U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken stressed Thursday the need for Haitian officials to move quickly toward elections during a rare, high-security visit to the crisis-ridden country ravaged by gang violence.
The most senior U.S. official to visit the troubled country since 2015, Blinken arrived in Port-au-Prince two months after Kenya sent police as part of a long-awaited international force meant to restore order.
Arriving in the morning at Toussaint-Louverture airport, recently reopened to commercial flights after its closure linked to violence by armed groups, Mr. Blinken crossed in an armored motorcade through crowded and pothole-strewn streets of the Haitian capital to go to meetings at the residence of the American ambassador.
In his meeting with interim Prime Minister Garry Conille, he said the initial work of international forces with the Haitian police constituted “very important steps and real progress.”
“Security is the foundation for everything that comes next, including preparing for next year’s elections, but also providing basic services to the Haitian people,” he said.
The Haitian Prime Minister acknowledged that the situation was “extremely complex”, but expressed a certain optimism.
“If our partners support us and engage with us, we will achieve our goals. The progress we have made so far is actually quite remarkable,” he said.
“A moment of challenge and hope”
“This is a moment of great challenge, but also of hope for Haiti,” Blinken added. “The next critical step that we talked about is the establishment of an electoral council. We hope that it will be established soon,” he said at a press conference with the coordinator of the presidential transitional council, Edgard Leblanc Fils.
The latter assured that he hoped to be able to “present” this electoral council as early as next week. The objective is, according to him, to organize elections in November 2025 and a transfer of power in February 2026.
Haiti has not held an election since 2016.
Mr. Blinken’s visit comes, according to Washington, at a “crucial moment” for Haiti, a poor Caribbean country shaken by relentless violence coupled with a serious humanitarian, economic and political crisis.
The Haitian government on Wednesday extended a state of emergency across the country.
The US Secretary of State will also visit the headquarters of the Multinational Mission for Security Support (MMAS), the Kenyan-led police force that is supposed to restore security in the capital in particular.
Washington, which does not provide troops to this force but is the main financial and material contributor, is pressing its allies to increase their contributions in order to ensure the sustainability of its funding.
“Gangs not even worried”
With some 400 police officers arriving this summer, out of the 2,500 planned for the long term, the MMAS has been slow to deploy, even though officials assure that it has made it possible to regain “control of essential infrastructure, such as the airport” in the capital, and to reopen roads that have facilitated the return of thousands of displaced Haitians.
But two months after its arrival, the capital’s inhabitants are beginning to lose patience with the lack of concrete results and its deployment remains limited for the moment.
“The gangs’ exactions continue and the bandits are not even being worried,” Watson Laurent, a 39-year-old motorcycle taxi driver, recently lamented to AFP.
Mr. Blinken’s visit also coincides with a massive power outage in Port-au-Prince in recent days, after a group of protesters stormed a power plant.
Violence by armed groups had intensified at the start of the year, forcing the controversial Prime Minister, Ariel Henry, to resign.
On Thursday evening, the American Secretary of State will travel to the Dominican Republic, a country with complicated relations with its Haitian neighbor.
Blinken will meet with newly re-elected President Luis Abinader there on Friday, days after his country allowed the United States to seize the plane used by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro as part of U.S. sanctions on Caracas.