Gang violence locks Haitian PM out of country amid mounting pressure to resign

• Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry’s grip on power is being tested as he returns to the Caribbean nation from a trip abroad.
• The gang attack shut down Haiti’s main international airport and many officials called on Henry to resign.
• Henry has served as Haiti’s acting president and prime minister since the assassination of President Juvenel Moïse in 2021, which caused significant unrest in the country.

Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry is struggling to stay in power as he attempts to return home, but in recent days gang attacks have shut down the country’s main international airport and freed more than 4,000 prisoners. .

As of noon Wednesday, Mr. Henry remained in Puerto Rico, where he landed after being barred the previous day when authorities in the neighboring Dominican Republic closed its airspace to flights to and from Haiti.

For now, Henry has been shut out of the country and appears to be facing an impasse, with a growing number of officials demanding or urging him to resign.

Haitian Prime Minister lands in Puerto Rico to return home to curb gang violence

Here’s what you need to know about the embattled prime minister and the crisis he faces.

Who is Ariel Henry?

The 74-year-old neurosurgeon, who trained and worked in the south of France, became involved in Haitian politics in the early 2000s when he led a movement against then-president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

After Aristide was overthrown, Henry became a member of a US-backed council that helped choose a provisional government.

In June 2006, he was appointed director of the Haitian Ministry of Health and later became the ministry’s chief of staff, where he helped manage the government’s response to the devastating 2010 earthquake.

In 2015, he was appointed Minister of Interior and Territorial Communities and was responsible for overseeing Haiti’s security and domestic policies.

A few months later, he was appointed Minister of Social Affairs and Labor, but faced calls for his resignation after leaving the Inite party.

Since then, he has largely disappeared from the public eye, working as a political consultant and as a professor at the Haitian University of Medicine until becoming prime minister in July 2021, shortly after President Jouvenel Moïse, who had appointed him prime minister, was assassinated. He also served as

Brian Concannon, executive director of the Haitian Institute for Justice and Democracy, a U.S.-based nonprofit organization, said Moïse’s party may have thought Henry would bring credibility and some support. said that it was high.

“I think he was a pretty great guy. Presidents don’t just pick people at random,” he said.

Why are people calling for Henry to resign?

Henry has faced calls for his resignation since becoming prime minister with the support of the international community.

Those calling for his resignation include gangs vying for political power and Haitians angry that a general election has not been held in nearly a decade. They also point out that Henry was never elected and does not represent the people.

Concannon noted that Henry has been Haiti’s longest-serving prime minister since Haiti’s constitution was enacted in 1987.

“He was not appointed through a process recognized in Haiti,” Concannon said. “He was basically installed by the court.”

Prime Minister Henry has reiterated his call for unity and dialogue, noting that elections cannot be held until it is safe.

In February 2023, it formally appointed a transition council responsible for ensuring the holding of general elections, calling this an “important step” towards that goal.

But the election has been repeatedly postponed amid a spike in gang-related killings and kidnappings across the country. More than 8,400 people were reported killed, injured or kidnapped last year, more than double the number reported in 2022.

Why isn’t the prime minister in Haiti?

Henry left Haiti last month to attend a four-day summit in Guyana, South America, hosted by the regional trade bloc known as CARICOM. There, the worsening Haitian crisis was discussed behind closed doors.

Mr Henry did not speak to the media, but Caribbean leaders said he had promised to hold elections in mid-2025. The next day, organized gang attacks began in the Haitian capital and other areas.

Henry then left Guyana for Kenya last week to meet with President William Ruto and promote the UN-backed deployment of Kenyan police, which the East African country’s courts have ruled unconstitutional.

Authorities have not said when Mr. Henry plans to return to Haiti after his visit to Kenya, and his whereabouts were unknown for several days before surprising many when he unexpectedly landed in Puerto Rico on Tuesday.

Henry was originally scheduled to land in the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, but the government closed its airspace and said Henry’s plane did not have the necessary flight plan.

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What happened now?

Caribbean leaders met with Mr. Henry late Tuesday to announce his resignation, according to a regional official who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to provide details of the call. Mr. Henry reportedly refused several options, including:

Meanwhile, Grenada’s prime minister said he had informed officials that Henry planned to return to Haiti.

The U.N. Security Council was scheduled to hold an emergency meeting later Wednesday to discuss the issues facing Haiti and Henry.

Ahead of the meeting, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the United States and its partners were seeking concessions from Henry.

“Therefore, we are not asking or forcing him to resign, but rather to facilitate the transition to an empowered and inclusive governance structure,” Miller said. .