Haiti's transitional council fires Conille
Nov. 11, 2024
Haiti’s transitional council ousted Prime Minister Gary Conille, and named Alix Didier Fils-Aimé, businessman and a former candidate for the Haitian Senate, as his replacement, yesterday. It is unclear whether the council has the power to fire the prime minister. Constitutionally only the Parliament can fire a prime minister, but currently there are no elected officials in the country.
In a letter to the Haitian people, Conille said that the decision to oust him was “taken outside any legal and constitutional framework” and amounted to “nothing more than a maneuver that further weakens our country and seriously compromises our chances of overcoming the crisis,” reports the Washington Post.
Conille, a longtime civil servant who previously worked at the United Nations, was favored by the international community. “The decision to oust him was likened by some analysts as a politically-motivated coup,” reports the New York Times.
The move could push Haiti further towards political instability — if Fils-Aimé is sworn in without Conille resigning, the country could have two prime ministers, reports the Miami Herald. Conille sent a letter to the transitional council asking for the decision not to be officially published, according to AFP.
Conille and Leslie Voltaire, who leads the council, are at odds over a cabinet reshuffling and the removal of three council members named in a bribery scandal, reports Al Jazeera. Conille sent the council a letter this week seeking the resignation of the members accused of corruption, reports RFI.
Eight out the nine council members signed the order. Former Sen. Edgard Leblanc Fils, who recently headed the council, did not sign, notes the Miami Herald.
The turmoil comes at a tricky time for international efforts to aid Haiti fight rampant criminal gangs: support for an international security mission under the incoming Trump government in the U.S. is uncertain.
More Haiti
On Friday the United Nations warned that areas of Haiti where displaced people live are reaching “famine-like” conditions.
In recent weeks – seemingly after gang leaders realized the 400-member Kenya-led international security mission was too weak to challenge them – bloodshed has again accelerated in Haiti, reports the Guardian.
Regional Relations
Latin America is bracing for Trump 2.0. “Beyond preparing for Trump’s transactional approach—a feature of his foreign policy that is almost conventional wisdom at this point—the other task facing Latin American leaders is to identify allies within the Republican Party who will be most willing and able to help them move their agenda forward,” writes James Bosworth in World Politics Review. “…The majority coalition that elected Trump is not a fully unied one. In fact, there are at least four clear cleavages within that coalition that will have an impact on the second Trump administration’s Latin American policy.”
Rumors that Trump might cut a deal with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro are swirling (at least in the media). Today Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who has taken a strong stance demanding Maduro back up his reelection claim, said the president is Venezuela’s “problem,” not Brazil’s. (Infobae)
Washington already faces reduced clout in South America, where Chinese appetite for the region’s exports have made it the go-to-trade partner, reports Reuters.
Migration
Donald Trump’s election in the United States has pushed many potential migrants to rethink their plans, “while border officials are working hard to understand what a Trump presidency will mean for the number of people trying to make it the United States,” according to the New York Times. Mexican officials are bracing for a possible rush of migrants ahead of the January inauguration.
Migrants already en-route to the U.S. have picked up the pace, hoping to get to the border before Trump’s second presidency, reports the Associated Press.
According to WOLA’s Adam Isacson, the incoming Trump administration will likely seek to suspend or curtail “most legal migration pathways, from CBP One to asylum access to humanitarian parole. We can expect a “mass deportation” campaign in the U.S. interior.” (Weekly U.S.-Mexico Border Update via Americas Migration Brief)
A U.S. federal judge “struck down a Biden administration program that would allow unauthorized immigrants married to American citizens to get legal status and a streamlined path to U.S. citizenship, declaring the policy illegal,” reports CBS. (Via Americas Migration Brief.)
Trumps threats of tariffs and mass deportations are not new, but this time Mexico is led by Claudia Sheinbaum, who seems to be more strictly ideological than her predecessor, according to the Associated Press.
Cuba
Cuban authorities said they arrested a number of people for disorderly behavior, in relation to protests over blackouts that stretched on for days. Cuba’s Attorney General’s office said it started criminal proceedings against people in Cuba’s capital Havana, the province of Mayabeque and the city of Ciego de Avila, imprisoning them in what it said was a precautionary measure. (Associated Press)
Back-to-back earthquakes hit southeastern Cuba yesterday. The shocks damaged houses, buildings and powerlines, and also caused landslides, adding to complications from two recent hurricanes and electricity shortages. (Miami Herald, Associated Press)
Brazil
Brazil announced details of its new climate change pledge that sets a target to lower the country's greenhouse gas emissions by 2035, which it will present during the United Nations climate summit COP29 in Azerbaijan, reports Reuters.
“Two years of record-breaking drought have dealt a heavy blow to what is arguably the Amazon’s most successful sustainable economy: the managed fishery for the giant pirarucu,” reports the Associated Press.
Mexico
A 14-year-old boy kidnapped last month with his family is among the 11 bodies found dismembered in the back of a pickup truck in Mexico’s Guerrero state last week. (Associated Press)
Ecuador
Ecuador’s Vice President Veronica Abad was suspended for 150 days accused of “unjustified abandonment” of her duties — it is the latest increase in tensions between Abad and President Daniel Noboa, ahead of February elections. Noboa must resign and hand his duties over to Abad to run for reelection. (Associated Press)
Hydropower reliant Ecuador is enduring relentless blackouts in the midst of a severe regional drought — but experts argue the crisis “reflects deeper structural problems within the power sector, with insufficient investment, misguided policy decisions, slow reactions to repeated warnings and a lack of strategies to adapt to extreme weather events,” reports the Guardian.
Peru
“The earnings from Illegally extracted gold in Peru have soared to record levels, fueling criminal organizations while the country debates whether to extend its mining formalization efforts,” reports InSight Crime.
Antigua and Barbuda
“Antigua police have charged a man over the fatal stabbing of a member of parliament in his seaside home,” reports the Guardian.
Stories
Latin America’s first recycling influencer is Colombian Sara Samaniego — New York Times
Baltazar Ushca — believed to be Ecuador’s last ice harvester — died aged 80, of injuries caused when a bull “overpowered him and threw him to the ground” while he was herding cattle. (New York Times)
Rafael Barrett, the anarchist chronicler of ‘Paraguayan sorrow’ – once known only in radical Latin American circles – is finally being recognized in his adopted country and has now been translated into English, reports the Guardian.