By Joseph Guyler C. Delva
PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti, Jul 10, CMC -Haiti’s international recording artiste, Wyclef Jean, has called on the armed groups in the French-speaking Caribbean Community CARICOM) country to lay down their weapons, urging all stakeholders to engage in a constructive dialogue to ensure peace and security in the country.
“As I call on men of arms to put down their weapons, I believe it is also important that authorities make sure that relevant policies are put in place for investments to be made in rural and underprivileged areas, where over 80 per cent of the population are living on less than a dollar a day,” said Jean.
But he acknowledged that “for the dialogue to bear fruit, all sectors involved should show good faith”.
Earlier this month, Prime Minister Garry Conille reiterated his call for gunmen to lay down their arms even as the leader of the coalition gang “G9 an Fanmi e Alye” Jimmy Cherisier , said his group was prepared to have dialogue with the authorities.
“Armed gangs have a very limited time to lay down their arms,” Conille told a news conference on his return to the country following a seven day visit to the United States.
“The State is not going to wait indefinitely,” he said, adding “dialogue will only be considered when the bandits have laid down their weapons and recognized the authority of the State”.
Kenya is spearheading the United Nations Security Council sanctioned Multi-national Support Mission to the country that has been wracked with political, socio-economic problems, highlighted by criminal violence ever since the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in July 2021.
Kenya has offered to send about 1,000 troops to stabilise Haiti alongside personnel from several other countries, including The Bahamas, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize and Jamaica. The first batch of 400 Kenyan troops arrived here last month.
In a video posted on social media last Friday, Cherisier said “we want peace because we want to destroy war. We want dialogue because we want peace.
“It is only through national dialogue that the Haitian State will be able to regain control of the country’s territories, as required by the Constitution,” he added.
Jean, who said he had to postpone a trip he had intended to take to Haiti on Tuesday, has insisted on the need for actors to initiate a genuine dialogue in the country to try to achieve sustainable peace and development.
“Though my trip to Haiti has been postponed for now, I look forward to making a few visits in the next few months,” Jean said, speaking about his plans to stage offer a peace concert to the population in Haiti, and plea for the holding of free and fair elections in which “Haitians living abroad could have the possibility to vote for the candidates of their choice.”
He said actors from the government, the private sector, rural areas, religious sectors and all other relevant actors should be part of the dialogue.
Jean said he is willing to speak to anyone in the quest for peace.
“I do believe in justice and the rule of law, and I do believe in dialogue,” said Jean, adding that even during the most horrific wars, dialogue has always been part of the greater solution.
“I will forever be a citizen for peace. It’s peace that I’m preaching. I’m talking to everybody; peace, love and dialogue,” he said, adding “he will “continue to fight the good fight, so that we, as entrepreneur, and others, may come back home and invest in our motherland, Haiti.”
Jean said he was “reminded of the task that Bob Marley had faced when he wanted to put together the One Love Concert: “To whom much is given, much is required”.
Jean, whose statement is accompanied by a picture of himself and the late South African president, Nelson Mandela, said he “looks at the photo every day and remember Mandela’s words:“It always seems impossible until it’s done”.
Meanwhile, Haitian and Kenyan police officers have started a series of joint operations in the capital, Port au Prince, re-taking possession from criminal gangs of the country’s main hospital.
CMC/gd/ir/2024