by Todd Bensman at New York Post
The Biden administration scuttled Haiti’s plans for free elections and backed a de facto dictator in exchange for his willingness to accept deportees, America’s former envoy to the country says.
Daniel Foote, the Biden- appointed former US special envoy to Haiti, says the administration has supported Dr. Ariel Henry — who took power as both acting prime minister and acting president after the assassination of President Jovenel Moise — because he was willing to accept Haitian migrants who have rushed the US border.
Henry was supposed to have organized new elections by now. But in September 2021, a large group of Haitian migrants camped in Del Rio, Texas, and images of the encampment — including border agents on horseback trying to prevent them from crossing the river — caused a political headache for President Biden.
Migrants, many from Haiti, are seen in an encampment near the Del Rio International Bridge, Friday, Sept. 24, 2021, in Del Rio, Texas –AP
Henry agreed to take in deported Haitians, Foote says, and the Biden administration stopped pushing for democracy on the Caribbean nation.
“I am confident that the chief reason they did that is his [Henry’s] malleability and the fact that he agreed that he would take all the deportees that they wanted to send. It wasn’t long after that . . . we started putting them on planes,” Foote told me in an interview for my forthcoming book, “Overrun: How Joe Biden Unleashed the Greatest Border Crisis in U.S. History.”
“The US carried out a non-democratic transfer of power. We were just kicking the can down the road so that we don’t upset the vote moving toward the midterms.”
On the morning of July 7, 2021, two dozen armed men stormed the Haitian presidential compound, killing President Moise with 12 shots and wounding his wife.
The case remains unsolved, though reports by The New York Times and CNN show that Henry is close to one of the men accused of the murder, Joseph Felix Badio. Henry has denied any involvement.
Henry was supposed to oversee the work of a “Provisional Electoral Council” that was organizing Haiti’s long overdue presidential and parliamentary elections set for November 2021.
But nearly a year later, Henry remains Haiti’s US-backed chief of state. No elections have taken place. Meanwhile, the country’s bicameral National Assembly legislature, which is supposed to provide ratifying checks or balances on executive branch power, is defunct, as is the nation’s supreme court.
Henry is a leader with no domestic checks on power — a dictator.
Foote, who was appointed envoy shortly after the assassination,…
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