Haiti is in the midst of a political crisis, with protesters demanding new elections amid allegations of fraud in the first two rounds of elections held on August 9 and October 25. A third round was scheduled for January 24, but was cancelled after tens of thousands of protestors flooded the streets of the capital city of Port au Prince.
Ives, co-founder and editor of the international weekly newspaper Haiti Liberté, said in an interview with Radio Sputnik's "Loud & Clear" that last week's uprising marked the "beginning of a revolutionary period in Haiti."
"The people are just fed up. They really want a thoroughgoing change. They want, not just a change at the level of government, but at the level of social relations, of property. … I think we’re at the beginning of a period where we’re going to see of a lot of change in Haiti," he said.
However, he added, the government of outgoing President Michel Martelly, who is scheduled to leave office on February 7, may resort to "death squad tactics" to resolve the current crisis.
A police source told Ives that there was a meeting Monday at the National Palace, the official residence of the president, during which current government officials "distributed money, guns and cars to a death squad to go out and kill popular organization leaders and … middle of the road politicians and blame it on the opposition."
"This will create a pretext of course for more repression and create confusion," Ives said.
The threat of instability in Haiti prompted the Organization of American States (OAS) on Wednesday to authorize a special mission to help the troubled nation find a way out of the political crisis and set a new date for a runoff election.
In Washington, the OAS permanent council reached consensus on sending the mission to Haiti to assist with resolving a stalemate now that elections have been postponed indefinitely and President Martelly is due to leave office in days.
Haiti's ambassador to the OAS, Bocchit Edmond, said the request was not an invitation to "meddle" in Haitian affairs but was intended to help the country avoid "falling into an institutional vacuum and chaos."
