U.S., Caribbean leaders propose plan to lead Haiti out of crisis and toward elections

A group of countries, including the United States, Canada and several Caribbean nations, met in Jamaica on Monday and over a video conference with Haitian political and civic leaders came up with a plan to move the crisis-ridden country forward to elections.

The plan, which takes pieces from seven different proposals by Haitian leaders presented to leaders of the 15-member Caribbean Community regional bloc known as CARICOM, would set up a seven-member presidential panel that would appoint a new interim prime minister. Both the prime minister and the panel, which will also include two observers, will preside over the day-to-day governance of Haiti, a transition to elections and prepare for the arrival of a multinational security support mission.

“I think we can all agree that Haiti is on the brink of disaster,” Mohammed Irfaan Ali, the president of Guyana and chairman of CARICOM, said Monday during a break in the discussions with Haitian leaders. “We must take quick and decisive action here in this room to bring the situation under control and to return the country to the Haitian people.”

Representatives of the countries in attendance, he said, spent the entire day in meetings with the goal of presenting options and ideas to the people of Haiti “so they can refine and own the solutions that will be presented.

“The difficult decisions we make here today will have to be in the interest of the Haitian people,” Ali added.

The panel’s makeup would not include any of the leaders of the violent street gangs that have been carrying out an armed rebellion in Haiti. In control of large swaths of Port-au-Prince, armed groups — now estimated by the United Nations to number 300 throughout the country — have forced more than 340,000 people from their homes, and are exacerbating an already dire humanitarian situation.

“We had no engagement with any gang or gang leaders ...to the best of our combined knowledge,” Ali said, acknowledging that the gangs make up Haitian society and that has posed a challenge on how to address them.

Since the end of February, gangs have been waging war on key government institutions, overtaking police stations, orchestrating two massive prison breaks and targeting the airports, main port and the National Palace.

Their coordinated attacks have forced the suspensions of flights, prompted the departure of staff at foreign embassies in Port-au-Prince and led to the escape of thousands of inmates. Among the escapees are murderers, kidnappers, several notorious gang chiefs and the former head of President Jovenel Moïse’s presidential security detail, who was indicted last month in his July 7, 2021, assassination.

Insisting that Prime Minister Ariel Henry must resign, gang leaders are threatening civil war if he doesn’t. Henry, who has been locked out of Haiti amid the civil unrest, did not attend the Jamaica meeting. Late Monday, he released a video announcing his intentions to resign, along with his government, after the presidential panel is installed. Caribbean leaders and the U.S. had been pressuring him to step down, citing his inability to craft an agreement that would have led to a political transition.

On Monday gang leader Jimmy Chérizier, a former police officer who goes by the alias “Barbecue,” announced that he will soon attack the capital’s hotels, accusing them of harboring Henry’s government ministers.

The U.N. Security Council said Monday that the threats of violence against the police and members of the government are “unacceptable.” Urging the gangs to lay down their arms, the Security Council has called “for the perpetrators of these abhorrent acts to be brought to justice.”

In October, the Security Council endorsed the Multinational Security Support mission after Kenya volunteered to lead it with 1,000 law enforcement officers. But the deployment has been stalled by a legal challenge in Nairobi and a lack of funding. The U.N. said Monday that despite pledges, a trust fund to pay for the force only has $10 million. The U.S., meanwhile, is having trouble accessing the first $50 million out of $200 million it has pledged, amid questions from Republican lawmakers in Congress about the mission.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was in Kingston on Monday, said the U.S. plans to contribute another $100 million. Without providing details, he touted the creation of the presidential panel to lead Haiti’s transition, saying it would take concrete steps to identify the needs of the Haitian people and enable the deployment of the Kenya-led mission.

“What we’ve seen in recent days, again, should remind us that the already challenging and difficult security situation has now deteriorated even further, and makes the multinational support mission even more important than ever,” Blinken said. “I’m announcing today that the U.S. Department of Defense is doubling its approved support for the mission, from $100 million to $200 million, and that brings the total U.S. support to $300 million for this effort.”

Last week as Henry attempted to return to Haiti after traveling to Kenya to shore up an agreement for the deployment of the Kenyan police officers, the Biden administration asked him to resign.

The policy shift came after State Department officials attended a summit of Caribbean leaders days earlier in Guyana. The administration had put the Caribbean Community at the forefront of trying to broker a political consensus in Haiti.

After holding a series of meetings last week, Ali, the CARICOM leader, said Friday that while “considerable progress” had been made, Haiti’s political and civic leaders were still “not yet where they need to be” and that there was an “urgent need for a consensus to be reached.”

By the time he and six other Caribbean leaders began their meeting on Monday in Kingston, joined by Blinken, Canadian U.N. Ambassador Robert Rae Rae and others, including a high-level U.N. delegation, Haiti’s disparate political and civic leaders had not been able to come with a unified plan. Instead, they offered seven.

The Caribbean leaders and international representatives spent several hours meeting among themselves before getting on a Zoom call with the Haitians, who were unable to fly to Jamaica due to the suspended flights.

Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley opened the discussion. She laid out some of the key criteria for being a member of the panel that will have presidential powers: They cannot run in the next election. They cannot have been indicted or convicted of a crime in any jurisdiction. They cannot be under U.N. sanctions. And they must support the multinational security support mission to Haiti.

“Those serving on the presidential counsel will vouch to support the U.N. resolution” for the mission “to allow stability and security in Haiti,” Mottley insisted.

After asking for input from the Haitian leaders and hearing concerns from Canada about the lack of mention about those who have been sanctioned by Ottawa, Washington and others, Mottley moved onto the powers of the presidential panel and its configuration.

“This meeting is a work in progress,” Jamaica Prime Minister Andrew Holness said during a break. “Strong and decisive action, owned by the people of Haiti, must be taken to stem the seed of lawlessness and hopelessness before it is too late.

“The fear of the situation in Haiti worsening to become a civil war is now a real one,” he added.

At the conclusion of the meeting, which spanned nearly eight hours, Haitian leaders were told to provide names within 24 hours of people to serve on the panel. Among the groups to be represented are three political parties: Fanmi Lavalas, Pitit Dessalines and Engagés pour le développement, or EDE. There is also the Montana Accord, the coalition of civic groups and political parties; the December 21 Accord, which had backed Henry, and an alliance that includes the political party of former President Michel Martelly. Civic leaders and the religious communities will be observers.

The U.S, Canada and Caribbean leaders have insisted for more than two years that the solution to Haiti’s crisis, which has exploded into the unprecedented attacks by armed groups, should be led by Haitians. And although there were Haitians involved in the discussions, some critics said it was also clear that the “solution” is being put together by the United States and CARICOM.

“The dream of a Haitian solution to Haitian problems is dying today, and it may never have had a chance given the internal and external constellation of power,” said Robert Fatton, a Haiti-born expert and professor of political science at the University of Virginia.

Since the fall of the Duvalier dictatorship in 1986, “all the Haitian actors have claimed their sovereignty only to accept the ‘solutions’ of the international community,” he added.

Fatton also questioned whether a presidential coalition to move Haiti toward elections can succeed in the midst of the violence and chaos:

“Do they expect the gangs to abandon their guns?“