PORT-AU-PRINCE -- The escalating street protests that have roiled the Republic of Haiti in recent days took a dramatic turn Feb. 13 as some 78 inmates in the Western district of Aquin staged a mass breakout.
Prison staff were reported to have been unable to call for support in the immediate wake of the breakout as understrength police forces were engaging with street protests that have broken out in cities and towns across Haiti.
The root of the crisis and the recent protest activity lay with allegations of large-scale corruption on the part of members of the Haitian Government. The Haitian Government had allocated some $4 billion in funding for social development projects as part of a complicated payment system organized in the mid-2000s involving the purchase of oil from Venezuela.
However, the ultimate destination of these funds has been long mired in uncertainty and there is scant evidence that any significant quantity has made its way toward actual development and social projects inside the country.
For months Haitian protestors have taken to the streets demanding that the sitting Government respond to and account for the allegations of corruptions, but protests and police has escalated in recent days toward violent confrontation.
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