Haitian Prime Minister Garry Conille has been fired
by the country's ruling council less than six months after he took office.
The move threatens many programmes including the Kenyan-led Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission in Haiti.
An executive order, signed by eight of the
council's nine members, named businessman and former Haiti Senate candidate
Alix Didier Fils-Aime as Conile's replacement.
Conille, a former United Nations official, was
brought in to lead Haiti through an ongoing, gang-led security crisis and had
been expected to help pave the way for the country's first presidential
elections since 2016.
He described his ousting as illegal, saying in a
letter that it raised "serious concerns" about Haiti's future.
Haiti currently has neither a president nor
parliament and, according to its constitution, only the latter can sack a
sitting prime minister.
Conille was sworn in on June 3.
"This resolution, taken outside any legal and constitutional framework, raises serious concerns about its legitimacy," Conille's letter was quoted as saying.
The move will have reverberations at both
the U.N., where there is currently a draft resolution for the Security Council
to vote on deploying a U.N. peacekeeping operation to Haiti to replace the
multinational security force.
Officials in Washington, who have publicly
supported Conille and his government, have for weeks been calling on members of
the transitional council to focus on Haiti’s pressing concerns.
On Friday Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken,
who is trying to get more security assistance to Haiti, spoke with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres about the security situation in Haiti and underscored
the gains made by the multinational mission led by Kenya.
The day before the call with Guterres, Blinken
also spoke with President William Ruto, who is currently preparing to send an
additional 600 police officers to Haiti to join the 416 already there from
Kenya, Jamaica, Belize and The Bahamas.
“In the call Blinken thanked Ruto for Kenya’s
continued leadership of the mission “as it works with its Haitian counterparts
to restore peace and security to the Haitian people,” Miller said.
Kenya leads the mission and has already secured
a number of places where gangs are occupied.
Conille was in Kenya in October to push for the deployment of more police officers to his country.
The council reportedly met with the national
security forces in which leaders were informed of changes and decided among
themselves a replacement for Conille.
The decision came after hours of discussions and
political wrangling Friday, and after weeks of disagreement between the prime
minister and Leslie Voltaire, the president of the nine-member council, which
after taking the leadership reins last month demanded a cabinet reshuffle that
Conille resisted.
Haiti's transitional presidential council (TPC)
was created in April after Ariel Henry, Conille's predecessor, was forced from
office by a network of gangs that had taken over parts of the capital
Port-au-Prince.
Henry left Haiti to attend a summit in Guyana on
25 February 2024 and gang members subsequently seized the city's international
airport, preventing him from returning.
The TPC was tasked with restoring democratic
order to the Caribbean country, where such violence is rife.
More than 3,600 people have been killed in Haiti
since January and more than 500,000 have had to leave their homes, according to
the UN, which describes Haiti as being one of the poorest countries in the
world.
Two million Haitians currently face emergency
levels of hunger, UN data shows, while almost half the population "do not
have enough to eat".
One of the country's most powerful gang leaders,
Jimmy Chérizier, also known as Barbecue, previously said he would be prepared
to end the violence if armed groups were allowed to be involved in talks to
establish a new government.
Presidential elections were last held in Haiti
eight years ago when Jovenel Moïse of the Tèt Kale party was elected.
Since his murder in July 2021, the post of
president has been vacant.
Gangs in Haiti have capitalised on the power
vacuum and expanded their control over swathes of the country, which has
effectively been rendered lawless in places.
Last month, it was reported that hundreds of police officers had been deployed to Haiti from Kenya, with hundreds more set to join them.
On Friday, the U.N. Human Rights Office in
Port-au-Prince said nearly 4,900 people had been killed between January and
September.
Kenyan police are in Haiti to help stabilize the country from gangs.
Additional Reporting by BBC.
