Haiti harmed by the absence of political will

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/04/2023 (894 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

At a February summit of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) in the Bahamas, which was attended by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the ongoing crisis in Haiti was top of mind. Not surprisingly, not much in the way of progress was made on this thorny file — as was the case during U.S. President Joe Biden’s late-March visit to Canada.

As you might well expect, the current (and distressingly still unelected) prime minister of Haiti, Ariel Henry, is growing increasingly disillusioned. He told the Miami Herald “We desperately need help in order to avoid total collapse.” And he made a point of telling his interviewer in rather frank terms: “We are doing a lot of talking… It’s time for action.”

The problem, of course, is trying to figure out a realistic and effective course of action. Right now, there does not appear to be any stomach within the hemispheric community to deploy military forces to stabilize the security situation in Haiti.

Some countries in the region, such as Jamaica and El Salvador, have offered to provide military assets or training as part of some multinational effort. But that sounds like a recipe for disaster and the likely deaths of a large number of Haitian civilians.

Still, there is no disputing the fact that Henry wants a response from other countries that entails imposing human security and personal protection from a beefed-up international military contingent. But it is the reasons for doing so that raise all kinds of red flags from those same countries — namely, Henry’s desire to stay in power and to postpone indefinitely credible general elections.

The people of Haiti, who have been suffering and struggling mightily for years, have already lost hope in both Henry and Haiti — and are thus leaving the country in droves. A recent public opinion survey by the Alliance for Risk Management and Business Continuity, showed more than 70 per cent of almost 6,000 Haitians polled disagree with the idea the Haitian national police can neutralize the gangs and stabilize the situation inside the country.

Moreover, roughly 69 per cent are convinced that what is really needed is the immediate deployment of a robust international military force. Fat chance, I’m afraid.

Instead, countries such as the United States have settled for urging other countries (including Canada) to undertake military intervention in Haiti. In addition, it has allocated US$92 million to assist the Haitian police in the training of new SWAT members, more armoured vehicles and protective equipment such as bulletproof vests.

The Biden administration, always preoccupied with matters involving Haitian migrants streaming toward the U.S., has also sanctioned a small number of Haitian individuals intimately connected to criminal enterprises and especially those financially supporting violent armed gangs.

More recently, the Biden White House introduced a new humanitarian parole/immigration program to accept up to 30,000 nationals a month from Haiti (and three other countries).

Canada, for its part, has contented itself with sending armoured vehicles to the overwhelmed Haitian police, tens of millions in humanitarian assistance and additional sanctions on some of Haiti’s economic and political elites. In early February, Canada deployed a CP-140 Aurora long-range patrol aircraft to conduct surveillance over-flights of the country and its heavily-armed gangs.

And at the CARICOM summit, Trudeau announced the redeployment of HMCS Glace Bay and Moncton (from West Africa) to gather intelligence, surveil the situation and to maintain an active presence off the coast of Haiti.

But on the sensitive question of putting Canadian boots on the ground in Haiti, the answer remains the same: namely, an emphatic no. Trudeau tried to dance around the subject at the CARICOM summit when he emphasized that “over the past 30 years, Canada has sent many, many missions to Haiti. UN missions, humanitarian missions, missions to build hospitals, missions to support police, missions to support prison guards. We’ve continued to step up and be there for the Haitian people and we have made commitments that we will continue to do that.”

That was just a long-winded and polite way of saying “not likely.”

There is a bevy of reasons for why meaningful and serious actions to change the fundamental facts on the ground in Haiti are unlikely to happen. And just about all of them begin and end with the recognition of the costly political implications involved in such an initiative — especially of the military variety.

I don’t, however, believe for a minute that Canada’s fear of leading a military mission to Haiti has anything to do with the Canadian Armed Forces being thin on the ground in terms of available soldiers. If the political will was forthcoming, the troops would be quickly found. It’s just not there.

The fact is the Trudeau Liberals know the political optics of seeing Canadian soldiers shooting and killing Haitians are horrible. And they also realize images of members of our armed forces coming home from Haiti in flag-draped coffins are vote-killers.

The long and the short of it is that political or electoral calculations now outweigh humanitarian considerations when it comes to Haiti. Shame on all of us.

Peter McKenna is professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island in Charlottetown.