March 14, 2024

Haiti is currently experiencing a low-intensity civil war that has so far cost the prime minister the resignation. Under pressure from the international community, Ariel Henry, who is in Puerto Rico for fear of an assassination, announced Monday night that he will remain in office until the creation of a transitional presidential council and the formation of a new Government that will take the reins of a country in a very critical situation. Henry took office in 2021, following the assassination of then-president Jovenel Moïse at the hands of Colombian mercenaries. Since that moment he has not been able to stop the gang violence that has spread terror in Port-au-Prince. The criminal gangs had asked for his resignation as a condition for a truce and it now remains to be seen if that will reduce the kidnappings, murders and rapes that are taking place in broad daylight.

The country remains cut off from the outside following the main airports have been closed. The criminals have burned police stations, businesses, homes and on March 2 they attacked a prison from which 3,600 prisoners escaped. That was the beginning of a new wave of violence that the inefficient and poorly prepared Haitian security forces have not been able to confront. The matter has led to a humanitarian crisis. At this time, there is a shortage of fuel, water, food and basic necessities that have not been able to enter through the capital’s port, which remains closed. Hundreds of containers remain stranded.

The United States and neighboring countries have had to get involved in the crisis. The Caribbean Community (Caricom) has finally achieved Henry’s resignation, as it had been demanding for months, and the promise of the formation of a professional cabinet that is capable of holding, with a minimum of guarantees, presidential elections, which They have been impossible to organize since 2016 due to the instability of the country.

Henry’s resignation was announced almost at dawn by Irfaan Ali, the president of Guyana, who has acquired great international relevance despite representing a small country due to his confrontation with the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, who wants to take away Guyana two thirds of its territory due to an old border dispute. The council in whose hands the fate of Haiti is will be made up of seven members with voting rights and two without. Among those members with a voice in that cabinet is the party of Moïse Jean-Charles, an ally of a rebel leader who carried out a coup d’état in 2004, who was imprisoned in the United States for money laundering.

Truce with gangs

The international community knows that any hint of a truce requires negotiating with the gangs, which control most of Port-au-Prince. They used to dominate the poorest neighborhoods, but they have extended their power to the rest of the city. It is not realistic to think of a scenario of relative peace without reaching an agreement with them.

The revolt is led by Jimmy Chérizier, alias Barbecue, a former police officer who had threatened to unleash a civil war—this one of high intensity—if Henry did not make his position available. Alleged recordings of him eating human meat have circulated on social media. Although some are from a long time ago, they have provoked the reaction of presidents like the Salvadoran Nayib Bukele, who, emboldened by having put an end to the gangs in his country, believes that he might solve a crisis of this magnitude.

The Secretary of State of the United States, Antony Blinken, has insisted on the need to stop this chaotic drift with the establishment of a new Government that allows the institutions to remain standing, no matter how weak they may be. Right now there are no assembly members, whose term has expired in 2023 and due to lack of elections, they have not been able to be renewed. Blinken assured that the financial aid from the White House will be multiplied by two, which will bring the sum to 200 million dollars (183 million euros).

Henry lived his mandate with a continued lack of legitimacy, since he had assumed office following the murder of Jovenel Moïse in his own home, following being gagged and tortured. The murderers fled, but some were intercepted and beaten. Those who survived, white Latin Americans who were easy to identify on the streets, remain in prison awaiting a trial that might not be held due to the general crisis in Haiti.

In parallel, an attempt has been made to send an international military and police force to the country that would direct Kenya and be supervised by the United Nations. Until now it has not been able to be carried out due to the difficulty of organizing the logistics of a mission of this caliber, similar to those that intervened in the Balkan war in the 1990s. While waiting for solutions of this nature, Henry’s resignation opens the horizon to political agreements that pacify a nation that has reached unimaginable levels of violence.

In neighboring countries there are pressing challenges and problems, but nothing compared to what Haiti is experiencing. Your situation is extreme. To give you some information, 15,000 people have been left homeless in these weeks due to fires and looting. Lack of control and madness reign in the streets. An abused and left adrift population demands urgent solutions.

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