Haiti gets a new PM; vows to get things moving

As troops and police officers from Kenya and other nations around the world prepare to deploy to strife-torn Haiti in the coming weeks, the country now has a newly appointed prime minister and he has vowed to begin work to restore peace and stability to the island.

Garry Conille was selected as the PM at the end of last month by the transitional or interim government which fellow Caribbean nations had helped to set up in the past three months, as gangs were stepping up their control of large parts of the capital.

Conille arrived in Haiti at the weekend from Panama where he was working as UNICEF’s regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean. He now has the unenviable task of setting up a government to replace the administration of former Prime Minister Ariel Henry who had resigned once the interim administration was established.

In a prerecorded video address made before he had landed on a Sunrise Air flight from Florida, Conille said he and other members of the interim administration are ready for the task ahead. “Today, I stand before you with great humility and a profound sense of responsibility and commitment to our beloved country. Our journey ahead is fraught with challenges, but together, we can rebuild and restore hope for a brighter future. I would not accept this responsibility if I could not count on the solidarity of all Haitians. Accompanied by all the presidential council members, I will do my best to ensure that this transitional period is successful.”

The new PM is getting to work as some small, but key, aspects of commercial life begin to return to Haiti. In the past few weeks, Sunrise Air and American Airlines both began flying into the main international airport in the capital. For American Airlines, it meant that its service had resumed after pausing nearly three months ago due to gang violence; armed gangsters had blocked key arteries to the airport and had threatened violence against staff.

“It is with a feeling of pride that my staff and I are happy to see planes returning internationally to Toussaint Louverture International Airport after three months of inactivity,” Yves Ducarmel, director general of the National Airport Authority, said at the welcoming ceremony for American Airlines. Commercial flights had been largely operating from other large airports in the north but gangs had been shooting at vehicles heading there, making the journey for passengers a treacherous one.

As the team gets down to work, regional leaders, who had helped to broker the interim administration at their summit in Jamaica in March, welcomed the latest developments in a statement over the weekend as “another important step forward on the path to free and fair elections and the return to constitutional order in Haiti.” 

The statement continued: “Aware that there are still many challenges ahead, CARICOM expresses its support for the new prime minister-designate and reiterates its commitment of support to the transitional presidential council and to the people of Haiti. CARICOM looks forward to the early completion of the process to officially establish the institutions of transitional governance in accordance with the agreement of March 11, 2024.”

Conille studied medicine in Haiti and also attended University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill and Columbia University in New York. Regional leaders said he has their full backing as the council works to restore order with the help of the international community.

“CARICOM commends the council for putting the interest of the country and the people of Haiti above all else. This will remain a paramount objective as the TPC, working with Prime Minister Conille, continues to move forward in restoring security and in establishing the critical broadly representative institutions necessary for the delivery of public services, the provision of humanitarian relief, facilitating socio-economic improvement, and the holding of free and fair elections in a timely manner,” the statement concluded.