Haitian commission sends message to Canada, U.S. — stop meddling in our government

In his letter of resignation, U.S. President Joe Biden's special envoy for Haiti Daniel Foote apologized to "the people of Haiti, mired in poverty, hostage to the terror, kidnappings, robberies and massacres of armed gangs and suffering under a corrupt government with gang alliances."

"What our Haitian friends really want, and need," he wrote, "is the opportunity to chart their own course, without international puppeteering and favored candidates."

Foote made it clear that a clutch of foreign diplomats known as the "Core Group" had chosen current Prime Minister (and acting president) Ariel Henry, after wearying of Claude Joseph, the first person they had backed to succeed murdered President Jovenel Moise.

"The hubris that makes us believe we should pick the winner — again — is impressive," he wrote. 

"Daniel Foote is saying something that we all knew for ages and we've been talking about for many years — that elections in Haiti are not real," said Haitian-born sociologist Frederic Boisrond of McGill University.

"Over the past years what we've seen is Canada, the U.S. and France really taking control of the country, of the political agenda in the country."

The July 7 murder of Haiti's president in his own bedroom — without a shot fired by the bodyguards tasked with protecting him — revealed the rot at the heart of Haitian political life.

But it was the casual shuffling out of Joseph and his replacement by Ariel Henry two weeks later — anticipated in a two-paragraph statement from a group of ambassadors — that revealed Haiti's subjugation to foreign dictates.

Until that point, Joseph appeared to have the upper hand in the power struggle within Moise's Parti Haitien Tet Kale (PHTk) or "Bald-headed" party. On July 17, the Core Group statement "strongly encouraged" Henry "to form a government." Joseph threw in the towel 48 hours later.

The American, Canadian and French ambassadors form the top table of the Core Group, with representatives of the UN, EU, Brazil, Germany, Spain and the Organization of American States (OAS) in support.

"A tweet put Ariel Henry in power," said Haitian activist Monique Clesca.

Clesca is a member of a 52-person Commission for a Haitian Solution to the Crisis that has been holding hearings in Haiti since the beginning of this year.

The commission includes representatives of Haiti's political parties, farmers' groups, the business community, labour unions, churches, voodoo leaders and women's groups, along with three representatives of the Haitian diaspora — one each for Canada, the U.S. and France. It also includes a handful of respected independent voices, including Clesca, who recently wrote an op-ed for the New York Times calling for an end to foreign domination of Haiti.

The "crisis" that the commission seeks to resolve is not just the fallout of the Moise assassination. It's "a governance crisis, a humanitarian crisis, a security crisis, a social crisis," said Clesca — all of it linked to the breakdown of Haitian democracy caused by successive governments that failed to hold fair elections but continued to enjoy the backing of foreign embassies.