Haiti, I’m sor­ry. Haiti, I’m sor­ry

One day we’ll turn our heads.

Re­store your glo­ry.

The words of vet­er­an T&T ca­lyp­son­ian David Rud­der’s Haiti, an ode to that coun­try’s strug­gles to right it­self decades ago, still ring pow­er­ful­ly to­day as the French-speak­ing Caribbean na­tion seeks to re­store peace and po­lit­i­cal sta­bil­i­ty with­in its bor­ders yet again.

Al­ready sti­fled by un­end­ing pover­ty through­out its his­to­ry, this time, how­ev­er, it is the stran­gle­hold en­forced by a group of gang lead­ers who are es­sen­tial­ly hold­ing Haiti to ran­som.

Pow­er­ful gang leader Jim­my “Bar­beque” Cher­izier has so far re­ject­ed at­tempts by for­eign en­ti­ties seek­ing to clear the path for a tran­si­tion to a new leader, hav­ing al­ready forced Prime Min­is­ter Ariel Hen­ry in­to res­ig­na­tion—al­beit by threat of un­leash­ing more “civ­il un­rest” up­on the cit­i­zen­ry in Port-au-Prince.

Cher­izier and his G9 Fam­i­ly and Al­lies al­liance have for years ter­rorised Haitians but in re­cent times have fo­cused their at­ten­tion more on the cap­i­tal, as he seeks to be the main power­bro­ker in a process that on­ly he seems to know the out­come of.

His men have at­tacked po­lice sta­tions, the main jails and even for­eign aid in­stal­la­tions in the cap­i­tal, with the ob­vi­ous re­sult be­ing hu­man ca­su­al­ties.

Hun­dreds of law-abid­ing Haitians have fled their homes amid the vi­o­lence for safer ar­eas, in­clud­ing neigh­bour­ing Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic.

Cari­com lead­ers are mean­while seek­ing to pave the way for the tran­si­tion but there is noth­ing that sug­gests they will get the full co­op­er­a­tion of the main play­ers in Haiti.

In the first in­stance, Hen­ry, still in ef­fec­tive ex­ile in Puer­to Ri­co be­cause he can­not re­turn home un­der the threat of es­ca­lat­ing vi­o­lence, has on­ly agreed to re­sign on con­di­tion that a tran­si­tion­al coun­cil is set up by Cari­com.

There is no doubt, how­ev­er, that he has reached the end of his run. His de­par­ture is be­ing wel­comed by civ­il bod­ies, who now see his re­fusal to hold elec­tions since be­ing named to the post in 2021, just be­fore the as­sas­si­na­tion of then-Pres­i­dent Jovenel Moi­se, as a sign he is not ful­ly vest­ed in the wel­fare of the coun­try.

Cher­izier has, mean­while, alert­ed Cari­com he will not re­spect their de­ci­sions, telling Al Jazeera re­cent­ly, “I’m go­ing to say to the tra­di­tion­al politi­cians that are sit­ting down with Cari­com, since they went with their fam­i­lies abroad, we who stayed in Haiti have to take the de­ci­sions.”

If there­fore, Cari­com’s ef­forts will not be recog­nised by the man hold­ing the main pow­er chips in Haiti, ex­act­ly what do the re­gion­al lead­ers ex­pect to achieve?

The irony in all this, of course, is the fact that sev­er­al Cari­com lead­ers, T&T and Ja­maica’s heads among them, cur­rent­ly have their own is­sues of law and or­der to fo­cus on and may be on shaky moral ground in try­ing to con­vince Cher­izier to give up the pow­er he thinks he has.

Need­less to say, we are not com­fort­able that a Cari­com-dri­ven process will lead Haiti out of the po­lit­i­cal and so­cial quag­mire it is now in, since di­rect in­ter­ven­tion is clear­ly be­ing re­sist­ed for now.

It is clear, how­ev­er, that at this point in time, al­though the Unit­ed States is in­flu­enc­ing the at­tempt­ed tran­si­tion from be­hind the scenes, noth­ing will ma­te­ri­alise any­time soon to re­lease Haiti from Cher­izier’s grip.