Haiti Report, June 10, 2024

A compilation of news about Haiti from the past week. 

Prime Minister Conille briefly hospitalized over the weekend

Haiti’s newly selected Prime Minister Garry Conille was discharged from a hospital Sunday after spending a night in treatment for an undisclosed condition. In a video published on YouTube, Conille said he felt well and was “ready” to continue to help steer the country out of its current security crisis by forming a government that will also prioritize issues like health care. In his video, Conille said: “The whole time I was at the hospital, I was thinking of something: People that need to go to the general hospital can’t get there (due to widespread violence). People who need health care can’t afford it.” (https://apnews.com/article/haiti-prime-minister-hospital-6b497fe53549f6a943d3268eadd502d7?utm_source=copy&utm_medium=share)

Political transition: Appointment of ministers

The next transitional government could have 13 ministers instead of around twenty as usual, AlterPresse learned from sources. This decision resulted from discussions between members of the Presidential Transitional Council (Cpt) and Prime Minister Garry Conille, who discussed the profile of the government on June 4. To achieve this result, it will be necessary, during this transition period, to merge several ministries, argued Garry Conille, according to a source close to the TPC. The sovereign ministries should constitute the backbone of the government. These are the portfolios of interior, justice/defense, economy and foreign affairs. (https://www.alterpresse.org/spip.php?article30515)

According to a member of the Presidential Transitional Council, the CPT is only waiting for Prime Minister Conille's choices to finalize the ministerial cabinet. “In the Council, we all voted in favor of Garry Conille as Prime Minister. He proposed reducing the government to 13 ministers, which we accepted. But in the meantime, in addition to the 13 ministers, he presented three ministers delegated to the Prime Minister. Which is not in line with what he had proposed as the size of the government,” our source at the CPT reported to Le Nouvelliste (https://lenouvelliste.com/article/248560/peuple-haitien-je-vais-bien-et-je-suis-en-sante-aujourdhui-affirme-garry-conille).

Human rights and feminist organizations advocate for the full participation of women in Haiti’s political transition: Haiti's transition process, dominated by men, must finally begin to include women, as Haitian and international laws demand. We must appoint “women to at least half of the ministerial positions of the future government and to at least a third of all other positions linked to the transition. A just transition is not only a legal obligation, but is essential to establishing sustainable democracy in the country.” The exclusion of women from the Presidential Transitional Council (TPC) constitutes “a gigantic step backwards, compared to decades of hard-won progress towards equality”, criticize human rights and feminist organizations.

“Token inclusion – such as a non-voting position on a Presidential Council, for example – is a cynical caricature of human rights. Women must have real access to decision-making spaces,” says Sasha Filippova, senior lawyer at the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH). “The exclusion of women from voting seats within the TPC and from final consideration for the post of Prime Minister in 2024 is more than scandalous,” denounces Pascale Solages of the feminist organization Nègès Mawon. The Nègès Mawon organization likens this exclusion to an insult, made “to the 6 million women and girls of Haiti, whose participation is necessary for the success of the transition. She calls for ensuring as a priority that “the people, empowered to shape the transition – men or women – are truly dedicated to the promotion and protection of women’s rights and not just their appearance”. https://www.alterpresse.org/spip.php?article30510

Port-au-Prince

The recent reopening of Haiti’s main international airport and seaport after more than two months of gang blockades is finally allowing aid workers to get more hot meals, water and medical supplies to Haitians, the World Food Program said on June 5. “The port has been taking shipments for two weeks and we have WFP food coming to the port in the next few days,” said Jean-Martin Bauer, Haiti country director for the United Nations’ food aid agency. WFP was also recently able to fly in its first humanitarian cargo flight into Port-au-Prince’s Toussaint Louverture International Airport for the first time since commercial traffic was suspended in early March after armed groups targeted the runway in an attempt to take over key government facilities. 

On Wednesday, JetBlue Airways joined American Airlines and the Miami-based cargo operator Amerijet in resuming regular air traffic between South Florida and Port-au-Prince after all were forced to suspend operations for more than two months. Bauer said WFP was able to take 15 tons of medical supplies into Haiti last Thursday and “we have 50 tons lined up to come in the next few days. The problem we have is that ...there’s been a risk with access, there’s a risk with security, we need these infrastructures to be open, the port, the airport,” he said. (https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article289038534.html)  

On Sunday night, June 9, reports circulated that three members of a specialized Haitian National Police (PNH) unit were killed in a gun battle with armed members of the Viv Ansanm coalition of armed groups in the Delmas 18 neighborhood. The Presidential Council expressed its indignation and condolences, and the Office for Citizen Protection called for a change in  leadership at the highest levels of the PNH (https://x.com/rezo_nodwes/status/1800010539797753949).

ACAPS shared a new report on criminal gang violence in Port-au-Prince, providing an update on the surge in violence in the PAP metropolitan zone in the first half of 2024, highlighting the aggravation of needs and challenges accessing basic services. The report also provides an outlook section, giving insight into how the situation could evolve in the coming weeks (https://www.acaps.org/fileadmin/Data_Product/Main_media/20240606_ACAPS_Haiti_Criminal_Gang_Violence_in_Port-au-Prince_Final.pdf).

Driven by insecurity, the downtown market has relocated to Lalue, Avenue John Brown.  This street, named in memory of the American abolitionist and also known for the address of the Institution Sainte-Rose de Lima, is a shadow of its former self. Displaced by gangs ruling the lower part of the city, merchants and drivers have moved to this new area, which seems safer for their activities. https://lenouvelliste.com/en/article/248508/driven-by-insecurity-downtown-market-relocates-to-lalue

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee are demanding answers from the Biden administration about the illegal flow of firearms to Haiti. Why it matters: Armed gangs killed thousands of people in Haiti earlier this year and compounded the country's severe humanitarian crises. Lawmakers said in a new letter sent Wednesday that the flow of weapons to the nation is "fueling catastrophic gang violence." The members are demanding a briefing on federal efforts to stem the "illicit flow of American firearms to criminal organizations and gangs abroad" and how Congress can help by June 20. The lawmakers wrote that they "recognize and applaud" the steps that the Biden administration has already taken to curtail straw purchases and the flow of guns to criminal organizations. However, they added: "Further action is needed to build on these efforts and ensure that American gun dealers are no longer a preferred focus of criminal international gun traffickers." (https://www.axios.com/2024/06/05/haiti-gangs-guns-smuggling-house-oversight-letter)

Four young people share their stories from Delmas and Cite Soleil with Human Rights Watch: Criminal groups like the G9 and G-Pèp coalitions —some with military-grade military-grade weapons and drug trafficking links— have attacked the country’s key infrastructure, including police stations and ports, as well as Port-au-Prince’s neighborhoods. The groups are increasingly recruiting young people, sometimes using coercion and threats. Clean water, medicine, food, and electricity are scarce, which, for millions of children, limits their already precarious access to essential goods and services. Many schools have been forced to close across Port-au-Prince and the metropolitan area, leaving hundreds of thousands of children with no access to education. Human Rights Watch’s Nathalye Cotrino, who is documenting the crisis in Haiti, interviewed a number of youth from some of the hardest-hit Port-au-Prince communes, Cité Soleil and Delmas. (https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/06/05/children-are-among-hardest-hit-haitis-violence)

Multinational Security Support Mission

Kenyan President William Ruto, back in Nairobi following his recent three-day state visit to the United States, is voicing confidence that a security mission to Haiti that his East African nation will lead will go ahead. Ruto made the assertion in a post on X, following what he described as “a comprehensive” briefing from his team of security experts that visited Port-au-Prince last month to assess the ongoing preparations for the deployment of Kenyan police officers tasked with leading a 2,500-member multinational security support mission to the volatile Caribbean nation. 

Many questions remain about the mission, which faces another legal challenge in Nairobi and continues to lack financial and logistics support from the international community. There is confusion about whether the foreign cops being deployed to Haiti will be involved in combating gangs, or tasked solely with protecting key government infrastructures such as the airport, seaport, the presidential palace and main roads. Ruto and other Kenyan officials have refrained from providing specifics. While Haitian police have said they want the Kenyans’ help in dismantling the roughly 300 armed gangs running around the country, sources tell the Miami Herald that the idea of having the Kenyans protect infrastructure — what is being referred to as a “static” force — rather than battle gangs hand in hand with Haitian cops, is back on the table. (Comprehensive overview of MSS:  https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article288977750.html#storylink=cpy)

Amnesty International is raising concerns about the lack of transparency regarding the establishment of human rights safeguards for the Multinational Security Support (MSS) Mission in Haiti, that is expected to be deployed in the coming months. “It is imperative to ensure that any action taken by this multinational mission led by Kenya and supported by the United States and other countries strictly complies with international human rights law as mandated by the United Nations Security Council. A misstep in this regard would be devastating for Haitian people´s rights”, said Ana Piquer, Americas Director at Amnesty International. Despite clear requirements in UN Security Council Resolution 2699 authorizing the mission for participating UN member states to ensure the highest standards of transparency, there is still a lack of detailed public information about the rules, procedures, structure, as well as an accountability mechanism to investigate human rights violations, in particular sexual exploitation, and abuse. (https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/06/haiti-human-rights-safeguards-and-transparency-must-guide-security-mission-deployment/) 

Cannons Stolen from the Citadelle in Haiti’s north

They are the prized bounty of Haiti’s hard-fought struggle for freedom, taken in battle from European powers and then placed on top of the country’s most revered monument, Citadelle Henry, to guard against French occupation. National treasures, the 18th century cannons are priceless and come in various weights and dimensions. Two of the smaller cannons have vanished without a trace from inside the locked museum’s gallery. The theft was first noticed over two weeks ago by a security guard at the monument. But it was only recently made public after people started discussing it on social networks. Until June 6, there had been no official notification to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, which considers the cannons part of its World Heritage site designation for the Citadelle and several other historical landmarks located inside the National History Park in Milot. That notification by Haitian authorities is necessary, sources say, for UNESCO to issue an alert for the missing cultural artifacts so that INTERPOL can be notified in hopes of tracking down the cannons, which one preservationist worries could “be half way around the world by now.” (https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article289045039.html#storylink=cpy)

Fire in Gonaives Market

A fire of unknown origin broke out in part of the municipal market in Gonaives, the city of Independence, on the night of Monday June 3 to Tuesday June 4, 2024. Among those most affected by this fire were food and beverage merchants as well as fabrics vendors. https://lenouvelliste.com/article/248480/gonaives-une-partie-du-marche-communal-incendiee