In a recent interview with the AlterPresse, Clarens Renois, national coordinator of the Union nationale pour l'intégrité et la réconciliation (UNIR) political party, commented on negotiations with CARICOM.
"There is no real political negotiation yet, since the head of the December 21, 2022 agreement, de facto Prime Minister Ariel Henry, is not present in the discussions. This is why a consensus has yet to be reached", he said.
Renois provided few details. He stated that he had "fruitful exchanges" with the delegation from CARICOM, which held meetings with various political, business, and civil society leaders from Wednesday 12 to Saturday 15 July 2023, in Port-au-Prince.
"We spent several hours in discussions and CARICOM's emissaries continue to offer their support. Fortunately, discussions are continuing and the players are continuing to talk, while maintaining their positions", Renois explained.
Renois pleaded for a "normalization of politics and security" to favor a form of governance that could restore confidence among leaders.
In the next 15 to 21 days, yet another negotiation meeting is scheduled to take place. According to Renois, CARICOM's eminent personalities are waiting for the people designated by the political parties and civil society groups to take part.
Officially, nothing concrete has been announced following the series of talks held in Port-au-Prince from July 12 to 15, 2023, by former prime ministers Kenny Anthony of Saint Lucia, Perry Christie of the Bahamas and Bruce Golding of Jamaica, as well as Trinidadian ambassador Colin Granderson.
Contacted by telephone by AlterPresse, the political party Organisation peuple en lutte (OPL), criticized the CARICOM emissaries lack undefined methodology to follow up the discussions initiated in Jamaica from June 11 to 13, 2023.
According to OPL spokesperson Danio Siriac, the discussions with CARICOM focused on a framework for negotiating determined by the collective of 8 political parties that signed the January 30, 2023 "Kingston Joint-declaration".
According to Siriac, "the recommendation for a bicameral government is beginning to be relevant to the discussions. The de facto ruling team is facing up to the fact that it cannot put forward any argument to justify the need for a unicameral executive."
The leadership of the Montana Accord's view is that only a consensus between Haiti's social and economic forces would enable the nation to regain its sovereignty and break with this abject reign.
The Montana group had proposed that this consensus should set about re-establishing, on a consensual, transitional basis and in the spirit of the 1987 Constitution, three branches of government with a bicameral executive.
The exact contours of this bicameral executive should also be the result of consensus-building.
Michel André of the Secteur démocratique et populaire (SDP), one of the de facto government's allies." recently tweeted "Kingston declaration's signatories have gone to extremes and their desire to impose their five-member presidential college has caused the second round of negotiations under the auspices of CARICOM to fail, despite the mediation's tact. It's a shame!"
The SDP leader declared that "Montana and the eight political parties (Parti haïtien tèt kale / PHTK, OPL, EDE, Pitit Dessalines) have rejected all the proposals of Prime Minister Ariel Henry and the December 21 agreement: the government of national unity, the opening of the High Transitional Council (Hct) ,the Provisional Electoral Council (Cep), the international force. They have not yet understood the importance of dialogue, the only way out, in this context". He "invites the government and the HCT, in charge of state affairs, to fully assume their responsibilities, since they have an obligation to the nation to achieve results".
Translated and edited for clarity by CHIP editors
Posted July 30, 2023