00:00Now, it's been 40 years since the fall of Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier, son of the equally
00:06infamous Francois Duvalier. Haiti remains mired in institutional, political, humanitarian and
00:12economic crises. On Saturday, the mandate of the Presidential Transition Council officially expires
00:19and the country is in limbo, not knowing if there will be change or not. Journalist Harold Isaac
00:25joins us from Port-au-Prince. Thanks for speaking to France 24. Thanks for having me. Harold,
00:31what information do you have about what to expect tomorrow? Are things going to change or not?
00:38Well, that's the question everybody's asking today, whether to expect any sort of turmoil
00:45in the coming hours as the TPC is nearing the end of its term and that essentially Prime Minister
00:52is set to carry on with the transition in the coming weeks, not to say months.
01:00So just set the context of us around this transition. Why was it set up? How long has it been? Just
01:07explain things, give a bit more background for those of us who don't follow Haiti in great detail.
01:13Well, essentially Haiti has been in an aggravated constitutional and institutional crisis for the
01:19better part of the last 10 years. It took essentially a turn for the worse since the
01:25assassination of President Jovenel Moïse on July 7th of 2021. Then Prime Minister Ariel Henry took over
01:35for more or less three years up until March 2024, where he was essentially withheld from returning to Haiti
01:46and forced to resign, essentially. And from that point on, a transitional presidential council was set up
01:55with nine members and seven voting members. And there were essentially mini presidents in charge of
02:03restoring security, delivering security and elections within the coming two years, which essentially they
02:12failed to deliver and today are at the end of their term. And that is creating a lot of political turmoil.
02:21And regardless that whether they leave or not, which is unlikely to be that they'd be staying at this
02:28point, we are still being propelled into a profound political crisis.
02:33Now, what are some of the wider factors that are feeding into this turmoil, perhaps inside the country,
02:42externally? Just explain the wider causes of this turmoil.
02:49Well, again, you know, Haiti is today facing an aggravated gang crisis. About 80 percent of the capital is
02:58under some sort of gang control. It has spread to two other departments up north, both the Atibonite
03:06and the center department, and which has led to about a million people displaced. About half of the 12
03:14million people population of the country is facing famine-like hunger and enormous atrocities affecting
03:22women and children. So this has been a very big problem in Haiti. But it also created a regional
03:30crisis with about, I'd say, about a million Haitians living in Haiti in the last 10 years, going all the
03:38way down south to Latin America, in Chile, in Brazil, and also spreading up north to Mexico, Central America,
03:49Mexico, the US, and Canada. And maybe let's talk a little bit about the legacy of the Duvalier, because we're
03:56coming up to this anniversary of 40 years. How would you say Haitians remember the Duvalier today?
04:05Well, the Duvalier dynasty that lasted 29 years from 1957 was a very gruesome and brutal dictatorship that
04:18really shaped the country, not necessarily in the best terms, with privation affecting everything from, you know,
04:30private liberty, liberty of expression, freedom of speech, freedom of association.
04:38And there were major crackdowns against students, lawyers, human rights advocates, journalists,
04:46you name it. And that really, really was one of the darkest period of Haitian history.
04:53Now, what came out of it was a lot of hope in 1986, when on February 7th, essentially, Duvalier,
05:03baby doc fled the country to France, where he sought refuge. And the country was essentially promised to
05:11a spring, or a democracy spring. And that promise was really vivid, and went through, you know,
05:20across the whole, all the levels of society. However, it was challenged, and by times short-lived,
05:29because reactionary forces were always at the corner and trying to quell all this burgeoning,
05:37you know, democracy efforts, whether through coup d'etats that were interrupting electoral cycles,
05:46and of course, returns of militias and military regimes. So, but essentially, one of the key points of the
05:59of this burgeoning democracy, I'd say spring, was the election in 1991, in 1990, and December 16,
06:121990, of then priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who eventually also faced a coup d'etat and fled to
06:20exile in the US. And his return ever since in 1994, brought back by American forces, also shaped our
06:28relationship to not only the US, but also within the country. And all the political dynamics have been
06:36essentially between two big factions, the Lavalos regimes and more reactionary forces. The Lavalos is
06:42more leftist and the reactionary forces that are like more close to the Duvalier leanings in the past.
06:52So would you say the country is still suffering these cycles of one misfortune after another,
06:59followed by hope, followed by misfortune? And how might it ever break this cycle?
07:04Well, besides like 40 years, essentially, of experimenting with democracy for the better
07:14and the worse in many instances, we've also faced natural catastrophes such as the massive earthquake
07:22of January 12, 2010, where essentially about 300,000 Haitians died suddenly. And today,
07:32the gang violence is essentially a long kind of aftershock, you know, of that earthquake,
07:42because the whole center of downtown Port-au-Prince was completely obliterated and never really recovered.
07:51And these areas were essentially remained abandoned and eventually became lawless with gangs after the
08:01departure, namely of stabilizing missions from the UN, the MINUSTAH that was in Haiti from 2004 to
08:102017. So when they departed in 2017, that left the Haitian government with a lot to handle, especially
08:20in terms of security. And we never really had a UN mission returning in full force until the Kenyan-led
08:32MSS came about two years ago, and now is being transformed into what they call the gang-suppressing
08:37force. All right, Howard Isaac, we'll leave it there, because I think it's about 2.30 a.m. where
08:42you are in Port-au-Prince. So thank you so much for staying up late for us and giving us
08:46such a detailed overview of the situation in Haiti. Look forward to speaking to you again soon.
08:52Thanks for having me.
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