By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

The Problem With Haiti

We extensively covered Haiti and concluded that Haitian politics and government at all levels have become so enmeshed in and dependent on graft, gunrunning, drug smuggling, and gang violence that it is nearly impossible to disentangle them. All this depletes the state’s capacity to provide critical social services for Haiti’s more than 11 million people if the current leaders had any will to do so.

Ariel Henry:

The current Prime Minister Ariel Henry is a product of this corrupt political system. He was implicated in the murder of President Jovenel Moïse.

Today streets were blocked off by burning tires and rocks, sending up huge plumes of black smoke in the sky across various parts of the city, according to Reuters eyewitnesses.

The surge in gang violence forced Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, under lockdown on Thursday. Locals reported flaming barricades blocking streets, and the National Police released a video showing officers exchanging gunfire with suspected gang members. Port-au-Prince’s Solino neighborhood has become the epicenter of the multiday siege, which has killed around 24 people, with many residents sheltering in place.

Gangs now have control over an estimated 80 percent of Port-au-Prince. Last year, nearly 4,000 people were killed by suspected gangs across the country, and another 3,000 people were kidnapped. Although United Nations peacekeeping forces drove gangs out of Solino in the mid-2000s, former President Jovenel Moïse’s work with gangs, a devastating 2010 earthquake, Moïse’s assassination in July 2021, and subsequent political infighting have all returned significant power to organized crime.

Interim Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry has begged for international assistance to quell the violence, including a plan for a Kenyan-led multinational force backed by the U.N. Security Council. But calls for Henry to step down have curtailed the prime minister’s efforts. His rule is set to expire on Feb. 7, and Haitian opposition leader Moïse Jean Charles has urged residents to protest Henry’s reign in the coming days.

Henry must hand over power when the deadline arrives or risk losing legitimacy. Without a new government in place, it is still unclear who will take power if he leaves. When Henry consolidated control in 2021, he was tasked with forming a new government and holding national elections. Two years ago, he called for renewed efforts to organize elections on the same day that Moïse’s term would have ended had he not been assassinated. Elections, though, were repeatedly postponed, which many regional experts accuse Henry of purposefully doing to lengthen his tenure.

 

 

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