This remained Ariel Henry, unelected and The much-hated Prime Minister, the official. Appointed by President Jovenel Moise days before Moise's still-unsolved assassination in 2021, Henry was scheduled to leave office on Wednesday, but has so far succeeded in derailing the political transition.
Amid this stew of instability, Haiti faces a new challenge: Guy Philippe.
The charismatic rebel leader, who in 2004 led the uprising that expelled then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide from the country forever, is now joining calls for Henry's ouster. He was released last year from a US prison, won the loyalty of an armed brigade in the Environment Ministry, last month called for “civil disobedience” across the country and appeared in the capital on Tuesday. Along with demonstrators demanding the Prime Minister's resignation.
Henry dismissed the Commander of the Protected Areas Security Brigade, a close ally of Philip, and ordered the agents to disarm. A BSAP agent in northern Haiti described the prime minister as “a rat that is going to die.”
“We tell the police and the army that we have no problem with them at all,” Jean-Pierre said Fritzner said in a video Posted last week on social media. “But if they set themselves against us, what happens to them is their responsibility.”
“Anything can happen,” Pierre Esperance, director of the National Network for the Defense of Human Rights in Haiti, told the Washington Post. “The situation could become more chaotic, with more violence, more attacks, and more death.”
Philippe, a former police chief in the northern city of Cap-Haitien elected to the Haitian Senate, was arrested in January 2017 and extradited to the United States to face federal corruption charges.
Phillip pleaded guilty in June 2017 to the money laundering conspiracy. He admitted that he received bribes to protect Colombian cocaine shipped through Haiti to Miami. He was sentenced to nine years in federal prison.
In Haiti, he was accused of launching deadly attacks on police stations in 2004 and 2016.
Philippe was released from federal prison in Georgia in September and returned to Haiti in November.
His release was “not really expected by Haitians” and it fell “like a bomb,” said Diego Da Ren, an analyst at the International Crisis Group.
Louis J. said: Romero, a former US diplomat in Haiti, said he was “totally baffled” by the decision to send him back.
“I'm sure there were legal considerations, so there may have been no legal options,” he said. “But I don't know how people didn't think outside the box and realize how devastating it would be for him to return to Haiti, especially this time,” he added.
In the weeks following Philippe's arrival, he traveled the country to rally support for the “revolution,” calling on Haitians to follow the example of protesters in Sri Lanka, who stormed the presidential palace in 2022 and forced President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to resign. He has criticized Western imperialism and pledged to end gang violence within 90 days. (He declined to explain how to do this.)
“the situation [in Haiti] “It's really terrible, and I think Guy Philippe is the wild card that could turn everything upside down,” Romero said.
Philip is not the only one calling for Henry's overthrow. Prominent leaders, including a former prime minister and former senator, called for a three-day protest this week to pressure… He has to step down.
In many communities, demonstrations have stopped Government buildings, companies and schools. Police used tear gas to disperse the protests, and there were reports of looting and setting fires to government buildings.
Henry had not yet been sworn in when Moise was killed in July 2021. But in the wake of the assassination, the Core Group, an informal bloc of envoys from countries including the United States, backed him to lead the country.
Henry supported what is known as the December 21, 2022 Agreement, which called for elections in 2023 and for a new government to take power on February 7.
Haiti was not safe to hold elections. However, opposition leaders said Henry must leave by that date, as important as the one in 1986. The Haitians successfully ousted the Duvalier dictatorship, and in 1991, Aristide, the first democratically elected president, was sworn in. It is stipulated in the Constitution as the date for the presidential transfer of power.
The United Nations office here reported last month that gangs, often armed with weapons smuggled from the United States, killed more than 4,700 people in 2023, a 119 percent increase from 2022. More than 1,600 police officers left the Haitian National Police last year, a decrease Compared to 2022. The UN office described it as “worrying”.
The UN Security Council supported the Kenyan-led police mission to restore order. But that plan suffered a setback last month when Kenya's Supreme Court ruled that such deployment was unconstitutional. The Kenyan government said it would appeal the ruling.
The question now is whether Philippe's call for “revolution” will gain acceptance beyond his traditional support, Da Ren said. In the past, elites have exploited growing social unrest to fund destabilizing demonstrations, but many of them Now under sanctions.
One businessman in northern Haiti said Philippe had reached out to several people in the private sector for financing. The leader, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive issue, said those approached by Philip see him for the first time as “a real competitor to Ariel Henry.”
Roberto Alvarez, foreign minister of the neighboring Dominican Republic, warned the UN Security Council last month of “new political movers.” [in Haiti] who present themselves as Christians.”
He said that these people “act in an opportunistic manner, and are as destructive and destabilizing as gangs.” These sectors went so far as to call for rebellion and civil disobedience, which exacerbated the political dimension of the Haitian crisis.
Analysts said what was particularly worrying was the rise of BSAP and the alliance of some clients with Phillip.
The brigade, part of the National Agency for Protected Areas, was created to protect environmentally sensitive areas such as sand quarries and forests. But its heavily armed agents have been accused of acting beyond their powers and violating human rights.
In 2022, the Ministry of the Environment revoked BSAP agent badges following the Haiti news The media reported repeated instances of “insensitive behavior” by customers.
Moïse placed loyalist Jeantal Joseph in charge of the brigade and sought to turn it into his own armed force. There is a history here of leaders having their own paramilitary forces.
BSAP is “practically a gang,” Esperance said.
Last month, Henry fired Joseph and banned BSAP agents from carrying weapons in public.
BSAP leaders say only the elected president can issue such decrees. At least five agents were killed in clashes with police during demonstrations this week.
Mislin Fagasi, head of the BSAP in the South, dismissed the discussion of disarmament of the BSAP as “rumour”.
Joseph told The Post that he was challenging his dismissal in court. He said the Haitian people stand by his side in the battle to “liberate the country.”
He made a historical comparison.
“If Ariel Henry does not leave power, these residents will enter it [his residence] “And they took it in the same way as it happened during the presidency of Guillaume Vilbrun,” Joseph said. A mob assassinated Sam in 1915 and paraded his butchered body in the streets.
This event prompted US President Woodrow Wilson to send the Marines.
The United States invaded Haiti, imposed martial law, installed a friendly president, took control of key institutions, and occupied the country for nineteen years, safeguarding American interests and killing hundreds of thousands of Haitians but overseeing only a modicum of development.
