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FILE PHOTO: Street vendors carry goods for sale as they walk near the Presidential Palace after Haiti's Prime Minister Ariel Henry pledged to step down following months of escalating gang violence, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti March 12, 2024.
US evacuates citizens from Haiti
The US Embassy in Haiti evacuated more than 30 US citizens who were still in the country on Sunday, as unchecked violence shuttered all but one hospital in the capital.
A chartered flight left from the northern city of Cap-Haitien, where the airport has been occasionally functional. The State Department said it would continue chartering flights as long as it could do so safely. The airport in Port-au-Prince has been closed since gangs attacked it on March 4 to prevent the return of now-outgoing Prime Minister Ariel Henry.
Gangs have also ransacked and burned multiple hospitals in the capital. A BBC crew who went to the State University of Haiti hospital found no staff in the facility, which was full of patients, and at least one corpse.
Is there hope? Six parties confirmed they would participate in a transitional council to replace Henry, but former Senator Jean-Charles Moïse rejected the seat he was offered. Moïse said he prefers an alternate council organized by convicted drug trafficker Guy Philippe, which lacks international support.
It’s all talk until someone can tackle the heavily armed gangs. Haitian police say they mounted an attack against the most powerful gang leader and self-declared revolutionary, Jimmy Chérizier, aka Barbecue, on Saturday, but failed to kill or capture him.
Haiti's Prime Minister Ariel Henry speaks while addressing the nation, at an unidentified location on a date given as March 11, 2024, in this screengrab obtained from a handout video.
Haiti’s embattled prime minister resigns amid chaos
Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry announced his resignation overnight amid mounting international pressure for him to step down. The move follows weeks of civil unrest and violence by rival gangs in the Caribbean country.
Henry said he would turn over power to a transitional council made up of political leaders, the private sector, civil society, and a religious representative. The handover marks the end of Henry’s unelected term as Haiti’s acting president, a post he has held since President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated in 2021.
The precise membership of the transitional council has not been named, but the gangs that now control some 80% of Port-au-Prince, the capital, are now pushing to be included in the political solution. So is convicted drug trafficker Guy Philippe, who says he can bridge between the gangs and ordinary society.
The international community, however, is not eager to invite either to the table and is setting its hopes on a Kenyan-led intervention force to help the Haitian police win back control of the streets. Washington announced it would commit another $100 million to the force and $33 million in humanitarian aid, bringing total US pledges to $333 million.
A woman with a gunshot wound is transported by two men on a motorcycle as Haiti remains in state of emergency due to the violence, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti March 9, 2024.
Haitian Interior Ministry torched in weekend violence
Regional leaders are meeting Monday in Jamaica to discuss Haiti’s political crisis after intense violence in Port-au-Prince saw gangs burn down the country’s Interior Ministry this weekend. They also attacked police stations near the National Palace in offensives that have paralyzed the country. The US Embassy has evacuated non-essential staff.
Washington is pushing for a transitional council to replace unpopular Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who is stuck outside Haiti. He left for Nairobi on Feb. 25 to try to salvage a multinational intervention force to be led by Kenya. The leader of the largest gang coalition, Jimmy Chérizier (aka Barbecue), used Henry’s absence as an opportunity to play for power.
What happens now? Guyanese President Irfaan Ali, the president of regional bloc CARICOM, says he is in talks with Henry and other Haitian power players.
We expect Henry to step down – without support from Haitians, the US, or regional leaders, how can he hang on?
The tricky question is who comes next. Guy Philippe, a convicted drug trafficker who led the 2004 coup, is building support for his “National Awakening” movement, and some Haitians say he is in a position to negotiate with the gangs. But considering he’s fresh out of a US prison, don’t expect Washington to back him.A police officer patrols near the police headquarters as Haiti continues in a state of emergency, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti March 6, 2024.
Haiti’s gangs threaten civil war
Prime Minister Ariel Henry is refusing calls to resign and remains stranded outside Haiti while the leader of the country’s largest gang alliance, Jimmy Chérizier, threatens civil war.
Henry visited Nairobi last week in an attempt to secure a Kenyan-led intervention force to help bring peace to Haiti. But heavily armed gangs took advantage of his absence and launched assaults against Haiti’s two largest prisons and the international airport in Port-au-Prince, paralyzing the country. Henry has since tried but failed to return to Haiti.
Washington responded to the chaos on Wednesday, calling for an “urgent” political transition, and the UN Security Council met behind closed doors to discuss next steps. Henry’s predecessor, Claude Joseph, told CNN that political groups within Haiti are discussing a plan for a three-member transitional council that will select an interim president to organize elections.
Why the power vacuum? Haiti has not held polls since 2016, has no elected officials in office, and Henry and his government are widely seen as illegitimate. He came to power unelected after President Jovenal Moïse was assassinated in 2021 but has been unable to prevent men like Chérizier from seizing 80% of the capital and unleashing intense physical and sexual violence on ordinary Haitians.
Two names to watch: Guy Philippe and Chérizier. Philippe played a leading role in the 2004 coup and is pressing for a council of his choice to put him in power. Chérizier, however, is the man with the most firepower.
Danny Shaw, a Haiti expert at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, says Haitians don’t see Chérizier, aka Barbecue, as a panacea.
“Overwhelmingly within Haiti – besides Barbecue's own base down in Delmas – they say he's an opportunist. They say he's not trustworthy,” says Shaw.
During his recent visits, Shaw also hasn’t seen much enthusiasm for the long-awaited Kenyan-led police mission, which is again in doubt. Despite Washington’s efforts to stay at arm's length, Shaw says many Haitians fear the deployment will amount to a “US invasion and occupation in blackface” that will fail to resolve the nation’s crises.Lawyers sit in court as Kenya High Court Judge Chacha Mwita delivers his ruling, terming the Kenya government's intention to deploy police officers to lead a U.N. approved mission to Haiti as unconstitutional, at the Milimani law courts in Nairobi, Kenya January 26, 2024.
Kenyan court halts Haiti deployment
On Sunday, the US reiterated its support for a Kenyan-led police deployment to Haiti despite Nairobi’s High Court ruling on Friday that the government could not deploy it. The long-awaited decision casts severe doubt on the prospects for stabilization in the Caribbean country.
The court’s reasoning surprised all sides, circumventing the parliamentary opposition’s specific legal objections and focusing on the fact that Kenya did not have a bilateral agreement with Haiti to undergird the police deployment. The decision will prevent Kenyan police (and, more than likely, police from countries that had pledged to support Nairobi) from deploying immediately, but it leaves the door open to a future arrangement if an agreement can be sealed.
That’s easier said than done, seeing as the terms for all of Haiti’s elected officials expired over a year ago. Not to mention, perpetual power player Guy Philippe has been released from an American prison and sent back to Haiti, where he is already attempting to seize power.
He made a splash earlier this week by enlisting the loyalty of an odd force, Haiti’s armed environmental protectors. They attacked a customs office in northern Haiti this week before being repelled by the national police, and say they will support Philippe in his attempt to overthrow acting Prime Minister Ariel Henry.
Ordinary Haitians, meanwhile, are subject to rampant extortion, violence, and rape by the criminal gangs that control the capital and major cities, and impede humanitarian groups’ efforts.