Revue de presse internationale

An overnight gang raid on Kenscoff killed at least 47 people and injured 22, according to the United Nations. The attack triggered anger over repeated security failures and renewed fears over Haiti's December election plans.

Chatham House’s study found a plurality of Haitians, 49%, approved of the new force, an improvement over other surveys that had found limited confidence in its ability to succeed. The survey also found that 81% of respondents said they believed security is improving. Nearly 67% of respondents oppose amnesty for gang leaders, while 65% support long prison sentences for gang members, the survey found. An even larger number of respondents, 83%, rejected the idea of allowing gang leaders to hold public office.

None of this works unless Haitians own it. The political settlement anchoring this reset must emerge from broad domestic consensus among actors not implicated in the political-criminal networks described above, with international support following that settlement, not substituting for it.

Concerns of Haiti’s problematic political culture, and authorities’ failure to send the right signals about its culture of impunity, were recently echoed by departing foreign diplomats, particularly the representatives of the United States, France and Canada. Reflecting on his battle with the presidential council before its ejection from power, the U.S. chargé d’affaires, Henry T. Wooster, told Le Nouvelliste newspaper in a departing interview that “the most glaring problem we had with” the nine-member panel “was the deep-seated criminal corruption,” followed by “its predatory political nature, the inability to govern and the fueling of chaos.”

Voter registration began Thursday in Haiti’s capital and beyond, marking a critical milestone in the push for general elections even as concerns over widespread gang violence persist. The government opened 10 registration centers across Port-au-Prince in neighborhoods considered generally safe as dozens of hopeful Haitians trickled through.