The announcement of Ariel Henry that he will resign as prime minister as soon as there is a transitional presidential council opened this Tuesday a new door on the difficult path of Haiti to try to overcome the acute crisis it is experiencing and the high levels of violence, which have increased even more in recent days.
Requests that Henry should abandon power had been going on for a long time, both among internal political movements and formations and among armed gangs, who claimed that this was precisely their ultimate objective.
Even in December 2022, Henry promised, through an agreement with representatives of political parties, civil society organizations and members of the private sector, to leave power on February 7, something that did not occur.
Everything was precipitated by pressure from abroad in favor of a transition for which, as announced in the last few hours, a council made up of seven members and two observers will be created, as decided at a meeting of the Caribbean Community (Caricom) in Jamaica with representatives of international partners such as France o USA (with the Secretary of State of EU, Antony Blinkenat the head) and of the HIM.
The members of this council will be appointed by the entities Colectivo 30 de Enero, Montana Agreement, Agreement of December 21, EDE/RED, political forces Avalanche family y Son of Desalin and the Private Sector, while the observers will represent the Regrouping for a National and Sovereign Entente (REN) and the Diaspora of Haitians abroad.
A council that the United States believes can be formed in the next 24 or 48 hours and which must then agree on the appointment of the new interim prime minister, which Washington hopes will occur “without further delay.”
Ariel Henry did not attend the Jamaica meeting on Monday and remained in Puerto Ricowhere he arrived a week ago after days with an unknown whereabouts, but early in the morning in a message to the nation he announced his resignation because, he said, “no sacrifice is too great for our country,” which “needs peace, stability, lasting development.” .
The governor of Puerto Rico, Pedro Pierluisiasked by the press about whether Henry has been granted political asylum, limited himself to saying that these decisions correspond to the Government of the United States and not that of the island, a territory with the status of a commonwealth.
Rejection of the formation of the presidential council
The news of the formation of the transitional presidential council did not please everyone and, thus, dozens of people demonstrated this Tuesday in Port-au-Prince in front of the Embassy of Canadaone of the key actors in Haitian politics along with USA y France.
The participants denounced this advice with banners and set up burning barricades on the roads.
Already on Monday, before the agreement of Kingstonthe powerful Jimmy Chérizieralias Barbecueon behalf of the coalition of armed gangs led by ‘Vivre Ensemble’ (Living Together)rejected the negotiations of the international community because it is the Haitian people “who must take destiny into their hands.”
Chérizier also rejected the intervention of foreign forces in Haiti, something that seems more distant after Kenya announced this Tuesday that it will postpone, until the “establishment of a new constitutional authority”, the deployment of its police in Haitian territory, who must lead the multinational security support mission approved by the UN last October.
On the opposite side, institutions such as the United Nations, through its Secretary General António Guterres, thanked the efforts to resolve the crisis in Haiti and asked to act responsibly in the implementation of the transitional council.
The European Union also welcomed “the important progress” made in Jamaica and called on Haiti to move towards “a viable political transition.”
Meanwhile, the Haitian population continues to suffer the violence of armed gangs, who have intensified their actions since February 28, when it was learned that Henry had delayed the holding of possible elections in the country until the end of August 2025.
There have been attacks on institutions, companies or prisons (more than 3,000 inmates escaped from two of them), which also targeted, although without success, the National Palace or the Ministry of the Interior, despite the state of emergency and the touch of curfew in force in the department of Oeste, where Port-au-Prince is located.
To all this we must add the critical situation of the poorest country in America, which led this Tuesday to World Food Program (WFP) of United Nations to warn that it “desperately” needs funding to be able to continue providing hot meals in Haiti, a country that is “on the brink of a devastating hunger crisis.” EFE (I)
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