Caribbean Community (Caricom) leaders are set to meet virtually this week to collaborate with varied Haitian stakeholders about the establishment of an interim government until fresh general elections are held, possibly late next year, after members, as expected, sent key political and legal documents to the bloc at the weekend.
Officials said the nine-member council, which includes representatives from the private sector, religious organizations, and seven political parties or groups, delivered a legal decree and a political accord to regional bloc Chairperson and Guyanese President Irfaan Ali on Sunday. This gave Haitians information about the interim presidential council: how it will function, its creation, and its objectives. The decree has to be published in the country’s official gazette to allow the council to operate legally.
Officials were translating it for perusal. The decree and accord will both will then be passed to outgoing Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who has been in Puerto Rico for the past month, unable to get safely back into Haiti because armed gangsters, who have threatened to kill him if he returns, also control the main airport, preventing his return from trips to Guyana and Kenya. Henry will pass the documents to the council, paving the way for the council’s installation and swearing-in in the coming days.
Once this is done, Henry, who succeeded President Jovenel Moise after Moise was assassinated in July 2021, will step down as prime minister. He was never elected nor sworn in as PM, but had been identified by Moise to be his PM before his murder, so he has no real legal standing.
Ali, meanwhile, is expected to meet virtually with a small group of prime ministers and the three-person Eminent Persons Group (EPG) of former prime ministers to discuss the next steps as leaders push for urgency on the part of the interim council. The EPG has held close to a year of negotiations on behalf of the 15-nation bloc with politically warring Haitian stakeholders. Nearly all had demanded Henry’s removal as a precondition for participating in the talks.
The group is composed of Kenneth Anthony of St. Lucia, Perry Christie of the Bahamas, and Bruce Golding of Jamaica. They have visited Haiti several times since mid-last year and also hosted dozens of stakeholders in Jamaica.
Once installed and sworn in, the council will choose a prime minister and a president, and get down to some very important tasks, including sending formal invitations to the United Nations to deploy an international security force that would take on the armed gangs roaming the country. Various governments that have committed troops and police officers have said they would not send any personnel unless there is a formal central authority to report to and that would liaise with ground commanders.
The interim government will also set up a security council that would oversee the stabilization of the nation of 11 million people.
Over the weekend, the transitional council issued a statement assuring Haitians that they are on track and would work assiduously on behalf of the people. It was signed by all nine members and included:
“This agreement, which has been harmonized with the decree document on the organization and operation of the CPT, will be immediately signed by the stakeholders, and then the two documents will be officially transmitted to the government, via CARICOM, the body facilitating the dialogue process. The political agreement expresses a common vision of the transition constructed by the sectors and represents a responsible commitment to the Haitian people. It indicates the broad outlines of the road map for the transition period that the presidential council will be responsible for executing, jointly with the next consensus government, with the aim of putting the country back on the path to stability, peace, union, and progress.”
The body said the transition is based on values and principles such as inclusion, citizen participation, integrity, peace, respect, and protection of the nation. The agreement also presents the mode of political governance of the transition, as well as its mission, its vision, and the main responsibilities of its institutional structures.