“Madame, madame. They are putting fire everywhere. I just heard it on the radio.” It was late morning last Thursday and Monique Clesca’s gardener, Calixte, had come dashing into her home in the mountains above Haiti’s capital with hair-raising news. “He was in shock,” said the 71-year-old political activist and author. “I knew something was wrong even before he spoke.”
All afternoon, Clesca flicked between Port-au-Prince’s plethora of FM stations, trying to fathom the mayhem unfolding outside. Their progressively alarming broadcasts told of gang members with machine guns marauding through town, sending residents scattering for cover.
