Ottawa has agreed to send an “assessment team” to Haiti, rather than give the U.S. a flat-out refusal to battle the gangs that have taken over the country.
In early October, Haiti’s Prime Minister Ariel Henry and 18 top-ranking officials, formally requested international troops as gangs and protesters paralyzed the country and supplies of water, fuel, and basic goods dwindled.
The Haitian government was alarmed at the brewing “major humanitarian crisis” that was threatening the lives of many people. From that time to now, according to CBC Canada News, gangs have seized about two-thirds of the Haitian capital.
Added to the country’s woes, on October 2, Haitian officials announced that cholera had returned. And while a number of international groups have been working to help those citizens who have come down with the disease, the UN and Canada, and the U.S. have not sent troops to the stricken country.
Haitians don’t want another international intervention
Interestingly, with the humanitarian crisis going on in Haiti right now – with people dying of Cholera and from gang violence, and the lack of clean water, food, and fuel, many people reject the idea of international intervention.
Haitians still remember the last major foreign military force in Haiti, a 13-year U.N. mission known as MINUSTAH, which was deeply unpopular by the time it ended in 2017 due to credible evidence that its troops caused a 2010 cholera epidemic as well as accusations of sexual abuse of underage girls.
Why the reluctance to send troops to Haiti
And it is now obvious that the humanitarian and security crisis is also linked to a political crisis, even though those connections are rather murky. One big problem is that the de facto prime minister Ariel Henry lacks both democratic legitimacy and popular acceptance.
Canadian officials have told CBC News they made it clear to the Henry government that the armored vehicles Canada delivered to the Haitian National Police this month are to be used to break the blockades – not crowd control.
On Thursday, while in Ottawa, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, said, “The purpose is to reinforce their capacity to finally get a grip on the security situation and to deal with the problem of gangs dominating certain critical parts of Port-au-Prince.” So far, the vehicles have not been used for either purpose.
There is also some collusion between gang leaders and members of Haiti’s ruling party and oligarchy going on. According to CBC Canada at the time, the July 7 murder of Haiti’s president in his own bedroom — without a shot fired by the bodyguards tasked with protecting him — revealed the rot at the heart of Haitian political life.
“They’re proxies of the government,” said Monique Clesca, a former UN official and now a member of the Montana Group coalition of political parties and civil society organizations that have been negotiating with the Ariel Henry government for a transition to democracy.
“Government officials have sought to suppress anti-government organizing through bribery, and when that has failed, have enlisted gangs to carry out targeted attacks against anti-government strongholds active in the protests,” reported the International Human Rights Clinic of Harvard Law School. It explained how massacres in the districts of Bel-Air, La Saline, and Cite Soleil showed collusion between the gangs, the Haitian National Police, and the ruling party.
“How is an intervention going to deal with a government that is working hand in hand with gangs, that is a criminal organization?” said Clesca.
