In an interview granted to the Voice of America (VOA - Creole) at the end of the 44th meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean (CARICOM), de facto Prime Minister Ariel Henry was asked about the sanctions adopted by the Canada and the United States against some members of Haiti's political and economic elite. Henry responded, saying that "the sanctions are helping us, they have changed the situation on the ground a little bit".
Henry did note, however, that the government had not provided the names of the Haitian citizens to the governments of Canada and the United States, and that dossiers containing the evidence supporting the sanctions had not been communicated to him.
The list of those sanctioned by Canada includes former president Michel Martelly, Jocelerme Privert, former prime ministers Laurent Lamothe and Jean Henry Céant, parliamentarians Joseph Lambert, Hervé Fourcand, Rony Célestin, Gary Bodeau, and oligarchs Gilbert Bigio, Reynold Deeb, and Sheriff Abdallah.
In the same interview, when asked about his participation in the 44th Caricom meeting, Mr. Ariel Henry replied:
“We are here because Haiti is a member of CARICOM. We come to find solutions to the problems of the CARICOM countries. We are also here to talk about political and security problems in Haiti. We talked about all this with the Canadian Prime Minister who made the trip“.
"We have set ourselves the task of working together to improve the implementation of the December 21 Accord with many more people in the consensus and to achieve better security for the Haitian people".
You can access the entirety of this interview with the Prime Minister granted to the Voice of America with this link.
Posted Feb. 25, 2023