PORT-AU-PRINCE — As the United Nations warned Friday that famine is spreading to new areas of Haiti amid the country’s worsening hunger and gang crises, the country’s top politicians are engaged in a high-stakes blame game that is setting the stage for another crisis.
After weeks of tensions over who should control the government, the ruling Transitional Presidential Council moved late Friday to fire Prime Minister Garry Conille in an act that resembled more of a coup than a simple change in governance, as Haitians and diplomats tried to keep pace. The council reportedly met with the national security forces in which leaders were informed of changes, and decided among themselves a replacement for Conille.
The decision came after hours of discussions and political wrangling Friday, and after weeks of disagreement between the prime minister and Leslie Voltaire, the president of the nine-member council, which after taking the leadership reins last month demanded a cabinet reshuffle that Conille resisted.
On Thursday, a meeting brokered by the Organization of American States to try to salvage the transition ended without resolution after Conille, Voltaire and council member Fritz Jean could not reach an agreement. Another attempt on Friday to mediate the crisis also went nowhere and ended with one of the council members storming out on Conille.
Late Friday, the council sent a resolution dismissing Conille to the government’s official newspaper, Le Moniteur, for publication, several sources confirmed to the Miami Herald. The council was working on a second resolution reportedly naming his replacement.
Whether the resolutions will be published remained uncertain, as council members appeared to be still engaged in discussions and planned to meet again on Saturday morning. Some foreign diplomats in Port-au-Prince were attempting again on Saturday to see if they could get both sides to make concessions before the publication of any resolution or mandate naming a new prime minister.
It is unclear whether the council’s seven voting members and two observers have the power to fire Conille, a career United Nations development expert who was tapped in late May to lead the transition. Their rise to power isn’t the result of an elections, ratification by a Parliament or any article in Haiti’s constitution. They were formed by an April 3 political accord that was forged by Haitian political parties and civic organizations with the help of Washington and Caribbean leaders following the forced resignation of Prime Minister Ariel Henry in March during a gang insurgency.
The idea was that the council, once installed, would choose a prime minister to replace Henry to head a new government. Together the new two-headed executive would oversee the arrival of a U.N.-authorized multinational security force led by Kenya, and establish a board to stage general elections to return the country to democracy by February 7, 2026.
In his nearly six months in office, Conille has struggled to manage the transition and navigate Haiti’s treacherous political terrain. Though he frequently visited injured police officers and neighborhoods under siege, he has been unable to find agreement with the presidential council. Members have accused him of being confrontational and arrogant. He in turn, has accused council members of blocking efforts to round out the government by naming heads of agencies.
For the past month Conille and Voltaire, in particular, have been at loggerheads over reorganizing the government and a corruption scandal engulfing the council and endangering the transition. They have also been blaming each other as armed gangs increasingly take over towns and neighborhoods in Port-au-Prince, people starve and thousands are forced to seek shelter.
There have been reports of threats to Conille’s and some of his ministers’ lives; the council threatening to fire Conille if he refused to make changes to his cabinet, and an undisclosed contract with a private U.S. security firm. In the meantime, Caribbean leaders’ efforts to get both sides to find common ground have failed.
Attorney Bernard Gousse, a constitutional expert and Conille adviser, argues that the criminal allegations involving the three accused council members disqualifies them in any decision-making and “any deliberation including them must be considered non-existent.”
Other advisers have argued that though the council acts as the presidency, it has no legal status to fire him because the April 3 political accord was never officially published in Le Moniteur, the official government gazette, and a mechanism they had agreed to put in place to evaluate the government has yet to be formed. During one meeting about the demand to reshuffle the government, Conille suggested the council put in place an oversight entity to evaluate the government’s performance. Conille said decisions should be made based on its independent assessments.
That suggestion, once source told the Herald, was quickly dismissed by Voltaire, who complained about the government’s failure to clean the trash-clogged streets and reopen schools currently sheltering some of the people internally displaced by the armed gangs.
Conille and the council have been jostling for control of the government and the country’s meager finances amid a wave of problems and dissatisfaction over the performance of both the police and Kenyan-led troops as gangs increasingly expand their territory.
On Friday, the U.N. Human Rights Office in Port-au-Prince said nearly 4,900 people have been killed between January and September. Police sources also reported a sudden uptick in kidnappings in broad daylight after months of a lull.
“Food insecurity continues to rise,” Stephanie Tremblay, associate spokesperson for U.N. Secretary General António Guterres told journalists Friday in New York. “For the first time since 2022, we are seeing pockets of famine-like conditions in some areas where displaced people are living.”
CONTROL OF MINISTRIES
The political crisis is rooted in two issues: the presidential council’s desire to control certain key ministries under Conille’s purview and the corruption scandal involving three members of the council. Council members Smith Augustin, Louis Gérald Gilles and Emmanuel Vertilaire have been accused with shaking down the director of the country’s state-owned commercial bank, National Bank of Credit, BNC, and asking him to pay 100 million Haitian gourdes, about $758,000, to retain his job. The director, Raoul Pierre-Louis, refused the bribery request and after the allegations went public, Haiti’s Anti-Corruption Unit opened an investigation.
While insisting on their innocence, the council members have failed to respond to efforts by the 15-member Caribbean Community to mediate the crisis. They have also refused calls to step down from some of the political parties involved in the transition. One accuse member, Vertilaire, has openly expressed his rage over the allegations in private conversations, according to a source. An investigative judge, Vertilaire has said that he should not be summoned and that the justice ministry should have been under his control as a member of the presidential council.
Until the investigation is closed, he recently vowed, “the transition will not move forward,” said the source, speaking anonymously to discuss a private conversation. In describing the scandal, Vertilaire said that “it has turned me into a crazy person, the devil.”
Last month, anti-corruption investigators issued a report saying criminal charges should be pursued against Vertilaire and the two other accused members. Earlier in the week, Conille sent Volatire a letter asking for the removal of the three council members accused of bribery. He also told Voltaire, a U.S.-educated urban planner who represents Fanmi Lavalas political party, that he believes “that merely changing a few ministers” will not alleviate the dire challenges the Haitian people face.
“It will not ease the suffering of the 700,000 internally displaced, the despair of the 5.5 million experiencing food insecurity, the frustration of the unemployed, or the anger of communities held captive by gang violence,” according to the letter, obtained by the Herald.
The suggestion, like efforts to mediate the tensions, have fallen on deaf ears. In discussions with Conille about the reshuffling, council members have asked to replace the head of justice, finance, defense and health. They also want control of interior, which will oversee the elections, and they want Conille’s foreign minister, Dominique Dupuy, replaced. Dupuy’s hardened stance against the Dominican Republic’s recent decision to deport up to 10,000 Haitians a week has irritated council members.
Should the presidential council succeed in ousting Conille, the move will have reverberations at both the U.N., where there is currently a draft resolution for the Security Council to vote on deploying a U.N. peacekeeping operation to Haiti to replace the multinational security force.
Officials in Washington, who have publicly supported Conille and his cabinet, have for weeks been calling on members of the transitional council to forgo the political infighting and focus on Haiti’s pressing concerns.
On Friday, State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller said Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, who is trying to get more security assistance to Haiti, spoke with Guterres about the security situation in Haiti and underscored the gains made by the multinational mission led by Kenya.
The day before the call with Guterres, Blinken also spoke with Kenyan President William Ruto, who is currently preparing to send an additional 600 police officers to Haiti to join the 416 already there from Kenya, Jamaica, Belize and The Bahamas.
n the call Blinken thanked Ruto for Kenya’s continued leadership of the mission “as it works with its Haitian counterparts to restore peace and security to the Haitian people,” Miller said.
By JACQUELINE CHARLES/Miami Herald
