Haiti faces further turmoil as PM says only he can appoint leadership counci

The US pledged to spend $300m to help fund a Kenyan-led security mission to Haiti following increases in gang violence across the nation.

Prior to his resignation, Prime Minister Ariel Henry visited Kenya to ask for security assistance. That prompted a gang-led effort to remove him from office.

Hours after Mr Henry announced he was stepping down, Kenya announced it would not send a security team unless a “sitting government” was in place in Haiti.

“The deal they signed with the president [William Ruto] still stands although the deployment will not happen now because definitely we will require a sitting government to also collaborate with,” Salim Swaleh, Kenya’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, told The New York Times.

Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier, the leader of the G9 gang that allied with other Haitian gangs to force the resignation of Prime Minister Ariel Henry, warned on 5 March of the violence that would come if Mr Henry remained in power.

He previously said “if the international community continues to support [Mr Henry], we’ll be heading straight for a civil war that will lead to genocide.”

“Either Haiti becomes a paradise or a hell for all of us. It’s out of the question for a small group of rich people living in big hotels to decide the fate of people living in working-class neighborhoods,” Mr Cherizier said.

Leaders from several Caribbean nations have been working to solidify a transitional council to lead Haiti in the wake of Ariel Henry’s resignation as Prime Minister.

The leaders called a meeting of Caricom, which represents 15 Caribbean countries, on Monday to discuss how to proceed.

Mohamed Irfaan Ali, the president of Guyana, said that “we still have a long way to go” before such a council is established.

Now-former Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry was not allowed to return to the nation after he left to ask for Kenya for help in the form of a security force to help stop gang uprisings.

Mr Henry took power in 2021 after the assassination of former President Jovenel Moïse, ostensibly as an interim until a new election could be called. However, he continually delayed elections, citing security issues in the country.

One of the demands of the gangs that organised and attacked government facilities and ransacked neighborhoods in recent days was that Mr Henry step down.

After his resignation, Kenya said it would not send its security force to Haiti until a sitting government is in place to coordinate their efforts.

Haiti is spiralling further into chaos after armed gang members freed thousands of prisoners, burned government buildings, and forced the prime minister to resign after he fled the country to seek help.

Dozens of people are dead and roughly 15,000 have been forced to flee their homes due to gang raids, according to The Associated Press, with many now facing dwindling supplies of food and water.

The violence escalated on 29 February when Haiti’s powerful criminal gangs, which already controlled large parts of the economy and most of the capital city, Port-au-Prince, launched a series of attacks on police stations, prisons, and other government buildings.

After all the capital’s international airports were seized by gangs, prime minister Ariel Henry was trapped outside the country and faced both domestic and international pressure to resign.

On 5 March, the leader of the unified gangs Jimmy Chérizier — known by his childhood nickname, “Barbecue” — threatened continued violence if Mr Henry did not step down.

He said “if the international community continues to support [Mr Henry], we’ll be heading straight for a civil war that will lead to genocide.”

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US embassy workers are being airlifted out of Haiti following widespread gang takeovers of the island and the resignation of Prime Minister Ariel Henry.

The US said “concerns” over the conditions — and the potential for continued violence — drove the decision to remove staff from the nation.

US officials and members of Caricom, a group of leaders representing 15 Carribbean nations, have been meeting over the last several days to address the spiralling crisis in Haiti.

US Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, a Democrat, was one of the voices calling for Prime Minister Ariel Henry to resign.

“We have to make sure that the Haitian people trust the process and that they feel that they are being protected and that the gangs will not be involved in any kind of transition government,” the Haitian-American representative said on Monday. She added that Mr Henry should hand over his post to a transitional government, according to the Miami Herald.

She also insisted that gang members should not get amnesty. “The gangs have consistently asked for amnesty. I believe that more people will be committed to working and fighting with the gangs if they think they are going to get amnesty,” she said during a news conference. “If we do that, I don’t believe that the Haitian people will ever believe that the international community has their best interests at heart.”

Haiti’s prime minister Ariel Henry has agreed to tender his resignation, regional Caribbean leaders said, amid weeks of spiralling violence in the country.

The prime minister has been under pressure to resign and has remained stranded outside the country in Puerto Rico due to surging violence and unrest in Haiti led by criminal gangs, who have taken control of much of the capital.

Mr Henry will stand down once a transitional government has been put in place, according to the chair of the Caribbean Community regional bloc Irfaan Ali, who is also president of Guyana.

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Global leaders, including US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, are expected to attend a meeting on Monday in Jamaica about Haiti’s future as it remains in a state of emergency following an attempted gang takeover.

Read more about the ongoing conflict here: