His foreign minister just abruptly resigned. A deadly wave of violence between fighting guerrilla groups is endangering his nation’s hard-won peace accord, and 17 of his countrymen, former soldiers accused in the July 2021 assassination of Haiti President Jovenel Moïse, are locked up in a Haitian jail.

Nevertheless Colombian President Gustavo Petro doesn’t seem to be letting any of it stop him from visiting Haiti. Petro is scheduled to arrive in Haiti on Wednesday, a country whose historic link to Colombia he always touts — but that is also reeling from a security, humanitarian and political crisis since his soldiers from his own nation were accused of killing its president.

The daylong visit is scheduled to take place in the city of Jacmel. Located on the southeastern coast, the port city was once home to both Francisco de Miranda and Simón Bolívar, the self-appointed liberators of South America who launched their freedom movements from its shores in the early 19th century.

Haitian authorities, who visited Colombia in December, say they are trying to strengthen relations with the country, even as it undergoes its own crisis. They’ve noted that its experience with guerrilla groups can serve as a lesson, and they hope to be able to purchase arms for their beleaguered security forces. They also point to a new port that the Caribbean nation officially inaugurated last week in the south, a project that officials believe can open trade between the two nations.

“We are working with the government of Haiti on seven cooperation agreements,” Colombia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Jorge Rojas Rodríguez said Tuesday in a post on the social media site X, from Jacmel.

Still, the timing of the visit has raised eyebrows — and expectations. Both countries are currently experiencing their own violent upheaval after Petro, a former guerrilla, suspended negotiations with rebels last week and their attacks left at least 80 dead and 18,000 displaced in Colombia’s Catatumbo region. On Tuesday many were unsure about whether Petro, who has vowed war on left-wing guerrillas amid the frightening wave of violence, would even make the trip.

But among the families of the Colombians jailed in Haiti, the trip has offered hope. Accused of assassinating Moïse after storming his residence in the middle of the night, the Colombians were only formally charged last year, February. And until armed gangs, weeks later, raided their prison, they were kept in decrepit, inhumane conditions since their arrest two years earlier.

“We hope that in his agenda for the meeting is the issue of the transfer of the 17 military members that have been accused of being involved in the killing of the president. That is in essence what we are asking for and what we have been working toward during the last three years,” Milena Carmona, wife of Second Lt. Jheyner Alberto Carmona Flores, one of the accused, told the Miami Herald.

Carmona and other family members said they do not know the reason for Petro’s visit to Haiti, but they want concrete actions as a result.

“We cannot continue to have 17 people in limbo, in a country without any institutions, and where everyone already knows that they will not reach a happy ending,” Carmona said.

Neither county has publicly raised the matter of the Colombians, who have insisted on their innocence. A source in the previous government said that the matter of release had been approached with Haiti, but Leslie Voltaire, the current head of the Transitional Presidential Council said in an interview this week that neither freedom nor amnesty has been discussed.

“That has never been discussed,” said Jacques Ambroise, spokesman for the presidential council.

Since coming into power a year after Moïse’s shocking death, Petro has repeatedly talked about the historic ties between Colombia and Haiti. In August, he attempted to visit during the inauguration of President Luis Abinader in the neighboring Dominican Republic. His team told Haitian officials at the time that he wanted to lay a wreath for Moïse at the National Pantheon Museum, where the country’s independence heroes are featured, along the Champ-de-Mars public square in Port-au-Prince. Then prime minister, Garry Conille, however, said that security forces could not accommodate the visit, which included an entourage of more than 50 individuals at the time.

Now the visit, smaller in size, is planned for Jacmel, the seaside town on the southeastern coast that played a pivotal role in the liberation of Colombia and other South America nations.

Jacmel’s historical ties with South America

Two years after Haiti won its freedom from France in 1804, Miranda, considered to be the precursor of Venezuela’s independence, stitched the country’s first flag in Jacmel and set sail from the port city on what would be a failed expedition to free his country and other nations from Spanish rule.

A decade later, Bolívar, inspired by Miranda, arrived in the city. With the help of Alexandre Pétion, the then-ruler of southern Haiti, Bolívar would also set sail from Jacmel; this time with guns and Haitian soldiers to free South America.

“Haiti was the first country in the Americas to free slaves, the second to achieve its independence on the continent and Alexandre Pétion, was the first Haitian general who supported Bolívar in consolidating the liberation of Colombia from the Spanish yoke,” Rojas said after arriving onboard a Colombian military aircraft.

In preparation for the visit, Voltaire and the government pulled out all stops. For weeks, the neglected city, which lacked electricity for three years, underwent a face-lift. The long-neglected trash-strewn streets were cleaned for the first time in years, government offices were reopened and hotels received the first guests, in months. The government has reportedly spent more than $3.8 million on the visit, including lengthening the short runway so that the city’s small airport can accommodate Petro’s Wednesday morning arrival, and future airplanes with 40-seats.

But as decorators on Monday put the finishing touches on gathering rooms, draping them in the colors of the Colombian flag, in Port-au-Prince, the capital, the judicial process around the president’s murder was moving painstakingly slow. The former soldiers have filed an appeal contesting their indictment and after a hearing was postponed last week, all were back in court with their lawyer.

That same day, Petro’s foreign minister, Luis Gilberto Murillo, announced his resignation.

In a joint statement on social media, the families of the jailed Colombians, issued a plea both to Murillo and his successor, Laura Sarabia, not to abandon their loved ones.

“With our hearts in our hands, we implore you, in the process of handing over the position of Foreign Minister, to consider as a priority and as a humanitarian necessity the difficult situation of our relatives, retired military personnel, unjustly detained in Haiti,” the families said in the message.

“We ask that the efforts that are being made continue with the same firmness and dedication, trusting that they will reach a good conclusion and will restore hope and justice to our families. We cling to your sensitivity and leadership to make this a priority case,” they added.

José Espinosa, who heads an association of retired military officers known as Mipofaamcol and had been fighting for the officers’ transfers, said he hopes that the new foreign minister will take up the matter. He doesn’t see how, he said, Wednesday’s visit by Petro to Haiti can end without the ex-soldiers’ fate coming up.

“We believe it will be in address in the meeting because there is a motion we introduced before the Attorney General’s Office, which led that office to ask the foreign ministry to work on behalf of all Colombians detained around the world, including those in Haiti and in Mexico and those that have been kidnapped in Venezuela,” Espinosa said.

Not everyone, however, wants the Colombians released — or thinks they are innocent.

In a post on X, Joverlein Moïse, the son of the late Haitian president, denounced the appeals court hearing as a ruse to release the accused and directed his comments at their Haitian lawyer, Natalie Dérisca, who has been seeking their freedom.

“What freedom?” he asked on X, declaring that the Colombians should remain in prison until the process is over.

“Any other decision is an insult to every single Haitian and to our sovereignty as a people.”

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