The CARI­COM Em­i­nent Per­sons Group (EPG) vis­it­ed Haiti on Ju­ly 12-15 to con­tin­ue its fa­cil­i­ta­tion of in­ter­Hait­ian di­a­logue by build­ing on the out­come of the Ja­maica meet­ing. Em­pha­sis was placed on the ma­jor pro­pos­als tabled in Ja­maica.

These in­clud­ed the com­mit­ments made by Prime Min­is­ter Hen­ry to en­large the High Tran­si­tion Coun­cil and to form a gov­ern­ment of na­tion­al uni­ty in re­sponse to the call for greater in­clu­sive­ness. Con­cerned by the ex­ten­sive pow­ers en­joyed by the Prime Min­is­ter, the ma­jor po­lit­i­cal and civ­il so­ci­ety op­po­si­tion par­ties had pro­posed a gov­er­nance frame­work clos­er to the in­tent and spir­it of the con­sti­tu­tion by propos­ing the for­ma­tion of a pres­i­den­tial col­lege along with a Prime Min­is­ter.

They had al­so un­der­lined the im­por­tance of con­fi­dence-build­ing mea­sures. To bet­ter sup­ple­ment their po­si­tion, they had co­a­lesced and signed at the end of the meet­ing in Ja­maica the Joint De­c­la­ra­tion of Kingston.

Dur­ing this vis­it, in ad­di­tion to en­gage­ments with the Prime Min­is­ter and key po­lit­i­cal and civ­il so­ci­ety stake­hold­ers, the EPG met with rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty and a group of per­sons with ex­per­tise in se­cu­ri­ty, hu­man rights and mar­gin­alised so­cial groups whose in­sights were help­ful.

CARI­COM says the ob­jec­tive was at­tained to some ex­tent.