US military airlifts embassy personnel from Haiti as crisis worsens
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00:00 The US military says it's carried out an operation in Haiti to airlift non-essential embassy personnel from the country and added as well
00:07 US forces to bolster embassy security.
00:11 And as the capital Port-au-Prince has been described as being under siege as the Caribbean nation remains under a state as well of emergency,
00:17 the US operation will be the latest sign of Haiti's troubles as gang violence threatens to bring down the government
00:23 and has left thousands fleeing their homes.
00:26 Let's talk about the latest then with our international affairs editor Philip Tell who's with me now here on set.
00:31 Philip, I mean the situation seems to be going from bad to worse with nothing really in place at the moment certainly to stop these young gangs.
00:38 You could even say Stuart it's going from worse to even worse.
00:41 There are reports of now about a hundred gangs on the rampage in the capital Port-au-Prince which are controlling most of the roads around the city.
00:52 They've attacked the presidential palace, they've attacked government buildings,
00:56 the army is not nearly big enough to be able to deal with all the problems that it's up against in the country and people are fleeing their homes.
01:05 You know the situation in Haiti in general is bad but this has made it even worse.
01:10 You've got about eleven and a half million people as part of the population there.
01:14 Acute hunger in Haiti right now is 4.7 million so we're almost up to nearly half the population which is suffering from some kind of food problem.
01:24 14.8% of unemployment and corruption 172nd out of 180 countries.
01:32 So the situation as far as the capital is concerned and the rest of Haiti is also concerned is really dire right now
01:40 and there doesn't appear to be any short term solution. 155,000 people have fled their homes.
01:45 The gangs are controlling everything.
01:48 The president Ariel Henry is absent and nobody really seems to be in charge or capable of bringing civil society and the gang leaders to the negotiating table to try to work out some kind of solution.
02:02 President Ariel Henry not in Haiti as you said there but reported to be in Puerto Rico.
02:06 I mean why is he not returned to the country?
02:08 Well he's in Puerto Rico because he can't get back into Haiti.
02:12 Puerto Rico which is just situated close to Haiti.
02:15 He has been refused entrance to the Dominican Republic which is right next door to Haiti on the same island and the gangs are in charge of the ports and of the airport.
02:25 So it's very difficult for him to get back.
02:27 The second point is that Ariel Henry is seen by the gangs as being the reason for the in the upsurge of gangland violence in Haiti and they want him gone.
02:37 They say he's an illegitimate leader.
02:38 He should have held elections already.
02:40 He hasn't done that and they want him out of the picture.
02:43 There also been accusations that it was he who was responsible for the assassination of the former president Juvenal Moise back in 2021.
02:56 He interrupted a an inquiry into that by sacking all the members of the team inquiring into what happened as far as that assassination was concerned.
03:05 They're also accusing the current president of being in cahoots with many of the gangs and enabling them to be able to have a free reign in the capital Port-au-Prince.
03:15 They want him out of the picture.
03:17 So the problem now is what's next.
03:18 Well today there is a meeting of Caribbean leaders holding emergency talks to try to work out some kind of solution in Haiti as to what can happen.
03:30 But that doesn't look as though it's going to get very far.
03:33 France the US Canada and the United Nations and Brazil are already invited to that meeting.
03:38 Earlier on there were talks between the United States on one side and Canada on the other between their two presidents over what should be the right way to move forward.
03:49 Even the Justin Trudeau has offered to send in Canadian peacekeepers.
03:56 That is perhaps a solution but at the same time with no possibility of any kind of negotiation currently possible between civil society and the gang leaders.
04:08 There is a fearing fear that if Canadian peacekeepers are sent into Haiti they could soon be deemed as an occupation force and that would make the situation go from bad to worse.
04:17 So there really is for the moment no real solution.
04:22 No easy way out of this crisis.
04:25 And so we're faced at the end of the day with an intransigent leader who's not in the country that's Ariel Henry.
04:31 He hasn't agreed to a timetable for new elections so far although he said there may be new elections next year but it's very vague as to when and how those elections would be held.
04:40 And no possibility in the short term of any foreign intervention which has left the door open basically to the gangs to be able to control what they like to use the drug trade to earn money and to reign with terror over the population of Haiti.
04:54 So it really is a very very dire situation for what is the poorest country in the region.