighted to be able to venture outside their homes in safety for the first time in years (if not decades), have just shown whose side they're on by re-electing President Bukele and his party with overwhelming support - to the distress and hand-wringing of said liberals and progressives, who see all their favorite soft-on-crime approaches being ground into the mud.
Now look at the USA. States and cities where liberal, progressive attitudes are applied are drowning in crime. Don't believe the "official" crime statistics, either - they're deliberately flawed, biased and under-reported. Ask the people who live there. They'll tell you the reality. Contrast those states and cities with those where law and order takes a higher priority, and see the difference. People from the first group are migrating to the second group as fast as they can afford to.
Tragically, the Biden administration is admitting millions upon millions of migrants from high-crime, low-trust societies (including Haiti) into the USA, without so much as a background check. That's going to make our crime situation much, much worse. It already is in some places. What will we, the people of the USA, do about it? Will we demand our own Bukele to rein in the criminals? Or will we roll over, supine, and let the gangs dominate?
The liberals and progressives do have one accurate point in all this. Throughout history, whenever a "strong man" appears offering a solution to crime and other ills, he's ended up becoming more or less a dictator, and often has had to be removed violently in his turn. That's a real danger here in the USA right now. Tragically, those same liberals and progressives don't seem to realize that their insistence on unfettered immigration from high-crime, low-trust societies is paving the way for such a dictator to arise here too.
President Bukele didn't come out of nowhere. He rose to power through offering a relatively simple, yet Draconian, solution to El Salvador's crime problem. How will this nation react if someone offers that recipe here? Can our constitutional republic survive such an authoritarian figure any better than it can survive chaos and criminal anarchy? Your guess is as good as mine . . .
Peter
13 comments:
Bukele is an outsider.
He does not have family that can be held hostage. He owes nobody. He is not owned.
He is the only guy who could defy the mutually reinforcing forces of corruption.
"Can our constitutional republic survive such an authoritarian figure"
The better question is could a candidate offering an alternative to the Blob survive the election process financially, politically or even stay alive?
The liberals seem to think that THEY will be the strongman that takes charge and rules over the country while stealing it blind. The Haiti gang takeover would be a wake-up call...IF they had less ego and more insight. As they don't - we live in interesting times.
After generations demeaning nationalism In Canada and the USA, the globalist/multiculturalism/universalism crowd are going to be in for a rude awakening. They will find out about tribalism, family bonds, inherent evil in ample supply. It may not be a national conflagration such as a civil war. It may be a gang showing up in a home invasion knowing where resistance is futile and help ain't near by
“Continue burning the houses. Make everybody leave,”...
NEVER give up your RIGHT to BEAR ARMS...
People will stop believing official crime stats. They will then begin amateur, part-time, and finalistic law enforcement within the bounds of places they care about. Next stop,….Haiti.
George Washington stepped down when he could have been crowned King.
Vigilanties were a reaction to the lack of law enforcement. They don't go all Haiti.
One mistake in El Salvador, not cleaning up the justice system. Find a gang member, has he been let out with a slap? By who. Let the judges and prosecutors join their buddies.
Yes.
They are doing this deliberately to make it accepted to bypass the constitution in the expectation that they will prevail, just exactly like the gangs of Haiti have done.
I don't think that will work out for them they way they think it will.
I also don't think that our country will survive in its traditional form after such a collapse.
I am holding on to the hope that we still have a few opportunities to avoid wide spread sectarian violence.
However, I can see those opportunities dwindling.
The only thing that allows me to maintain my generally sunny demeanor it a unwavering faith in, and reliance upon, the benevolence of Devine providence.
However greatly my particular religious practices and beliefs may differ from those held by many of you. We share a common belief in that.
Sorry about pontificating much more than I intended.
And yes, this is exactly how one gets "committees of Vigilance"
This is what was projected on Trump, but he was never that man. He was the last opportunity to peacefully resolve things before heading for dictatorial levels like El Salvador, or worse.
But no one will listen to that. Things will always be as the they have been etc. etc.
Bukele has a wife and two daughters, and some brothers who are close advisors. He was originally from the left-wing party, FMLN, and when he was booted for his policies, he started his own party, Nuevas Ideas, which became the largest political party by far in El Salvador. He is not exactly an outsider these days.
This is not all bad.
The thought of gangs of machete-wielding cannibals roaming throughout D.C. and picking out government targets of opportunity is something with which it's hard to get too upset, at least in the short term.
If they televise the proceedings, it goes 50 points to the absolute positive side.
You can't criminalize tattoos in the US, normally. The wheels of justice turn slowly here, more like justice is a tracked vehicle there. The country needed help exorcising a criminal infestation, and when little was forthcoming from the existing legal system they elected a strongman to bust a few heads and make the trains run on time. Next, they need a club to join. Usually Latin American sovereignities get loans, develop exports, and periodically default on the loans thereafter, get put on credit hold, then kiss and make up with the IMF and the big banks, and get their Discover Card turned back on. This time there's BRICS, and they are taking applications and giving Green Stamps. Some of the cool kids are in their club, with some dweebish candidate members with little to offer save strategic geography who are tired of being a third world s-hole under the thumb of the Dollar-West and are ready to try something new. Historically, there's no reason why they should not. The Monroe doctrine requires certain megapolitical conditions, and those conditions have changed. We're not in control of our buffer states like in the good old days. And the BRICS guys have their eyes on Mexico, El Salvador would be a handy stepping stone.
The discussion of bukeles family is chilling. The grandchildren of Rafael Trujillo attended my school for a year, accompanied by a black car with never seen security people inside. Italian industrialist's rich kids were sent out of the country to my school in Germany to avoid getting kidnapped by terrorists. The Israeli kids were always monitored carefully, Iranians and Saudi too. No doubt Trujillo deserved everything he got and more, but his grandkids didn't kill or oppress anybody. Maybe unrealistic, but children should be shielded from the harsh reality of certain aspects of the human condition for the duration of childhood if it's possible to do so. It's so horribly sad what some kids in the world are forced to experience growing up. The children of El Salvador will benefit from less street crime, but it remains to be seen what this nascent junta will develop into. I hope they dump Bitcoin, it's the embodiment of larceny in the human soul. And a bad example for children. Third world living is enough of a gamble. The US has fed much of the planet for over a century, and pretty much for free. Our fences don't curve in at the top. Disgruntled Des Moiners aren't storming the border barriers to gain admittance to Guangzhou. Stick with us, and we'll feed you and put a roof over your head, and then give you the opportunity to do these things for yourself. It's easy to bitch about the US, but what shape would the world be in without the US? We're by no means perfect, but we are grown up. Sometimes you need a grown-up around the sandbox.
rick m
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