Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: The best insight, instant feedback, accountability. The all new talk radio Freedom 106.5.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: You know, out of Jamaica. Let's welcome joining us via Zoom, television producer and news lead at PBC Jamaica. And that is Simone Gale. Good morning to you, and welcome to our program.
[00:00:24] Speaker C: You.
[00:00:25] Speaker D: Good morning. Good morning.
[00:00:26] Speaker C: Good morning.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: It's nice to have you with us here this morning on a morning where there's a lot of discussion about what's going on in Haiti and what's Caricom's position on all that is transpiring. Caricom held its press conference yesterday. International news reports this morning suggest that Haiti's prime minister has resigned as law and order has collapsed in Haiti. Give us a bit of, for people who may have missed it, or maybe we want a little deeper analysis of what's going on.
What did Caricom have to say about what's going on in Haiti yesterday at its press conference?
[00:01:08] Speaker D: Well, they are very concerned about what's happening in Haiti, and they have come to a collective understanding that emergency, immediate actions will have to be taken.
The first step that they're going to be taking is to trying to reinstitute law and order.
So yesterday they had an emergency meeting with several Caricom head member states, along with leaders from Canada, France, Kenya, Benin, Brazil and Mexico. They attended the meeting in Kingston, Jamaica, to discuss the civil and political crisis in eight Haiti. At the end of the meeting, Guyana's.
[00:01:53] Speaker C: President and Caricom head, Dr. Ifran Ali.
[00:01:55] Speaker D: He announced the resignation, of course, of President Henri, and he said Haitian stakeholders have committed to implementing a transitional presidential council and the naming of an interim prime minister. He said the presidential council will have seven voting members and two observing members, one from civil society and one from the interfaith community. Now, earlier, during the opening statement, as a result of the meeting, Jamaica's prime minister, Andrew Holness, he said the fear of the situation in Haiti worsening to become a civil war is a very real one. And he said they have all agreed that this cannot be allowed to happen. He says Haiti needs a new, cohesive domestic resolve, and this will require a long term reconstruction and support plan from the region and international partners. Mr. Holness says the first step, though, is the establishment of the multinational security support mission being spearheaded by Kenya, and it was given the green light by the United nations. He says that would be critical and a necessary first step to restore basic law and order and provide an environment of stability to allow for the distribution of assistance and the crafting of medium and long term solutions. Now, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken flew in for the meeting, and he announced an additional $100 million, bringing the US contribution to the security mission to $300 million. He also said the US has pledged $33 million in aid for Haiti. When asked about funding from Caricom, though, Dr. Ali did not specify an amount, but said members will be giving their support ongoing. Canada has pledged $123,000,000 towards the mission. There's no clear timeline, though, as to when they'll have boots on ground. He said they did not discuss the refugee situation, explaining that they were more focused on stabilizing the governance of Haiti.
[00:04:05] Speaker C: And he said the outcome of the.
[00:04:06] Speaker D: Meeting is just one step in the journey towards development.
[00:04:10] Speaker B: It seems as though, regardless of all the attempts to assist Haiti in stabilizing its governance, it's been a tough road.
And now we have a situation where criminal gangs are dictating what happens in Haiti, which is really an amazing thing, if you think about it, because you have these criminal gangs that have taken over the place, that have set prisoners free, that have demanded the resignation of the Primus, and they've gotten it, and they now seem to have the support of Caricom in their quest to have some sort of stabilization in Haiti, which I just find to be an interesting development. Criminal gangs dictating what goes on.
[00:04:58] Speaker C: Well, Mr. Ali did respond to a question posed as to whether or not the discussions included the gangs, because he pointed out that the discussions are being led by stakeholders from Haiti. But he, along with members from the government block of Caricom, said that they did not knowingly negotiate with any gangsters.
They are speaking to members of civil society and so forth. So the matter of negotiating between the gangs and catering to their demands, that they could not speak to, that they said that they were in discussions with Ari. He was also a part of the meeting at some point, and he is cooperating with them. That's what they could confirm. They said they did not knowingly have any discussions with gangsters in Haiti.
[00:05:56] Speaker B: Well, I would not expect for these CArIcOM leaders to come out and say, well, here we're going know we haven't talked to these boys and girls, but I'm sure that there will be some sort of correspondence one way or the other because the discussions have gone right in the direction of what the gangs were asking for. But this is just the latest in a number of attempts at ensuring that there is some sort of political stability in Haiti. Now, looking on from the outside, I'm sure that you would have been able to monitor a lot of what has been going on since the assassination and all that has transpired before that and everything else. What's the possibility that this latest attempt is going to have any success?
[00:06:47] Speaker C: Well, I hold on to the hope.
The fact that Caricom was able to step in and get some form of consensus to get them to say, okay, we are open to a plan of action. There are a number of stipulations that were agreed to in terms of this presidential council that they're going to be establishing, for example, looking towards a future. Members of the council cannot be convicted criminals. It cannot be formed with persons who have an intention of running for political office. So some of these tenants that they are putting down, no, as the basic.
[00:07:37] Speaker D: Groundwork seems to be setting up some.
[00:07:39] Speaker C: Sort of clear, medium term plan of action to ensure that instances of corruption and stuff would be minimized. Because if the persons who are charting the way ahead cannot run for election, then that would mostly rule out anyone who is looking towards gaining any sort of power. And based on the discussions that they had, they're saying this is just one of several steps that they plan to take in terms of planning ahead to see how they can get it to stabilize and see if they can get a democratic election to happen, because this would be the president on Coulson, they're saying, would be, again, a temporary measure in order to guide them towards a democratic state. Now, the three person eminent group that they had set up to go in.
[00:08:43] Speaker D: And talk before this complete breakdown, they.
[00:08:47] Speaker C: Are still going to be working with the stakeholders in Haiti to ensure that they give some sort of guidance as the way forward. So as a caribbean national, I remain hopeful. I remain just someone looking on, knowing the history of Haiti. I remain hopeful that it can happen because they made it out of a rocky situation several times. So I'm just hopeful that this would work out and that CARIcOM will have continuous, serious talks with the stakeholders to ensure that this would happen. Because, remember, the supposed coalition of gangsters, this latest breakdown was because President Henri should have been a temporary leader and his tenure should have ended in February. So now he has stepped down, as was promised. So they should have, in that respect, nothing to complain about.
Now the stakeholders have a clear path ahead to ensure that Haiti can get back on her feet.
[00:09:52] Speaker B: Well, when you're dealing with criminal gangs, nothing can be assured because they can move the goalpost at any point in time, because they don't need to abide by the guidelines. And when you read a story that says that Haiti has 300 plus gangs, and these gangs impact on aid delivery and all these kinds of things. We would hope that any interim measure that is put in place, any interim administration or transitional government or whatever you want to call it, finds favor with the gangs, because if they don't, then you have a situation where the gangs are going to raise up once again and they are going to say that we don't agree with this. And then what do you do? Because I can't get away from the tail wagging the dog kind of situation when you're dealing with criminal gangs, even though the authorities in CArICOM are saying, well, we are really having no discussions with them. At the end of the day, it's the people of Haiti who bear the brunt of all of these things because aid to them, some of them may have food, they can't get basic necessities, and it's a bad situation. In 2010, when I was with CNC Three, that's our television station, as part of the network, we had sent a team across to Haiti with the Os. The OAS had visited Haiti, and they were doing a lot of things. And the team left Haiti just the day before the earthquake that killed 200,000 people. And the actual hotel, one of those that crumbled, the team was staying at that hotel. And I remember speaking to the cameraman who had visited Haiti for the very first time, and I had asked him about the experience. Tell me what, you know, forget the cameras and the news and all that kind of thing. And he said it was one of the scariest environments that he had been in. They had, I think it was un troops or special troops that were with them all the time because it was just so unsafe for them to be on their own.
And it highlighted very much back then. I mean, talking about 14 years ago how bad the situation was. Fast forward to today, and it seems as though not much has changed.
And the political turmoil in between there is well documented. So is there any timeframe, was any timeframe given by Caricom as to when this transitional team should be set up and elections should be held in Haiti?
[00:12:26] Speaker C: No, he did not. Going back a little bit about what you said about.
[00:12:35] Speaker D: Trying to get the.
[00:12:36] Speaker C: Gangs under control in terms of trying to get law and order, I did ask about that. In terms of, first of all, getting boots on ground with that special security mission, Dr. Ali said he could not give any information. They are aware that the situation is delicate in terms of what's going on in Haiti with the gang members. So he was not open to giving any additional information as to the security measures that they are planning to implement and when they're going to do that. And he did not give a timeline as to when the temporary measures are.
[00:13:16] Speaker D: Going to be put in place.
[00:13:18] Speaker C: Since the discussions just happened yesterday, it's still in a delicate stage.
[00:13:23] Speaker B: Was the US secretary of state, Anthony Blinken there?
[00:13:27] Speaker C: Yes. He was in Jamaica physically okay for.
[00:13:32] Speaker B: Much of the day because he made a pronouncement of 100 million US and 1000 strong Un backed security forces from India expected to lead in Haiti. But the gangs, I remember reading a story on the BBC website recently where the gangs said what they do not want is more foreign intervention when it comes to troops in Haiti. So how is this going to work if the US is saying that, hey, we'll be sending a thousand UN troops to Haiti to lead in this transition, and the gangs are saying, we don't want no foreigners here?
[00:14:12] Speaker D: I think Dr. Ali would probably say, remember, no, we're not in any negotiation with gangs.
[00:14:18] Speaker C: So that part of it we cannot speak to. But I would imagine the stakeholders who were in discussion, the Haitians who were in discussion with the CAricom leaders yesterday would have discussed the parameters of these security forces. And remember, these security forces would not be from one country, several countries, including the Bahamas, Benin and Kenya.
They have also put down pledges to be a part of this security force, and they're now speaking to stakeholders in Haiti. So I say let's watch and see in the coming days what's going to be happening.
[00:15:00] Speaker B: Yeah. And it is something that we will be paying close attention to, because while CAricom can make its pronouncements on how it would like to see things go, it is clearly evident that Caricom is not holding the reins as to what happens in Haiti. Really, they can suggest, and from all intents and purposes, we are hoping that the Caricom suggestions find favor with the forces in Haiti at this point in time because they've been able to turn the entire country upside down, break out prisoners from two major prisons, 4000 prisoners escape. And we know that the fighting is intense and all these kinds of things. So it is the hope that whatever CAricom puts in place will bring about the first elections in Haiti since 2016, I think it is, and hopefully bring about the kind of change in Haiti that people are expecting. As a journalist, as somebody who's been tracking and following a lot of that's going on. You were there. You listened to what CAricom had to say. I'm not asking you about the Caricom heads or the dignitaries. I'm asking your personal evaluation, you really think this thing could work?
[00:16:23] Speaker C: As I said before, there is hope. The fact that Caricom got the interest and the attention and physical attendance of so many world leaders to come in and step in and say, okay, we're going to work on this. The fact that they were able to get in touch with major stakeholders in Haiti to come up with this agreement on such a short notice shows that the block is working, though. Can't take that away from them. They are working, and they did get some things done in terms of get some sort of commitment from the leaders in Haiti.
[00:17:02] Speaker B: I guess once there's life, there's hope, and we all hope that the situation in Haiti can be addressed one way or the other and that there's peace in the nation moving forward that would lead to some kind of economic stability and improvement in the lives of Haitians. I want to thank you this morning for being with us and giving us some insight. And I'm sure that this matter, because of the developments that we're expecting, and not too long from now, we will speak to you again on what's transpiring. Thank you for being here with us this morning.
[00:17:32] Speaker C: Sure thing. Anytime.
[00:17:34] Speaker A: The best insight, instant feedback, accountability. The all new talk radio Freedom 106.5.
