“Zombie uprising” in Haiti, Port-au-Prince, Apr 27, 2020

“Zombie uprising” in Haiti, Port-au-Prince, Apr 27, 2020
Active and retired police officers from the group “Fantom 509” start protests over COVID19 work conditions. Protesters storm state offices and burned government vehicles today, expanding violence. Paramilitary group “Fantom 509” is so-called “voodoo police”, they consider themselves already dead, under the command of Baron Samedi, a lwa of Haitian Voodoo, and fighting to traditional Haitian values.

“Fantom 509” members protesting behalf of police and security personnel to demand better work in view of Covid-19 pandemics: the government should pay them the money, to put a credit, to increase a salary and retirement benefits.

"We are already dead, but we're fighting for our fellow officers who are alive...our mothers who are alive." – say “zombie-policeman”. Protesters opening fire at parked vehicles, which then caught fire & breaking into finance Ministry buildings in the Haitian capital. Buildings of the Ministry of Economy and Finance, the National Identification Office (ONI), the National Office of 'Assurance-Vieillesse (ONA) and the Ministry of Religious Affairs, as well as the number of local administrative offices were seriously damaged. Some injured people had been reported.

Formally, we can see a classic case of competition for symbolic resources through expanding of chaotic violence in society with fatally destroyed institutions, chronically degraded social environment, distorted social communications, and accordingly – with catastrophic economic and political situation. Upraised “zombie-cops” aggressively demand exclusive preferences for their group, to enhance their status in the existing social hierarchical structure, but not to change the social structure that reproduces injustice, which they seem to suffer from. So, in the society, where symbolic division into slaves and slaveholders is stably maintained through the dominance of criminal structures, this struggle can be endless.