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Neighborly nudge to rehabilitate Haiti

The selection of interim leaders for the gang-ruled country only happened after other Caribbean states saw a need to fill a power vacuum.

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Reuters
A woman dances as locals play music on a trail in Milot, Haiti, April 26.
  • By the Monitor's Editorial Board

In one of the world’s most violent crises – which is considered by the United States to be as important as the wars in Gaza and Ukraine – a solution may have started last Thursday.

Haiti’s prime minister, forced into exile by the nation’s powerful gangs, handed over authority to an inclusive group of prominent political leaders to pick a new prime minister and prepare for elections in 2026. Haiti has not held an election for eight years.

“The situation calls us to rise above ourselves,” said interim Prime Minister Michel Patrick Boisvert during a swearing-in ceremony in the besieged capital, Port-au-Prince.

The new nine-person transitional council, however, wasn’t the only act of inclusion.

In March, Haiti’s neighbors in the Caribbean decided to act in a neighborly way, even if only to prevent the migration of Haitian refugees at their shores. The 15-state Caribbean Community saw the power vacuum in Haiti and gathered in Jamaica to help form the transitional council.

Its support in putting together a Haitian-led solution is a good example of how much the world has come to rely on regional groupings of nations – in Africa, Southeast Asia, Europe, and elsewhere – to nudge a troubled neighbor toward peace or democracy.

“At times of deep geopolitical division, it is even more important that regional organisations play an active role,” said James Kariuki, the United Kingdom’s deputy representative to the United Nations.

The Caribbean Community’s support of an interim government in Haiti has already led to a renewal of Kenya’s offer to lead a multinational force of as many as 2,500 officers to quell the violence in Haiti, relying on a recent resolution by the U.N. Security Council.

Such outside support, of course, depends on Haitians themselves finally acting to save their country. “Facing this unprecedented crisis,” said Régine Abraham, a member of the new Haitian council, “the entire population has recognized the urgent need of a firm hand to take us out of this spiral of despair and destruction.”

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