Haiti prime minister holds on as police kill 5 rogue agents amid protests, gun battle

At least five members of a rogue security brigade seeking the ouster of Haiti’s prime minister died Wednesday in an exchange of gunfire with police, who spent a third day beating back violent protests across the country.

Lionel Lazarre, the head of SYNAPOHA, a police union, said Haiti National Police also arrested three agents of the Protected Areas Security Brigade, known as BSAP, and confiscated one of their vehicles. Police and brigade members found themselves engaged in a deadly gun battle in Laboule, a hillside community above the capital of Port-au-Prince, early Wednesday as anti-government protests continued to rage across the country.

Agents of the state environmental brigade are supposed to protect Haiti’s border areas and endangered pine forests. But some have gone rogue, joining forces with a former rebel leader and political opponents of Prime Minister Ariel Henry to demand his ouster from office Wednesday, Feb. 7. During a protest through the streets of Miragone, a rural community south of the capital, a leader of the brigade confirmed the deaths of his fellow agents and warned that if Henry doesn’t step down they would set fire to the country.

For now, Henry, a neurosurgeon who came to power after the July 7, 2021, assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, appeared to be holding on despite the demands for him to relinquish power. In a national address aired on Thursday after midnight, Henry called for calm and said the police is “working tirelessly to curb insecurity” and “the government is doing everything it can to give our security forces more means, more equipment to solve the number one problem for all of us today, which is insecurity.”

He added: “A transition cannot lead to another transition,” invoking a position expressed in recent days by the international community, which has said Haiti needs to be planning for elections and not a longer transition.

“All of those who refuse the dynamic that will lead us to the election route, all those who decide to use violence to destroy people, to kill people, to take power are not working in the interest of the Haitian people,” Henry said. “The Haitian people need jobs, the Haitian people need to move freely throughout the country to settle their affairs. The Haitian people need their children to go to school.”

The prime minister said he plans to continue speaking to Haitians across the political spectrum, along with members of civil society, grassroots organizations and the private sector to address the ongoing political deadlock and to work on improving the security situation so that Haiti can hold elections and return to democratic order.

“Once the security problem begins to resolve, we will launch the electoral process so that we will turn over the power to the leaders of the Haitian people,” Henry said.

Wednesday marked 38 years since Haiti expelled dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier and ended the family’s tyrannical reign. Five years later, the country had its first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Feb. 7 has since become the date a new president assumes office, and after assuming power after Moïse’s death, Henry had promised that he would be turning over power to an elected president on Feb. 7, 2024.

But the promise was conditioned on Haiti being able to hold elections as part of a Dec. 21, 2022, political accord Henry signed to consolidate his power in the absence of an elected president or parliament.

In the 14 months since the accord was signed, Haiti has been mired in political gridlock, with Henry and his opponents unable to expand the agreement to reach a broader political consensus to move toward elections. Many Haitians, angry over the country’s dire situation, have tried to hold the prime minister to his word.

Earlier in the week, political parties announced three days of mobilization aimed at ousting Henry. In cities around the country protesters set fire to government buildings, blocked roads with overturned vehicles and flaming barricades, looted buildings and attempted to stage a sit-in in front of the prime minister’s office.

In each instance, anti-riot units of the Haiti National Police fought back, firing tear gas and in some cases shooting at protesters.

While members of the international community have downplayed the significance of Feb. 7, they also were keeping a close eye on events. On Wednesday, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres continued to called for the rapid deployment of an armed international force to help the Haiti’s police battle armed gangs. Haiti was among the countries he mentioned during remarks to the General Assembly on priorities for 2024.

“In Haiti, lawlessness is surging and millions face acute food insecurity,” Guterres said. “The Multinational Security Support mission must be deployed without delay and I hope all obstacles will be removed, and I also urge Member States to provide the necessary financial support.”

Eight Democratic members of the U.S. Senate issued a statement outlining their worries about the ongoing political paralysis. They called on Henry and his government “to take serious and concrete steps, alongside major opposition actors, to lay the groundwork for the creation of a transition consensus government capable of holding” elections.

“Today should have marked the presidential inauguration of the first democratically elected Haitian leader since the assassination of Jovenel Moïse in July 2021 following commitments from the de facto government of Ariel Henry to hold elections in 2023 under the December 21 accord,” the lawmakers said. “However, rather than today being a celebration of Haitian democracy, continued waves of murders, kidnappings and sexual assaults by violent gangs — often using U.S.-made weapons — have made it impossible for the Haitian people to hold free, fair, and democratic elections.”

The lawmakers are: Ben Cardin of Maryland, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois; Tim Kaine of Virginia; Jeff Merkley of Oregon; Cory Booker of New Jersey; Chris Van Hollen of Maryland; Peter Welch of Vermont, and Chris Murphy of Connecticut.