Haitian Prime Minister Garry Conille, with Chief of Police Normil Rameau (L), speaks during a ceremony as Haitian government officials visit the Kenyan police force at their base in the Clercine neighborhood of Port-au-Prince on June 26, 2024. (Photo: AFP)
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Haiti’s new leader was in the United States on Saturday for a visit set to include meetings with international financial institutions as well as a White House official, his office and a National Security Council spokesperson said.
The trip by Prime Minister Garry Conille, heading the country’s transitional government, and other officials comes days after Kenyan police finally arrived in violence-ravaged Haiti, on a long-awaited mission to help stabilize the Caribbean nation, upended by powerful gangs.
Washington has promised generous funding for the UN-backed mission, but ruled out sending American troops. Conille will meet with Principal Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer on Monday, a National Security Council spokesperson said.
Conille, along with his economic and foreign ministers as well as other officials, will also hold “important working meetings” with the heads of international financial institutions, according to his office.
They will also visit Haiti’s embassy in Washington and travel to New York, it said.
Haiti has long been rocked by gang violence, but conditions sharply worsened at the end of February when armed groups launched coordinated attacks in Port-au-Prince, saying they wanted to overthrow then-prime minister Ariel Henry.
Henry announced in early March that he would step down and hand over executive power to a transitional council, which named Conille as the country’s interim prime minister on May 29.
The violence in Port-au-Prince has affected food security and humanitarian aid access, with much of the city in the hands of gangs accused of abuses including murder, rape, looting and kidnappings.
The multinational Kenyan force, greenlit last year by the UN Security Council, had been held up for months amid challenges to its deployment in Kenyan courts before the first police officers arrived on Tuesday.