Haitians were on edge on Friday awaiting the naming of a transitional governing body meant to restore stability to the country, wracked by gang violence and largely isolated from the outside world.
Attacks in the capital, Port-au-Prince, continued overnight, targeting the airport and a top police official’s home, while residents mounted roadblocks in two spots to impede criminal gangs and signal their own frustration, a reporter saw.
Some are hoping a transitional council can fill the void left by departing Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who is leaving amid pressure from an offensive by gangs that control 80 percent of the capital.
Photo: Reuters
Yet many have decried the pending establishment of a transitional council, a move supported by the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the UN and the US.
“I’m in the street now and I’m very angry,” resident Francois Nolin said, adding that “the Americans are imposing certain conditions on us to run the country.”
“White people have no right to meddle in our affairs. Instead of making things better, they’ll make them worse,” said Jesula, a Haitian woman who declined to give her last name.
The country has a long, brutal history of foreign interventions, from a 20-year US occupation in the early 1900s to a deadly cholera outbreak linked to a UN peacekeeping mission in the 2010s.
An overnight curfew was extended until today in the Ouest Separtment, which includes Port-au-Prince, in an effort to “retake control of the situation,” the prime minister’s office said.
A state of emergency is set to end on April 3.
“There are great numbers of prison escapees in the streets,” Port-au-Prince resident Edner Petit said. “The situation is getting steadily worse. The decision to impose a month-long curfew is to be praised ... but it shouldn’t have had to come to that.”
Henry, whose term in office was marked by rising gang violence, announced Monday he would resign once the transitional council is stood up.
Then-Haitian president Jovenel Moise, who appointed Henry, was assassinated in 2021, and was never replaced. The country has not held elections since 2016 — another source of political frustration among the Haitian population.
CARICOM was holding an emergency meeting with representatives of Haiti, the UN and concerned countries including the US.
The meeting charged Haitian political groups with establishing the transitional governing body, and most of those groups have submitted the names of their chosen representatives, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday.
Members of the so-called Dec. 21 Accord, the group supporting Henry, have struggled to agree on a single nominee, but are in talks aimed at doing so.
The transition council is supposed to comprise seven voting members representing key political and private-sector forces in Haiti. It has been tasked with selecting an interim prime minister and nominating an “inclusive” cabinet.
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