Haitians have little hope in interim government amid spiralling violence

Haitians await transitional council amid gang violence, political turmoil, and foreign intervention in Port-au-Prince.

Haitians were on edge on March 15 awaiting the naming of a transitional governing body meant to restore stability to the country, wracked by gang violence and largely isolated from the outside world.

Attacks in the capital Port-au-Prince continued overnight, targeting the airport and a top police official’s home, while residents mounted roadblocks in two spots both to impede the criminal gangs and signal their own frustration.

Some are hoping a transitional council can fill the void left by departing Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who is leaving amid pressure from an offensive by gangs that control 80% of the capital.

Yet many have decried the pending establishment of a transitional council, a move supported by Caribbean regional body CARICOM, the United Nations and the United States.

“I am in the street now and I am very angry,” resident Francois Nolin said, claiming that “the Americans are imposing certain conditions on us to run the country.”

“White people have no right to meddle in our affairs. Instead of making things better, they will make them worse,” said Jesula, a Haitian woman who declined to give her last name.

The country has a long, brutal history of foreign interventions, from a 20-year American occupation in the early 1900s to a deadly cholera outbreak linked to a UN peacekeeping mission in the 2010s.