My name is Lydia Polgreen,
and I’m an opinion columnist for “The New York Times.”
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I think you have a lot of people in Haiti who are ready at this moment to help build this new future.
And really, what they need is financial support, security support,
and also, the time and space to build their own ideas of what a future Haiti could look like.
And just because there is this long history of failure doesn’t mean that success is not possible.
I’ve been traveling to Haiti as a journalist since 2003.
It was actually the first big international assignment that I was ever asked to do.
And it began, I think, a decades–long engagement with the story of Haiti
and its struggle for self–determination, for security, for dignity,
and just a deep interest in the lives and culture of the Haitian people.
Whenever you’re talking about Haiti, it’s hard to know where to begin the story
because, obviously, the country was born in this extraordinary act of liberation way back in the 19th century,
but this most recent crisis, I think, is worth just sort of taking on its own terms.
And it really began with the assassination of Haiti’s president,
a man called Jovenel Moise, who was assassinated in July of 2021.
Archived Recording: The gunmen broke into the home of Haiti’s president early this morning.
Then shots are fired.
The assassination just really threw the country into total disarray.