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    “Haiti’s Civil Society Revolt: Can a ‘Government of the Wises’ Succeed Where the Politicians Failed?”   By Patrick Prézeau Stephenson *  (Le français suit)   In late 2025, as Haiti staggers through yet another season of fear and disillusionment, a coalition of civil society organizations has stepped onto the national stage with a proposition that is, in equal measure, audacious and overdue. The text they have circulated is framed as a call to rescue the republic. It opens with an appeal to imagination: a Haiti “finally master of its own destiny,” where gangs no longer rule neighborhoods, institutions function, citizens participate, and “national decisions are no longer dictated by foreign interests.” It is the kind of language Haitians have heard before, and learned to distrust. What makes this document different is not its rhetoric, but the political architecture it proposes—and the fact that, this time, the authors are not politicians. They cal...

  In Haiti, naming the war to better end it By Patrick Prézeau Stephenson * (Le français suit) PORT-AU-PRINCE — At dawn, the streets open or close to the rhythm of rumors: such and such a road has held, such and such a market has folded, such and such a school will not open. Daily life seems to be confined to corridors that are lit intermittently. In a country where the "crisis" has been described so much that it has almost lost words, one thing is clear: Haiti is at war — an asymmetrical war against the very routine of living. This truth, long diluted in the euphemisms of the "transition", invites us to make a simple and radical choice: stop entrusting the future to arrangements of continuity that replay the same play, and instead bring together all the forces willing to build a fairer and more republican nation, breaking with political dependence and the parody of democracy that only gives birth to contested elections. The question is no longer rhetorical:...

  Haiti’s Transition Faces a Deadline. What Comes Next? By Patrick Prézeau Stephenson (Le Français suit) PORT-AU-PRINCE — Haiti’s transition is running on borrowed time. With roughly three months left before the mandate of the nine-member Presidential Transitional Council (CPT) expires in early February, the question that has stalked this process from the beginning has returned to the center: who governs after February 7 — and on what authority? The Caribbean Community’s Eminent Persons Group, which helped midwife the current arrangement, has written to the April 3, 2024 Accord signatories asking them to state, in writing, how they believe the transition should end and what should come next. The note, conveyed this week by Ambassador Colin Granderson and seen by Haitian media, comes after months of private prodding. The signatories, many of whom have not met collectively since 2024 to review the CPT’s performance, are now being asked to take public positions. Inside the CPT...