The Riverside Press-Enterprise
Blinken, Caribbean leaders debate how to quell crisis
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken huddled with Caribbean leaders in Jamaica behind closed doors on Monday to urgently help find a way to ease Haiti’s growing violent crisis as embattled Prime Minister Ariel Henry faces calls to resign or agree to a transitional council.
The closed-door meeting did not include Henry, who has been locked out of his own country while traveling abroad, due to surging unrest and violence by criminal gangs who have overrun much of Haiti’s capital and closed down its main international airports.
Henry remained in Puerto Rico and was taking steps to return to Haiti once feasible, according to a brief statement from the U.S. territory’s Department of State.
While leaders met behind closed doors, Jimmy Chérizier, considered Haiti’s most powerful gang leader, told reporters that if the international community continues down the current road, “it will 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,” said Chérizier, a former elite police officer leader of a gang federation known as G9 Family and Allies. “We are also going to figure out how to get Haiti out of the misery it’s in now.”
The meeting in Jamaica was organized by members of a regional trade bloc known as Caricom, which for months has pressed for a transitional government in Haiti while protests in the country have demanded Henry’s resignation.
Concerns remain that a long-sought solution will remain elusive. Caricom said in a statement on Friday announcing the urgent meeting in Jamaica that while “we are making considerable progress, the stakeholders are not yet where they need to be.”
The meeting was held as powerful gangs continued to attack key government targets across Haiti’s capital of Portau-prince. Since Feb. 29, gunmen have burned police stations, closed the main international airports and raided the country’s two biggest prisons, releasing more than 4,000 inmates.
Scores of people have been killed, and more than 15,000 are homeless after fleeing neighborhoods raided by gangs. Food and water are dwindling as stands and stores selling to impoverished Haitians run out of goods. The main port in Portau-prince remains closed, stranding dozens of containers with critical supplies.
Henry landed in Puerto Rico last week after being denied entry into the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti.
When the attacks began, Henry was in Kenya pushing for the U.n.-backed deployment of a police force from the East African country that has been delayed by a court ruling.