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How Haiti’s Gangs Pushed Out the Prime Minister
CNN One Thing
Mar 17, 2024
Earlier this week, Haitian prime minister Ariel Henry announced he would resign amid spreading gang violence and instability. The United Nations estimates that gangs control nearly 80% of Haiti’s capital, brutalizing civilians and attacking police. Meanwhile, a Kenyan-led force is set to take over security on the island once a presidential council is in place, but there are major questions about how effective it will be. In this episode, a CNN team describes what they heard from residents about the terrors they’ve faced and what they want for the future.
Guests: David Culver, CNN Senior National Correspondent & Caitlin Hu, CNN Senior Editor
Episode Transcript
David Rind
00:00:00
Haiti has been through a lot in the last ten plus years. And yes, I realize that is putting it incredibly lightly. Catastrophic earthquakes a prime minister assassinated, gang violence paralyzing city streets. But it wasn't until somewhat recently that it felt like things had gotten truly out of control. Like we were staring down a failed state. My guests this week are CNN's David Culver and Caitlin Hu last month they traveled to the country to see the chaos for themselves and were on their way back this week when the prime Minister said he would resign from CNN, this is One Thing I'm David Rind.
David Rind
00:00:49
Where are you guys right now?
David Culver
00:00:51
We are sitting in a hotel room in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Our intention over the past few days has been to try to get into Haiti. Obviously, it's a place right now that is dealing from the U.S. perspective with a high level, if not the highest level, travel warning, an advisory do not go. So it's made it a bit tricky. Quite frankly, David, for us to get back to a place that we were and only a couple of weeks ago, but now is a very different place even given the two weeks that have passed.
David Rind
00:01:20
Yeah, I should say we're speaking on Tuesday afternoon here. But where did all this kind of start to pick up?
Caitlin Hu
00:01:27
So the now outgoing prime minister, Ariel Henry, was, supposed to hand over power to a new elected government on February 7th. But the problem is, you never held elections before that, so there was no government to hand over. He's been unpopular throughout his entire term. But it was that day that that things really started to kick off with people out in the streets saying, like, this guy has got to go.
Woman
00:01:52
yelling in Creole
David Culver
00:02:00
When we were there just a couple of weeks ago, it genuinely felt as though it was about to explode. I mean, this tension was building up.
David Culver (nats)
00:02:07
You want the Prime Minister out?
Junior
00:02:09
The Prime Minister, Ariel Henry to leave this country because my country is very broken.
David Culver
00:02:15
And we we were so limited in where we could go from a security perspective, getting around the capital, port au Prince, because 80%, that's the estimate of the capital city was gang controlled. And we're not talking about one gang, we're talking about dozens of gangs.
David Culver (nats)
00:02:31
He's yelling towards the police, saying, these are criminals, criminals.
Caitlin Hu
00:02:35
The gangs have also been attacking police directly, you know, whereas they used to fight each other. Now they're going out and burning police stations. They're killing police officers. They're attacking the National Palace. Like this is an attack on what remains of the Haitian state.
David Culver (nats)
00:02:49
But right now, do you feel safe here? Does it feel safe right now?
Junior
00:02:55
No, it doesn't. It doesn't. It doesn't feel safe.
David Culver (nats)
00:02:58
You say your country is broken.
Junior
00:02:59
Yeah, broken. My country is broken right now. I don't know where you are and my country is broken.
David Culver
00:03:06
And to Caitlyn's point, I think people were expecting February 7th to be that day where at least Hungary would turn over the keys and step down. But obviously that didn't happen on that date.
Junior
00:03:18
(nats) They push us into misery, they push us into insecurity...
David Culver
00:03:23
And that's what's caused folks to not only be frustrated towards the gangs and the violence, and what they feel like has just been total lawlessness. But now towards the government itself.
John King
00:03:34
The state of emergency declared when thousands of inmates escaped from Haiti's largest prison. Prime minister's whereabouts are uncertain.
David Rind
00:03:44
And so as all this chaos was kind of unfolding, where was the prime minister in all of this?
Caitlin Hu
00:03:49
That's a question a lot of people were asking for quite some time. He had been in Kenya, where he was trying to secure this international, foreign military mission that would come and help support the police in combating the gangs. But while he was in Kenya, literally signing the deal that would underpin this mission. The gang violence erupted as soon as that happened. No one saw him. He was missing for days. People could only speculate whether he had left Kenya, whether he was trying to return to Haiti, or whether he might be going to a third country. We later found out that he had attempted to reach Haiti through the Dominican Republic, and was turned back by Dominican authorities, finally ending up in Puerto Rico.
Paula Newton
00:04:31
And we do have new developments just in to CNN. Haiti's prime minister has resigned as the violence in his country just gets worse.
David Culver
00:04:39
Officials have said the most recent comments from the Prime Minister is that he would resign. And obviously that's a big sigh of relief to folks on the ground if it meant immediately and if it meant some sort of stability would follow. But it doesn't seem to be leading to that right away.
Ariel Henry (translator)
00:04:57
My government will leave immediately after the inauguration of the council, there will be a caretaker government until they name a prime minister and a new cabinet.
David Culver
00:05:06
There's a promise towards a transitional presidential council. And yet that raises even further questions as to who's going to be part of that council.
Man
00:05:18
Nats
David Culver (nats)
00:05:19
He's saying, he's saying the international community is complicit in all of this, and he wants the international community to leave. He wants the prime minister to leave. He says the community here has been terrorized.
David Culver
00:05:29
The biggest frustration from folks that we spoke with just a couple weeks ago, being on the ground, was that it was everyone but Haitians who had a say in this. They were pointing to the several folks who they feel like are controlling their country, and they say, we've been through that for generations. It's our turn to have a voice here. But the problem is, how do you have a consistent, if not secured election if stability is still in question?
David Culver
00:06:11
So when you were there a few weeks ago, like, what is daily life look like for people amidst all this unrest.
David Culver
00:06:18
For us as journalists trying to get around? Obviously we felt the constraints, but you have to imagine what it's like for those who live this day in and day out. And we saw people who were just trying to make do with their situations. I mean, there's still a desire for some sense of normalcy. I think you also get a sense for, you know, this level of desperation where sometimes you can flee a situation. And we met one family.
David Culver (nats)
00:06:42
Let's step in here. This is their home,.
David Culver
00:06:45
The Cadeau family, who had fled two years ago because of the gangs. Their home was torched. They lived on the streets for about five months. Eventually they made it to a makeshift camp, and they thought that would be a safer place. And it was for a year and a half until their eight year old daughter was out playing with some friends.
Girl
00:07:04
Nats Creole
David Culver
00:07:07
They heard some gunfire. She almost was ashamed as she was telling us. I just didn't hear it and I didn't hide quick enough.
Girl
00:07:17
Nats Creole
David Culver
00:07:19
She was shot in her back, the bullet exiting to her abdomen. They had to pay a lot of money to go through a five hour surgery.
David Culver (nats)
00:07:26
And you can see she has the scars that are still fresh.
David Culver
00:07:31
This was only a few weeks and when we met her, she was lying down on the family's only bed in a very cramped space, recovering.
David Culver
00:07:39
Thank you for sharing. Thank you for sharing.
Girl (translator)
00:07:43
Merci
David Culver
00:07:44
Does her parents seem just incredibly overwhelmed by the situation? And I think adding to just the tragedy of this is we found out a couple of weeks after we were with her that gangs again came through that area and torched it all. So they had to flee and go somewhere else. But that's just their reality right now.
Caitlin Hu
00:08:08
Most of Haiti is not controlled by gangs, but most of the capital is. And when the capital, which is where the international airport is, where the international port is, where the humanitarian organizations are based, that means the rest of the country starves. Kids who would get maybe their one meal of the day from school through the World Food Program, for example, aren't able to get that anymore either because they're afraid to go in the streets, or because the WFP itself may not be able to get its food stocks around the country anymore.
David Culver
00:08:37
Hey, David, nice to meet you.
David Culver
00:08:40
A great example of that, David, was when we went to this coastal community, Jérémie and the World Food Program took us through, to one school that hadn't been open for about a month and a half. And to Caitlin's point, if that school wasn't going to be open, those kids weren't going to get food.
David Culver (nats)
00:08:56
Yesterday you tried to reopen and yes and no children showed up.
Priest
00:09:01
(French) Yes. Normally, the administrative staff is there.
David Culver
00:09:10
And we sat down with a Catholic priest who runs it, and he was very stoic at first. He took us through several of the classrooms, showed us the empty shelves where they normally would stock up for food, and just said, you know, obviously this is not the vibe of the school that that he and the staff so loved. And I asked him, I said, how is it being here?
David Culver (nats)
00:09:31
Do you think about them and what's been now more than a month that they haven't been here? Do you think about the situation?
Priest
00:09:37
This is very sad for them, for us also because I know... (sobs)
David Culver
00:09:49
And he stopped for a minute and said, it's tough. But then he had a total breakdown. He couldn't even really catch his breath for probably a couple of minutes.
Priest
00:10:00
I know they are at home, they are hungry. They have nothing. Maybe they are going to steal...
David Culver
00:10:10
He said he knows they're at home. He knows they're hungry, they're kids. They need to eat. And he also knows they're going to resort to things that may not be good, including stealing and committing acts of violence just to feed themselves. And he goes, you know, I can't blame them. He would do the same.
Priest
00:10:26
I would do the same thing. Maybe you also, when we need to eat, when we need to drink, we need to live. You can do everything to have something to survive. You know, it's very sad for us also.
David Culver
00:10:53
So it's like this instability and this violence kind of creates this, this cycle where people are in such desperate need to resort to extreme measures. And then it's kind of hard to break out of that.
David Culver
00:11:04
Yeah. I think even if I don't know your thoughts on this, Caitlin or a bit, what stood out to us too is like, you can't even look at the gangs as bad guys, right? Because there are victims within that. Yeah.
Caitlin Hu
00:11:14
And you have to look at this in the historical context. And that's not like old history. It's not colonial history or American occupation history. It's, since the 2010 earthquake. Some members of the gangs were kids. When that earthquake happened, you know, they lived through that chaos, the devastation of their city. And when David talks about, the priest breaking down in tears because you can't feed them, there are people who have spent decades trying to set up systems to recover from catastrophe, to at least give kids a chance to, like, break free of this cycle and to see things break down again is heartbreaking.
Kate Bouldan
00:11:52
The Biden administration is now considering using Guantanamo Bay to handle migrants fleeing Haiti, as U.S. officials are preparing for a mass exodus of people fleeing the escalating gang violence that has really taken over the country.
David Culver
00:12:05
David, I will say there's another element to all of this, and that is from the American perspective. I think folks are just tired of conflict and Americans being involved in everything, be it Ukraine and Russia, Israel, Gaza, you know, now you look at Haiti and the question that we've posed to even the country head of the World Food Program is, well, why should Americans care about this? And as he points out, there's two main reasons. One is the humanitarian look at your heart and look what people are going through. But two, perhaps the more practical aspect of this, especially during an election year, is if we see what's happening at the southern border. And I've covered that extensively, and we look at the folks from all over the world who are coming. Haitians are a big part of that, too. And so if we think it's, you know, all isolated and it's not connected, we're wrong.
David Culver
00:12:53
David. Caitlin. Thank you.
David Culver
00:12:55
Thanks, David.
Caitlin Hu
00:12:55
Thank you.
Cailtin Hu nats
00:13:02
'Okay. Caitlin here. So we finally made it to Port-au-Prince today.
David Culver
00:13:07
A few days after, I spoke with David and Caitlin. They reached back out. As CNN became the first major news network to get back to Haiti's capital.
Caitlin Hu
00:13:17
We had tried at the Dominican border at Dahabon. We tried at a different border crossings bar at Himanya. We tried to get on helicopters, we tried to walk. We tried everything, and it seemed like we were never going to make it. But on Friday, we did finally managed to get everything squared away. And we took off in this, tiny helicopter. And as soon as we got out...
David Culver (nats)
00:13:44
Did you hear that? I think it is.
Caitlin Hu
00:13:47
We could hear gunshots, and that's. I guess that's why we came.
David Culver
00:13:52
'We were here three weeks ago, and at the very least, there was activity on the streets. There were people selling things. There was heavy traffic. Now it's eerily quiet. People are sealed inside their homes. Communities have barricaded themselves and created these self-defense brigades. Armed neighbors that are taking turns watching every entrance and exit, making sure that the gangs don't try to stretch into their territory even further. And there have been many of confrontations between these communities and gang members. The question that many ask is, well, who's running Haiti right now? Nobody, essentially. The gangs know that, and it seems like they thrive off that dysfunction and chaos. And yet at the same time, in a public facing way, they're trying to portray themselves as of the people representatives who want to make life for everyday Haitians better. The thing is, while the gang members and everyday folks here may share a common frustration that being the government and the outgoing Prime Minister, Ariel Henry, it doesn't mean that they are united. Quite the opposite. Many of the community folks are incredibly frustrated with the gangs, and are angry of what horror they have caused and the devastation that they're spreading throughout Port Au Prince and really around this country.
David Rind
00:15:39
One thing is a production of CNN Audio. This episode was produced by Paola Ortiz and me, David Rind. Our senior producer is Faiz Jamil. Our supervising producer is Greg Peppers. Matt Dempsey is our production manager. Dan Dzula is our technical director. And Steve Lickteig is the executive producer of CNN Audio. We get support from Haley Thomas, Alex Manaseri, Robert Mathers, John Dianora, Lenni Steinhart, Jamus Andrest, Nichole Pesaru, and Lisa Namerow. Special thanks to Caroline Patterson, Elio Contreras, and Katie Hinman. We'll be back on Sunday with another episode. Talk to you then.
