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“Uncertainty hung over Haiti's political future on Tuesday after its prime minister said he would step down, a move welcomed by many Haitians exhausted by months of escalating gang violence… Prime Minister Ariel Henry, stranded in Puerto Rico, released a video late on Monday night pledging to resign as soon as a transition council and temporary leader were chosen…
“Haiti declared a state of emergency this month as clashes led to two mass prison breaks, with the country's most powerful gang leader, Jimmy ‘Barbeque’ Cherizier, threatening to overthrow Henry… Heavily armed gangs dramatically expanded their wealth, influence and territorial control during Henry's time in office. Their turf wars have fueled a humanitarian crisis that has seen more than 360,000 internally displaced, while many areas have lost access to medical services and food.” Reuters
Both sides are critical of US policy regarding Haiti:
“[Henry] has never been a popular leader… Many Haitians saw him as at best weak, negligent, and silent in the face of abuses against his people. At worst, some speculated that his coterie was either complicit with or under the thumb of the gangs. He was never elected: He came to power in a provisional capacity, with the support of the United States, after the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in 2021, and many Haitians have since seen him as a roadblock on the path to real electoral democracy…
“The United States has finally given Haiti what it has been looking for over the past two years: a possible route around the problem of Henry. But another problem remains: the United States itself, which, along with a broader group of institutions and countries that for the most part follow the Americans’ lead on Haiti policy, has made too many bad choices for Haiti in the past to inspire confidence.”
Amy Wilentz, The Atlantic
“According to his own former special envoy to Haiti, President Biden’s ‘chief reason’ for backing Ariel Henry was the new president’s ‘malleability and the fact that he agreed that he would take all the deportees that they wanted to send.’… While the U.S. publicly claimed to push for democracy in Haiti, the administration did not withdraw its support as [Henry and his predecessor] consolidated power and oversaw chaos…
“To be sure, all the blame for Haiti’s woes does not belong at the feet of the United States. But our carrots and sticks continue to benefit the political prospects of American elites more than the people of Haiti, and in the long run end up worsening a crisis on our doorstep, harming our interests, and fueling violence that claimed nearly 4,800 Haitian lives last year alone.”
Emily Jashinsky, The Federalist
Other opinions below.
“Past foreign interventions have at best kept Haiti on life support without treating the underlying illness. President Joe Biden’s administration isn’t stupid; officials can see that previous U.S. interventions haven’t worked as expected, and they have no intention of ordering our Marines back into Port-au-Prince. The White House spent months trying to entice Canada to take the lead, but our friends to the north didn’t want to step up either…
“Kenya of all places was gracious enough to volunteer, pledging 1,000 Kenyan police officers. Yet the mission was stopped before it even got off the ground, with Kenya’s high court ruling the deployment unconstitutional… In the end, Haiti’s problems will ultimately have to be solved by the Haitians themselves. That’s obviously easier said than done. But the alternatives — full-blown civil war or another fruitless, decadelong mission at the hands of foreigners — are even worse.”
Daniel DePetris, Chicago Tribune
Dated But Relevant: “Neither an American nor any other well-intentioned foreign force can restore order in Haiti because Haiti does not have a military problem. Haiti has a political problem. The country has not had an election since 2016, and many of the gangs currently terrorizing the country originated as private militias of staggeringly corrupt authorities…
“The orthodox view is that security precedes a functioning government… Afghanistan should serve as a painful reminder that the opposite is true. No number of foreign troops providing security could induce the unwilling local factions there to build a working political system. When the security forces inevitably left after two decades, the quasi-legitimate and unsustainable government in Kabul collapsed like a house of cards.”
Andrew C. Jarocki, National Review
“[The US State Department’s claim that it] supports ‘an empowered and inclusive governance structure’ that will ‘pave the way for free and fair elections’ might have been promising if it had not added the condition that the new government must ‘move with urgency to help the country prepare for a multinational security support mission.’…
“A legitimate, broadly supported, sovereign transitional Haitian government might request foreign police assistance. But a government allowed to form only if it accepts a U.S.-imposed occupation force originally designed to prop up a hated, repressive government is not sovereign. It may not be legitimate or broadly supported either… It is time for the United States to let Haitians come together and make their way out of the current crisis.”
Brian Concannon, Common Dreams
Others argue, “[Many activists have] railed against the prospect of international intervention… That stance was understandable given the toxic legacy of past foreign missions, including the most recent one, a 13-year U.N. stabilization force that ended in 2017 amid evidence that troops had sexually exploited Haitian girls and women, and caused one of the world’s most deadly recent outbreaks of cholera…
“Yet the opposition to outside intervention overlooked the fact that the U.N. mission also enabled a period of relative stability in a nation where that has been the scarcest commodity… The only real solution is the deployment of an international force with the muscle to keep the peace, restore some semblance of normalcy and, over time, create conditions under which elections can be organized. Failing that… the sad but probable outlook for Haiti is for more of the same — and worse.”
Lee Hockstader, Washington Post
You Could Run a ‘Penguin Post Office’ in Antarctica.
Smithsonian Magazine
