Haiti’s leader says he will resign under mounting pressure

Haiti’s prime minister, who is under increasing pressure to resign as gangs have overrun the country, said late Monday that he would resign once a transitional council is in place, paving the way for the election of a new president and to help restore stability. .

“The government I lead will immediately withdraw after the installation of this council,” Prime Minister Ariel Henry said a speech on social media. Referring to the chaos in Haiti, he said: “It hurts and revolts us to see all these people dying. The government I lead cannot remain insensitive to this situation.”

But it was far from clear when Mr. Henry, under mounting pressure to resign both in Haiti and abroad, would actually do so.

Leaders from Caribbean countries, who have taken the initiative to create a transition council, met for talks in Jamaica on Monday but said no plan had yet been finalized. Guyana’s President Mohamed Irfaan Ali, who heads Caricom, a union of 15 Caribbean countries, said “we still have a long way to go.”

This was announced by Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, who attended the meeting in Kingston, the capital of Jamaica. that the United States would provide an additional $100 million in aid for a United Nations-backed multinational security mission to be deployed to Haiti. He also pledged an additional $33 million in humanitarian aid, bringing U.S. pledges to $333 million.

“We can help. We can help restore a foundation of security,” Mr. Blinken said. “Only the Haitian people can do that, and only the Haitian people should determine their own future, and no one else.”

Mr Henry left Haiti for Kenya in early March to finalize an agreement for the multinational force, led by the East African nation, to deploy and tackle the gangs. Since then, he has been stranded outside his country as gang members wreak havoc and demand his resignation.

Mr. Henry, who was in Puerto Rico, did not attend Monday’s meeting and it was unclear whether he had participated in the discussion remotely.

After months of delays, Haiti and Kenya signed an agreement this month to move forward with the deployment of 1,000 Kenyan police officers to the Caribbean country. Kenya’s President William Ruto said his country has a “historic obligation” to continue because “peace in Haiti is good for the world as a whole.”

Kenyan Home Affairs Minister Kithure Kindiki announced on Monday that the mission was in the “pre-deployment phase” and that all other programs and enforcement measures related to the deployment were already in place.

However, so far there is no clear timetable for when the multinational force will be deployed.

“We are deeply saddened that it is already too late for too many people who have lost far too much at the hands of criminal gangs,” said Andrew Holness, the Prime Minister of Jamaica. “The fear that the situation in Haiti will worsen into a civil war is now real. We all agree that this should not happen, not in our hemisphere.”

Haiti has entered a state of extreme unrest since the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse sparked widespread gang violence. To date, the country has no president nor other elected national officials.

Mr Henry was sworn in as prime minister just two weeks after Mr Moïse’s assassination. But Haitians have not yet succeeded in electing a democratically elected successor.

The current unrest is on a scale not seen in decades. The recent escalation of violence, mob attacks on police stations and even coordinated attacks on two prisons, has left Haitians facing a humanitarian disaster as access to food, water and health care has been severely curtailed.

US forces evacuated non-essential US citizens from the US Embassy in Port-au-Prince and added more security personnel over the weekend, according to a statement from the Defense Department’s Southern Command. It said no Haitians were involved in the airlift.

André Paultre contributed reporting from Port-au-Prince, Haiti.