The Hait­ian gov­ern­ment has sought to as­sure cit­i­zens that the state is mo­bil­is­ing all its re­sources to re­gain full con­trol of the oc­cu­pied ter­ri­to­ries and that life is grad­u­al­ly re­sum­ing in the cap­i­tal, Port-au-Prince.

“The gov­ern­ment is tak­ing steps to re­store the city cen­ter to what it once was,” said Prime Min­is­ter Al­ix Di­di­er Fils-Aimé.

“The State calls on the en­tire pop­u­la­tion to co­op­er­ate with the au­thor­i­ties … to­geth­er, we can en­sure se­cu­ri­ty, free­dom, and dig­ni­ty for every cit­i­zen,” he said.

The Hait­ian PM re­it­er­at­ed that the safe­ty of the pop­u­la­tion is “a non-ne­go­tiable is­sue” and that the State “will nev­er aban­don it in the mid­dle of the road.”

On Thurs­day evening, the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter re­leased a video on so­cial me­dia show­ing what it said was the progress be­ing made in re­gain­ing ter­ri­to­ry that had been seized by crim­i­nal gangs—who have been seek­ing to over­throw the pro­vi­sion­al gov­ern­ment ever since the as­sas­si­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Jovenel Moi­se on Ju­ly 7, 2021.

“The gov­ern­ment, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Hait­ian Na­tion­al Po­lice (PNH) and the Hait­ian Armed Forces (FAd’H), is con­duct­ing large-scale and re­lent­less op­er­a­tions in down­town Port-au-Prince with the aim of re­gain­ing con­trol of the ar­eas oc­cu­pied by crim­i­nal ban­dits,” the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter said.

It added: “These op­er­a­tions will con­tin­ue with­out in­ter­rup­tion un­til the State re­gains full con­trol of the city cen­tre.”

The near three-minute video shows ma­jor cleanup work is pro­gress­ing rapid­ly to al­low free and clean move­ment of peo­ple and ve­hi­cles.

The gov­ern­ment said that to date, more than 1,000 cu­bic me­ters of waste and more than 200 wrecked ve­hi­cles have been re­moved from the roads.

It said that the Min­istry of Pub­lic Works, with a mas­sive de­ploy­ment of equip­ment, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with sev­er­al oth­er state in­sti­tu­tions, con­tin­ues to clean up, re­pair roads, and re­store in­fra­struc­ture so that life can re­sume nor­mal­ly.

Ear­li­er this week, Pres­i­dent of the Tran­si­tion­al Pres­i­den­tial Coun­cil (CPT), Lau­rent Saint-Cyr, and Prime Min­is­ter Fils-Aimé held talks with a Unit­ed Na­tions del­e­ga­tion, led by Tom Fletch­er, the UN Un­der-Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al for Hu­man­i­tar­i­an Af­fairs and Emer­gency Re­lief Co­or­di­na­tor (OCHA).

The dis­cus­sions fo­cused on im­me­di­ate na­tion­al pri­or­i­ties in­clud­ing restor­ing se­cu­ri­ty, pro­vid­ing hu­man­i­tar­i­an sup­port to dis­placed pop­u­la­tions, or­ga­niz­ing elec­tions, eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery, and re­sum­ing air trav­el.

Pres­i­dent Saint-Cyr said that se­cu­ri­ty re­mains the es­sen­tial con­di­tion for the re­sump­tion of na­tion­al life and the or­ga­ni­za­tion of free and cred­i­ble elec­tions. He re­it­er­at­ed the de­ter­mi­na­tion of the Hait­ian au­thor­i­ties to com­bat armed gangs, re­store State au­thor­i­ty, and re­store con­fi­dence in the pop­u­la­tion.

“Haiti needs in­creased sup­port from the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to emerge from this cri­sis. Gangs will not dic­tate the fu­ture of the coun­try,” he as­sert­ed.

Prime Min­is­ter Fils-Aimé re­called that mil­lions of Haitians are liv­ing in a sit­u­a­tion of ex­treme vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, ex­ac­er­bat­ed by in­se­cu­ri­ty. He em­pha­sized the need to chan­nel aid through the Hait­ian gov­ern­ment to en­sure bet­ter co­or­di­na­tion.

He said with re­gards to elec­tions, 87 per cent of polling cen­tres al­ready have been iden­ti­fied, 70 per cent of elec­toral staff have been mo­bi­lized, and that na­tion­al fund­ing of US$65 mil­lion has been se­cured through the com­mon fund man­aged by the Unit­ed Na­tions De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme (UNDP). —PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (CMC)