Chairperson of the Caribbean Community (CARICIOM) and Guyana President Mohamed Irfaan Ali announced the resignation of Haiti Prime Minister Ariel Henry on March 12.
Following an emergency session with CARICOM leaders regarding the state of affairs in Haiti, where gang-led violence and repeatedly delayed elections have generated turmoil, with the 74-year-old Henry tendering his resignation.
Ariel Henry is a politician and neurosurgeon born in Haiti on November 6, 1949. He has been the country’s acting prime minister since July 20, 2021. This followed the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.
On July 5, 2021, Moïse named Ariel Henry, a former minister of the interior, as prime minister.
Henry became the seventh person to hold that position in Moïse’s administration.
The opposition raised questions about the legitimacy of a prime minister appointed without any legislative approval.
Also Read: Haiti Prime Minister Resigns as Gangs Reign Terror
Education
From March 1977 to December 1981, Henry worked with Professor Claude Gros as a neurosurgical resident in Montpellier, France.
From 1981 to 1984, he studied neurophysiology and neuropathology at the University of Montpellier’s college of medicine. In January 1982, he presented his doctoral thesis.
In September 1983, the University of Montpellier awarded him a certificate in performing electroencephalography as well.
He graduated from Loma Linda University with a Master of Public Health in international health in 1989. From February to May of 1990, he studied international health management techniques at Boston University for his postdoctoral work.
Medical career
From September 1980 until June 1981, Henry taught at the Private Nursing School of Montpellier.
Working with Professor Claude Gros, he served as assistant lecturer in neurosurgery at the Gui de Chauliac university hospital in Montpellier. His term lasted from January 1982 until December 1983.
He also served as an assistant professor at the same institution from October 1983 to February 1985.
Later, from March 1985 until June 1987, he was the administrator of the Adventist Hospital of Haiti.
In addition, he lectured neurosurgery at the hospital from October 1985 to February 1995.
Still in medicine, he taught psychophysiology at the university’s faculty of human sciences from November 1988 to June 1996.
Henry worked as a neurosurgeon at the State University of Haiti Hospital from 1987 to 1996.
Since October 1990, he served as a neurology professor at the university’s college of medicine.
Despite that, he worked as a neurosurgeon and neurology consultant at the Saint Vincent Centre for Disabled Children from December 1987 to January 2010. The Centre is located in Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti.
Henry has largely impacted the field of medicine where he has led medical steering teams and organizations.
Henry led the public health response in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake and the cholera outbreak in 2012.
On 26 March 2020, the President of Haiti Jovenel Moïse chose him as a member of the 17-member scientific council. The council was tasked to fight the COVID-19 pandemic in the country.
Assassination of Haiti President
In the early morning hours of July 7, unidentified gunmen burst into the presidential residence, assassinated Moïse, and wounded the Haitian first lady.
The killing left a vacuum of power at the highest level of Haitian government. Henry had not yet been sworn in as prime minister, and René Sylvestre, the president of the Court of Cassation and the first in line of succession in the event of presidential incapacitation, had died of COVID-19 on June 23.
Interim prime minister Claude Joseph announced that he was in control and declared martial law.
The source of Joseph’s authority remained unclear, however, as his assumption of presidential power relied on legislative consent, and the Haitian parliament had been effectively dissolved since 2020.
Henry Joins Politics
Henry entered politics as a leader of the Democratic Convergence movement which sought to topple President Jean-Bertrand Aristide,who was accused of rigging the 2000 Haitian parliamentary election.
After the 2004 Haitian coup that ousted Aristide, Henry called for a transition government based on consensus and new elections.
He later became a part of the “council of sages”, consisting of seven members. The council was backed by the United States and elected members of the transitional government.
He supported René Préval after he was elected as the President and was appointed as the director general of the Ministry of Health in June 2006.
He remained in the position until September 2008, when he was appointed as the ministry’s chief of staff from September 2008 to October 2011
Henry is a former member of Social Democratic Party, Haitian Revolutionary Progressive Nationalist Party which was founded by his long-time friend and political mentor Serge Gilles, Fusion of Haitian Social Democrats and Inite.
He was selected as the Minister of Interior and Territorial Communities in 2015 by President Michel Martelly, after the latter reached a deal with the opposition parties following anti-government protests, many of them led by followers of Aristide.
In September 2015, he was appointed as the Minister of Social Affairs and Labor by Prime Minister Evans Paul and replaced by Ardouin Zéphirin. He remained in the position until 28 March 2016.
Henry assumes office of Prime Minister
On July 20 Henry was sworn in as prime minister after Joseph agreed to step aside, and Henry pledged to lead an interim administration until free elections could be held.
Perhaps the most pressing issue for the Haitian government was the investigation of Moïse’s assassination, but Henry fired the country’s justice minister and its top prosecutor when they tried to question him about phone calls between himself and the alleged mastermind of the assassination plot.
Henry’s government struggled to provide the most basic services, and the situation became even more dire after a magnitude-7.2 earthquake struck southwestern Haiti in August 2021.
Some 2,200 people were killed and more than 12,000 were injured and attempts at relief or reconstruction were hampered by escalating gang violence.
In the years following Moïse’s assassination, criminal syndicates had come to control most of the capital, and tens of thousands fled the city.
After Henry announced the end of government fuel subsidies in September 2022, the G9 gang federation, led by former police officer Jimmy (“Barbecue”) Chérizier, seized the main fuel terminal in Port-au-Prince and occupied it for almost two months.
Henry postpones Election
By the end of January 2022, Henry had postponed elections so many times. No elected officials remained in the national government, because their terms had expired.
Both houses of Haiti’s bicameral legislature sat empty. In February 2024 Henry traveled to Kenya to finalize a deal that would send 1,000 Kenyan police officers to Haiti.
Also Read: No Toilet, No Shower: Haiti Situation Awaiting Kenyan Police
Chérizier took advantage of the perceived power vacuum, ordering his gangs to attack government targets and demanding Henry’s resignation.
Resignation
Gang members overran two of Haiti’s largest prisons, leading to the escape of nearly 5,000 inmates.
In addition, heavily armed gunmen attempted to take control of the international airport in Port-au-Prince. This was in an apparent effort to prevent Henry from returning from abroad.
When he tried to return to Haiti, he was unable to land as gang attacks shuttered Port-au-Prince international airport.
On 11 March, Henry agreed to resign as the country’s leader.
