The former US special envoy to Haiti, who resigned last month in protest of measures by the Joe Biden government, said Washington was wrong to back Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry, considering that he has no credibility.
When asked at a congressional hearing whether the Henry administration could remain in power without the support of the United States, Daniel Foote, a career diplomat, responded: "I don’t think I’ll survive for a minute".
Henry was appointed just two days before the assassination, on July 7, of President Jovenel Moise, who had been ruling by decree, ushering in a new crisis in America’s poorest nation, already battered by rampant violence and disasters. natural.
Under an agreement reached at the end of July, a new government was tasked with organizing new elections.
Henry became the darling after ambassadors from the United States, France, and others in Port-au-Prince endorsed him in a joint statement.
Foote said he has no personal grudge against Henry, but believes that "the consensus is almost unanimous" among Haitians that the prime minister belongs to a party that is to blame for Haiti’s problems.
"Haitians … are not happy and do not see the current interim government as credible"Foote said when testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Foote argued that Biden administration officials had supported "almost blindly" Henry as they felt "nervous" by too many changes of government in the troubled country.
Foote, a seasoned diplomat who served only two months as an emissary, noted that this issue contributed to his resignation.
Democratic Congressman Andy Levin told Foote he was "furious" because the United States missed what he called a historic opportunity to engage civil society and instead blessed a Moise designee, who had led a "kleptocracy, a gangsterization" from Haiti.
The congressman urged the Biden administration to encourage a "actual transition" at Haiti "and not just for a show of return to a democratic government".
"I believe that our current policy does not respect and does not see the Haitian people, something that our country has done over and over again."Levin opined.
In a letter last month, Foote said he could not support mass deportations of Haitians under Biden, amid widespread outrage over images of mounted guards repressing migrants on the southern US border.
Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman responded that her explanation was not true, noting that Foote had proposed sending the US military to Haiti, a measure that, according to her, does not "would solve the terrible situation" in the Caribbean country.
.
