Embattled Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry on Tuesday agreed to resign when a transitional presidential council is formed, bowing to international pressure as his nation is consumed by brutal gang warfare.
Henry, a 74-year-old former neurosurgeon who landed in power after the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in 2021, announced he would step down after an emergency meeting with officials from Caribbean nations and the US over the crisis in Haiti.
“Haiti wants peace. Haiti wants stability,” said Henry — who is currently in Puerto Rico, unable to finish his journey home after an official trip to Kenya because of the crisis. “Haiti needs to rebuild democratic institutions.
Haiti’s Prime Minister Ariel Henry said he would resign once a transitional presidential council is created. AP“I’m asking all Haitians to remain calm and do everything they can for peace and stability to come back as fast as possible,” he added.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said during Monday’s regional powow that the formation of a transitional council is necessary to stave off the escalating violence in Haiti after gang leaders seized control of more than 80 percent of the capital of Port-au-Prince.
A group of power gangs, including one led by a ruthless leader nicknamed “Barbecue,” has vowed to continue to wreak violence at least until Henry is out.
The US backed a call for the United Nations to intervene and provide security, aid and logistical resources to Haiti, with Blinken hopeful that the mission would be deployed soon to reinforce the Haitian National Police, the Washington Post said.
The UN mission is aimed at helping “create the security conditions that are necessary to hold free and fair elections, to allow humanitarian assistance to get to people who need it, and to help put Haiti back on a path to economic opportunity and growth,” Blinken said.
The Prime Minister has been unable to enter Haiti because the violence closed its main international airports. APThe secretary of state added that the US would contribute $100 million to the mission, along with an additional $33 million in humanitarian aid.
Haiti’s presidency has remained vacant since Moise’s assassination, with Henry, who was never elected to the office, serving the longest single term of any prime minister since the nation’s constitution was ratified in 1987.
Henry’s leadership has been challenged by the gangs that operate in the nation’s capital, with the most notorious being the “G9 and Family” gang run by Jimmy Chérizier.
Chérizier, a 47-year-old former member of the Haitian national police who goes by the moniker “Barbecue,” touted himself as a man willing to “make an alliance with the devil” to take control of the nation after the violent upheaval.
Some claim his nickname comes from his penchant for setting his victims on fire, though he says it’s an old moniker his mother gave him as a boy.
After news of the UN’s intent to intervene in Haiti, Chérizier told reporters that it would only “plunge Haiti into further chaos.
“We Haitians have to decide who is going to be the head of the country and what model of government we want,” he said. We are also going to figure out how to get Haiti out of the misery it’s in now.”
Gang violence has left police stations and government buildings charred and destroyed, with the mobsters carrying out systematic rape, and indiscriminate kidnappings and murders.
More than 15,000 residents have been left homeless by the gangs’ raids in the past week, the UN estimates, on top of the roughly 300,000 people who were displaced when the violence erupted to new heights last year.
The chaos has also resulted in the escape of nearly 4,000 prisoners who were being held at the National Penitentiary after the gangs stormed the facility.
With Post wires
