Monday 11 March. The Prime Minister of Haiti, Ariel Henry, resigns. The country no longer has a president or a parliament, and no elections have been held since 2018. Everywhere, Haitians in the diaspora and those who live locally are on the alert. No one can predict what will happen next, but analysts and activists fear foreign interference during the democratic transition.
Ariel Henry resigned from Puerto Rico, because he has not been able to return to Haiti since January 2024. In office since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse on July 7, 2021, the ex-prime minister ruled Haiti without having organized elections. Armed groups prevented him from coming back. “This earned him the nickname homeless” or homeless, reports Jean Sadrac, a former Haitian journalist who now lives in Montreal.
Jean Sadrac answers the video call with cautious enthusiasm, tinged with despair. Arriving in Quebec in 2019, he was fleeing an already difficult situation in Haiti. The former journalist and communications secretary of the fusion party of the Haitian Social Democrats in his country fears the worst for those he left behind in Port-au-Prince.
“You can say that my body is in Canada, and that all my mind, everything that makes me who I am as a human being, lives in Haiti,” he says right away, sitting at his kitchen table.
Despite the distance, he remains up to date with political life and the situation on the ground in Haiti. Since the resignation of Prime Minister Ariel Henry, he has been even more on the lookout. Every day, he follows the news, but also social media feeds, where conversations are multiplying and inflaming.
“Being in Quebec gives us a certain peace of mind, far from the noise of cartridges, but that doesn't really spare us,” he explains. Yes it's true, you can't hear the bullets, but when my sister calls me to tell me that she is under the bed and that she is afraid to stand up because there are so many projectiles that it seems like we are in a country at war, at that moment, I don't know what to say.”
Afflicted, the ex-journalist wonders what will happen. “Everything is possible, since today, Haiti is not in control of itself. If we consider the multiple foreign interventions in Haiti, what were the results? ”
Frantz André, known for his work with asylum seekers of Haitian origin in Montreal, is in contact with many people in the country. For one of her close friends, it's a panic.
“A helicopter that came to pick up foreign nationals was flying so low that the windows in his house were cracked”, worries Mr. André, reached by telephone. Since then, her friend has refused to leave her house. Neighbors bring her some food, enough for her and her two children.
A gloomy situation for the Pearl of the Antilles
People in the country are afraid to talk, report Frantz André and Jean Sadrac. This situation was corroborated by La Converse, which tried to talk to several people on site, without success.
So we reached out to Monique*, who fled the country and who runs a community organization that helps women and girls who are victims of violence in Port-au-Prince. For fear of reprisals against her family who remained in the country and for the employees of the center, she requested anonymity from La Converse.
“It is the instability of what is to come that prevents me from being open as an activist for your article,” she says at the end of the phone, when we reached her somewhere in the United States.
His organization had to close its doors temporarily on 1Er March. “We have never been able to reopen normally since then, especially since our offices are in the city center. It is one of the places that is extremely dangerous at the moment, especially because public institutions around our space are occupied or have been occupied or plundered by armed groups,” she said.
Water is a scarce commodity, as is access to food and gas.
“Everyone who is in Port-au-Prince has a small trunk near their bed with all their important papers, money, everything that is important and can be carried easily at any time”, details the one who also had to leave the country quickly.
According to the United Nations, 362,000 people are currently displaced within the country. Some have been displaced more than once, an increase of 15% since the start of the year.
Haiti, a “political laboratory”?
While Haitians fear for their loved ones, they also fear the future, which could well be marked by increased foreign interference. This is the case of Jemima Pierre.
Having been on the run since 5 am because of the interviews she gives to various information networks, the professor is a little out of breath. She has been commenting all day on the resignation of Prime Minister Ariel Henry. It is 6 pm and she has just given a class at the University of British Columbia. Her conversation with La Converse is online, but her passion transcends the screen.
“Haiti is a laboratory, because in what other state [so much foreign interference has been happening] in the last 100 years? asks the professor in the Global Race Department at the Institute of Race, Gender, Sexuality and Social Justice.
She believes that Haiti is the longest neo-colonial experience in the world. Indeed, Haitian sovereignty has been undermined since the beginning of the country's independence. At 19E century already, France imposes compensation of 150 million francs on the country. The sum was unheard of for the time, but the alternative was war.. Haiti agrees to pay, which locks it into a debt that contributes to its impoverishment.
Then, in 1914, American Marines entered Haiti and stole the equivalent of half a million dollars in gold, which they brought back to the United States. The following year, Haiti was invaded by the United States. The occupation lasted 19 years.
“The Americans have completely dismantled the Haitian state during these two decades,” explains the professor.
“I think people are making Haiti an exception. That they don't see how similar American policies are for Haiti, Iraq, Libya, and other countries in terms of political destabilization and bringing selected candidates into power.”
MMe As proof, Pierre points to the demonization of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was in power in 1991, from 1994 to 1996 and again from 2001 to 2004, and the way in which the United States, France and other world powers ousted him from power.
“There is an essay called How to turn a priest into a cannibal, about how the media demonized him and made him the worst person on Earth,” she said.
International aid money ends up being donated to international organizations, rather than to local NGOs and the government, explains Professor Pierre. These organizations have a great deal of power over the political organization of Haiti.
“So you have a process where international NGOs have more power than the state and who determine what is covered, what types of health services are subsidized, for example,” says M.Me Peter.
The stranglehold of the United States is once again becoming evident a year after the infamous 2010 earthquake, which caused the deaths of 200,000 people. Elections are being held. Unhappy with the result in the second round, the then Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, goes to the archipelago to insist : she wants Michel Martelly to be on the ballots in the second round. This intervention would have contributed to the success of Mr. Martelly and to his election as President.
“Basically, Michel Martelly is essentially trying to sell Haitian land and privatize everything,” explains M.Me Peter. These practices prompted numerous mass protests in 2018 and 2019. “Millions of people are taking to the streets against corruption. And that's about when political elites are arming groups.”
She explains that the elites use armed groups to fight each other and against people in working-class neighborhoods. “The elites are used to using young armed men to attack their rivals in Haiti. If one family wanted to oppose another, the use of armed young men has always existed, but it multiplied after Martelly, who was very well known for it. And then, Jovenel Moïse made things worse.”
Faced with the unstable situation, Professor Jemima Pierre reminds us that we must also be careful about the words we use. She wants the media to stop using the word “gang” to describe the young men who, armed to the teeth, storm Port-au-Prince.
“The state uses the term 'gang' to comment on popular protests, and now you have people, especially Western media, saying that these gangs are everywhere,” she said.
“But these people have been armed by illegitimate governments, which the United States, the UN, and other foreign powers have helped.”
Canada, also involved in the affairs of Haiti
Ottawa, winter 2003. A secret meeting, held at the initiative of Canada, takes place. It discusses the political fate of Haiti... without Haiti. The journalist Michel Vastel, from L'Actuality, reveals the content of the conversations : leaders from Canada — Jean Chrétien at the time —, the United States, the United States, Germany, France and El Salvador conclude that President Aristide must be ousted.
Twenty years later, a Canada-CARICOM Summit was held in Ottawa in October 2023, and more recently on March 1, 2024. It was following this meeting in Jamaica, led by Canada, that Ariel Henry resigned. Unpopular, the latter finally gave in to the pressures.
“How is it that one of the three main countries responsible for the destabilization of the country in 2004 (the destabilization that led to the end of the Jean-Bertrand Aristide regime) is the leader of the negotiations in Jamaica to decide the future of Haiti? ” asks Jemima Pierre.
“Canada plays an important role in political interference in Haiti. There are Canadian mining companies on the territory. In this sense, it is not a question of “gang”, but a question of resources,” notes Frantz André, skeptical of what the CARICOM meetings will bring. “I have little hope,” he says.
For the time being, Canada evacuated most of its diplomatic staff and transferred it to the neighboring Dominican Republic. Difficult to predict the future, when a presidential council must be appointed to ensure the transition.
No mobilization in Montreal
In Canada, there are approximately 165,000 Haitian nationals. But to date, no demonstration has been organized by the Haitian diaspora. “We should at least see 5,000 people in the streets,” says Frantz André.
He mentions the apprehensions of people, who fear being identified, which would put their family back in the archipelago in danger. “We are therefore witnessing an immobility where no one participates openly in certain initiatives, while we must put pressure on the federal and Quebec governments,” he believes.
He hoped that in Haiti, a police force would be established, on which the people could rely. For the time being, it is not easy to see how this could happen without a government democratically elected by the people.
In addition, Frantz André notes that an increase in asylum applications is to be expected from Haitian nationals.
“What we are seeing is a worsening of a situation that started 20 years ago. And it's going to get worse. And it doesn't help when everyone sees that there are secret meetings in Jamaica with all these foreigners telling Haitians what their new government will be like, reports Jemima Pierre. Right now, Haitians don't want to see that anymore.”
MMe Pierre also points out that the images that run on a loop, where we see tires or other objects burning, are not necessarily a sign of chaos or of the fact that garbage is invading the streets of the capital. “It is often a strategy used by people in working-class neighborhoods to protect the periphery of the territory,” she notes.
Meanwhile, concerns persist for Frantz André, Monique and Jean Sadrac, who constantly fear for the health and safety of their families.
“When my loved ones call me to tell me that they can't anymore, that they're unable to breathe, it's as if inside, it's being torn apart”, testifies Mr. Sadrac.
*Monique is an assumed name intended to protect the family of our counsellor and her employees.
NB. - A demonstration against foreign interference in Haiti took place on Sunday, March 17 in Montreal, a few hours after the publication of this article.
Correction - A previous version of this article was published on 17 March identifying Jean Sadrac as a former journalist and communications secretary for his country's socialist party. The article was amended on 19 March to correct the title of Jean Sadrac as a former journalist and communications secretary for the fusion party of the Haitian Social Democrats in his country.