Haiti has appointed businessman Laurent Saint-Cyr as the head of its transitional presidential council as the country continues to battle rampant gang violence, corruption and economic insecurity.Saint-Cyr’s inauguration ceremony took place on Thursday at the Villa d’Accueil, a colonial-style mansion in a suburb of the capital, Port-au-Prince.“We must restore state authority,” Saint-Cyr said at the ceremony. “The challenges we face are certainly linked to insecurity, but they also are the result of our lack of courage, a lack of vision and our irresponsibility.”But even the location of Saint-Cyr’s inauguration was a sign of the instability Haiti faced. The federal government has been largely displaced from downtown Port-au-Prince, where gangs control nearly 90 percent of the city.On Thursday morning, one prominent gang leader, Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier, even pledged to disrupt Saint-Cyr’s inauguration.“We have decided to march on the premier’s office and the Villa d’Accueil to end it all,” Cherizier said in a video posted online.He called on Port-au-Prince’s residents to assist him and his fighters in their approach of the mansion: “People of Haiti, take care of yourselves and help us.”But Cherizier was ultimately not successful. A security mission backed by the United Nations and led by Kenya issued a statement explaining that police officers had increased their …
