Even as gangs terrorized Haiti, kidnapped civilians en masse and killed at will, the country’s embattled prime minister held on to power for years.

Then, in a matter of days, everything changed.

In the midst of political upheaval not seen since the country’s president was assassinated in 2021, Haiti’s prime minister, Ariel Henry, agreed to step down. Now, neighboring countries are scrambling to create a transitional council to run the country and plot a course for elections, which once seemed a distant possibility.

What made this moment different, experts say: The gangs united, forcing the country’s leader to relinquish power.

“Prime Minister Ariel resigned not because of politics, not because of the massive street demonstrations against him over the years, but because of the violence gangs have carried out,” said Judes Jonathas, a Haitian consultant who has worked for years in aid delivery. “The situation totally changed now, because the gangs are now working together.”

It is unclear how strong the alliance is or whether it will last. What is apparent is that the gangs are trying to capitalize on their control of Port-au-Prince, the capital, to become a legitimate political force in the negotiations being brokered by foreign governments including the United States, France and Caribbean nations.

In early March, Henry traveled to Nairobi to finalize a deal for a Kenyan-led security force to deploy to Haiti. Criminal groups seized on the absence of Henry, who is highly unpopular. Within days, the gangs shut down the airport, looted seaports, attacked about a dozen police stations and released about 4,600 prisoners from jail.

They demanded that Henry resign, threatening to worsen the violence if he refused. Since he agreed to step down, the gangs seem to be largely focused on securing immunity from criminal prosecution and staying out of jail, analysts said.

“Their biggest objective is amnesty,” Jonathas said.

The criminals’ most prominent political ally is Guy Philippe, a former police commander and coup leader who served six years in U.S. federal prison for laundering drug money before being deported back to Haiti late last year. He has led the push for Henry to resign.

Now Philippe is openly calling for the gangs to receive amnesty.

“We have to tell them, ‘You will put down the weapons or you will face big consequences,’” Philippe told The New York Times in an interview in January, referring to the gangs. “If you put down the weapons,” he said, “you will have a second chance. You will have some kind of amnesty.”

Philippe does not have a seat on the transitional council appointed to lead Haiti. But he is using his connections to the Pitit Desalin political party to bring those demands to the negotiating table in Jamaica, where Caribbean and international officials are meeting to forge a solution to the crisis in Haiti, according to three people familiar with the discussions.

Gang leaders’ decision to unite was most likely motivated by a desire to consolidate power after Henry signed the agreement with Kenya to bring 1,000 police officers to Port-au-Prince, said William O’Neill, the United Nations expert on human rights in Haiti.

Many gang members in Haiti are teenagers, he said, who are looking to be paid but who probably have little interest in going to war with a well-armed police force.

The gangs respect “fear and force,” O’Neill said. “They fear a force stronger than they are.”

While many doubt that the Kenyan force will bring lasting stability, its arrival would represent the biggest challenge to the gang’s territorial control in years.

“The gangs have been hearing about this Kenyan-led force,” for years, said Louis-Henri Mars, the executive director of Lakou Lapè, an organization that works with Haitian gangs. “Then they saw that it was finally coming, so they launched a preemptive strike.”

The violence unleashed by the gangs shut down much of the capital and prevented Henry from being able to return to his country.

This was the tipping point: The United States and Caribbean leaders viewed Haiti’s situation as “untenable.” U.S. officials concluded Henry was no longer a viable partner and sharpened their calls for him to move quickly toward a transition of power, officials involved in the political negotiations said.

Since then, gang leaders have been speaking to journalists, holding news conferences, promising peace and demanding a seat at the table.

Jimmy Chérizier, a powerful gang leader also known as Barbecue, has become one of the best-known faces of the new gang alliance, known as Living Together.

A former police officer known for his ruthlessness, Chérizier’s gang, the G-9, commands downtown Port-au-Prince and has been accused of attacking neighborhoods allied with opposition political parties, looting homes, raping women and killing people at random.

Yet in his news conferences, Chérizier has apologized for the violence and blamed Haiti’s economic and political systems for country’s destitution and inequality. Philippe has echoed that thinking.

“Those young girls, those young boys, they have no other opportunity — to die starving or to take weapons,” Philippe told the Times. “They chose to take weapons.”

Haiti political parties reject plan to install new leaders

A plan for a transitional Haitian government backed by the U.S. and other regional allies was rejected by Haitian political leaders Wednesday, calling into question efforts to stabilize the country’s government.

Prime Minister Ariel Henry announced he will resign from his post Tuesday, endorsing a plan for a presidential council that would select the country’s next leader as Haiti struggles against rampant gang violence and political instability.

The council — negotiated among the U.S., Kenya, Caribbean states and other regional governments this week — requires members to not run for president, not be charged with crimes and support a Kenyan-led multinational police force backed by the U.S.

Some of Haiti’s top political leaders rejected the plan, citing opposition to its requirements, specifically the support to a multinational security force.

Former Haitian Sen. Jean Charles Moïse and former rebel leader Guy Philippe said Wednesday that their three-person transition council instead should be implemented.

“We are not going to negotiate it,” Moïse declared at a press conference. “We have to make them understand.”

Phillippe also denounced the plan, tying the council to Haiti’s corrupt political leadership, and urged Haitians to protest in the streets.

“The decision of CARICOM is not our decision,” he said, referring to the regional governmental body called the Caribbean Community. “Haitians will decide who will govern Haiti.”

Philippe led a coup against former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004 and was recently released from U.S. prison for money laundering. He is not eligible to be a member of the council due to his criminal record and stated intention to run for president.

A senior State Department official told reporters Tuesday that the U.S. would not want Philippe to lead the country after the council organizes elections.

“I think the United States and the vast majority of the international community would find that worrisome,” the official said. “We would have serious concerns about that.”

The exact members of the nine-person council have not been announced, though the group will have representatives from most of Haiti’s political groups, as well as representatives from its civil and religious sectors.

Rampant gang violence quickly increased in Port-Au-Prince in late February, when Henry left for Kenya to establish and organize the multinational police mission. The violence forced the U.S. government to urge all Americans out of the country and evacuate the U.S. Embassy, where it deployed a group of Marines.

Henry has not returned to Haiti due to the violence and fears he could be assassinated, and he is staying in Puerto Rico. The violence has fueled instability that has plagued Haiti since former President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated in 2021.

The U.S. has committed $300 million for the security force, with a third of the funds being used to directly reimburse Kenya for its contributions, a senior State Department official said Tuesday. The security plan was enacted by a United Nations Security Council resolution last year.

Deployment of the security force has been delayed due to Henry’s resignation, but the State Department said it still believes the plan will move ahead.

“In our conversations with Kenyan officials, both sides have stressed the importance of moving to deploy as quickly as practicable,” the official said. “We remain confident that the mission will go forward, and in all the conversations, Kenyan officials have said that they intend to go forward.”

Calm in Haitian capital extends into second day as US, UN withdraw staff

Haiti's capital was calm on Wednesday, two days after the prime minister said he would step down, but the United States and the United Nations began to withdraw staff in a sign they fear peace might not hold.

Prime Minister Ariel Henry said on Monday he would resign once a transitional council takes over, following escalating violence by powerful gangs that has caused thousands to flee their homes.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who met with regional Caribbean leaders and representatives from Haiti's government and opposition in Jamaica this week, told reporters on Wednesday that he expects the transition council to come together in the next couple of days.

The Caribbean Community (CARICOM), a regional intergovernmental organization, has detailed the sectors, political parties and alliances to make up the nine-member council, but has not yet said who will be appointed.

However, Haiti's most powerful gang leader, Jimmy "Barbeque" Cherizier, who had threatened to overthrow Henry, "dismissed" the transitional council, the Miami Herald reported on Wednesday. Reuters was not able to independently confirm Cherizier's position.

A day earlier, several dozen protested against the transition plan, burning tires in downtown Port-au-Prince, but the city was for the most part calm.

Henry traveled to Kenya last month to secure Nairobi's leadership of a long-delayed security mission to fight the gangs, which the UN believes control most of the capital. Violence escalated in his absence and he remained stranded in Puerto Rico when he resigned.

Blinken said on Wednesday he had received assurances from Kenyan President William Ruto that the African nation was prepared to lead the mission "as soon as this new council is stood up" and an interim prime minister is picked.

Many details on the security force, such as its size, who will contribute troops, its funding, and how it will operate on the ground, have not been decided. Countries have been wary of involvement after abuses in past interventions.

Although progress continues to lag, in Canada, like Haiti a former French colony, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised his country would remain "very, very active," without specifying commitments.

Meanwhile, U.S. Southern Command - a military branch encompassing Latin America and the Caribbean - said it was deploying a team of anti-terrorism Marines to bolster embassy security and help "non-emergency" personnel leave Haiti.

Non-essential United Nations staff are also set to start leaving Haiti because of the volatile security, according to a U.N. spokesperson, who did not say how many were considered non-essential. The body employs 267 international staff and 1,220 locals in Haiti.

Neither body commented on the reason for the specific timing of their departures.

In the U.S. state of Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis, an anti-immigration hardliner, said state law enforcement would deploy more than 250 additional officers and soldiers and more than a dozen air and sea vessels to the southern coast "to protect our state."

'YOU CANNOT GO ANYWHERE'

Although many residents of Port-au-Prince resumed their business on Wednesday, buying produce from street vendors and collecting water in containers, people remain blocked from large parts of the capital that remain under gang control.

There was little sign of visible gang activity, however, and no new attacks reported on key infrastructure or government offices.

MSC said it had suspended all shipping calls at Haiti's main cargo port terminal, which it said remained "not fully operational" after containers were looted. Shipments will be diverted to Caucedo in the Dominican Republic, it said.

"Things have gotten stranger. You cannot function. You cannot go around. You cannot go anywhere," said Louis Jean Ezechiel, 31, from the hillside Petion-Ville district. "All other places in the country are inaccessible."

American author Mitch Albom said he, his wife and eight others working at an orphanage in Haiti were evacuated overnight on Monday by helicopter with help from Republican lawmakers.

Haiti has long been impoverished and politically volatile, but has become increasingly lawless since the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise, with the country's outgunned police struggling to maintain security against increasingly powerful and brutal gangs and with protests against the unelected Henry.

James Boyard, a security expert at the State University of Haiti, said calls from some sectors in Haiti for an amnesty for gang leaders constituted "a deliberate strategy to make this idea more morally acceptable."

If such an amnesty were issued, he said, this could see gangs' alleged financial backers, who have been subjected to international sanctions, off the hook.

Haitian immigrants in New York voiced wariness of more international intervention and worry about family members facing insecurity back home, children who cannot go to school and a growing exodus of educated young people moving abroad.

Radio Soleil station director Ricot Dupuy said people were "cautiously optimistic" on the plan brokered with CARICOM in Jamaica but feared if the gangs remained uncontrollable, more people would flee the country.

The U.N. estimates more than 360,000 people have been internally displaced and thousands killed amid food shortages and widespread reports of rape, torture, arson, ransom kidnappings by gang members.

"Haiti has been transformed into hell and the international community contributed significantly to that," Dupuy said. "When a house is on fire, you can put all the police, all the guns you want, but I'm not going to stay in a house that is burning. I'm going to run. And when I run, I won't care where I go."