Plans for an internationally-backed transitional government in Haiti appeared to be taking shape as the Caribbean nation’s police fought with powerful gangs for control of the capital’s streets.
UN secretary-general António Guterres welcomed reports on Thursday that all seven full members of Haiti’s transitional presidential council had been nominated, after days of delays. The body is charged with naming a temporary government to succeed Prime Minister Ariel Henry and convening elections in a country that has not voted since 2016.
At the same time, police claimed a rare success in their war on the gangs, killing a key ally of Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier, one of the most-feared warlords. Ernst Julme, head of the Delmas 95 gang, was shot dead in the capital, Port-au-Prince, during a police operation on Thursday, Reuters reported.
The poorest nation in the Americas, Haiti has suffered worsening violence and poverty since the assassination in 2021 of president Jovenel Moïse. Tens of thousands have emigrated, the economy has stagnated and drugs and arms traffickers have profited from the chaos. Gangsters over-ran the capital before Henry pledged this month to stand down, leaving a power vacuum.
During negotiations over the transitional administration, gangs have taken advantage of the lack of effective government to attack energy infrastructure, terrorise the streets and launch assaults on public buildings and civilians in their homes.
“The gangs think they have to be the main actors in decisions. They want to prove that they can attack the system and the oligarchy,” said Judes Jonathas, a consultant and former humanitarian worker in Haiti.
Pétion-Ville, an upmarket suburb, was repeatedly targeted: five corpses were seen in the area on Wednesday, news agencies reported, after at least a dozen people were killed and homes looted on Monday.
One body was found face down in the bed of a tap-tap, the colourfully painted pick-up trucks that serve as the city’s main forms of public transport, while others were left strewn on the streets.
“This is an act of defiance to show that even the most powerful are not beyond the reach of the gangs,” said Diego Da Rin, a Haiti analyst for the International Crisis Group.
Swaths of the capital lost power early this week after four substations were destroyed. The gangs, who control about 80 per cent of the capital, have also raided the main fuel terminal.
“The situation is crazy,” said James Saint-Cyr, a driver in the Tabarre neighbourhood. “The gang has control of everything.”
More than 33,000 people have fled the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area in the last two weeks, according to a report on Thursday by the UN’s International Organization for Migration.
Haiti remains virtually cut off from the outside world after the surge in gang violence in early March. Port-au-Prince’s airport is closed, the seaport at a standstill and the land border with neighbouring Dominican Republic closed to travellers.
Henry, stranded in Puerto Rico after the airport closure prevented his return from overseas, agreed earlier this month under heavy diplomatic pressure to resign and hand power to the transitional council, once it was formed.
Thursday’s apparent breakthrough on naming the transitional council came after Jean-Charles Moïse, a former senator and leader of the Pitit Desalin party, reversed an earlier decision not to take part and named a representative.
However, there are major doubts about the viability of the international plan for Haiti. A Kenyan-led multinational police force is supposed to back the transitional government and help restore order, but after months of delays, no date has been set for its arrival and there are questions over Nairobi’s commitment to the project.
The US this week began airlifting its citizens out by helicopter, after earlier evacuating non-essential embassy staff. UN agencies have also been drawing down non-essential personnel.
This week’s attacks in the Haitian capital came after Cherizier threatened politicians taking part in the transitional council under the deal stitched together by the Caribbean Community (Caricom) bloc with US backing. He said: “I’ll know if your kids are in Haiti, I’ll know if your wives are in Haiti, if your husbands are in Haiti,” Reuters reported.
More than 200 gangs operate in Haiti, raising funds through extortion and kidnappings; many are linked with drugs and arms dealers, as well as some local politicians.
Even if the security of the transitional council members could be guaranteed, some fear the new body may not be viable.
“I don’t see [the transitional council] functioning,” said Jacky Lumarque, rector of the Quisqueya private university in Port-au-Prince. “The organisations and political parties who are supposed to form the transition council have been fighting fiercely with each other for years.
“Now they are being put in the same room for one function: to make a quick decision [on a new cabinet]. It’s going to be a tremendous challenge.”
The UN has warned of growing risks to the 11.4mn Haitian population amid the crisis, which has led to a spike in hunger. Nearly half are missing meals, the UN’s World Food Programme has warned, with 1.4mn people at risk of famine. More than 360,000 people are displaced.
The gangs launched their biggest challenge to the government when they organised a mass jailbreak from the two main prisons early this month. Government buildings and police stations have been set ablaze, while entire neighbourhoods have been shut off by gangs who set up roadblocks with burning tyres.
Brumaire Enitte, who runs a women’s rights organisation in the impoverished Carrefour-Feuilles neighbourhood, had to flee with her family after gangs looted and burnt down nearby houses.
“You can imagine as adults we are traumatised by the sound of bullets all day and all night, so the children are traumatised too,” said Enitte, who is sleeping in a school repurposed as a refugee shelter. “It was in the middle of the night that the gangs invaded and we had no choice [but to flee] to save our lives.”
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