{"id":225023,"date":"2022-12-05T12:00:50","date_gmt":"2022-12-05T12:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=225023"},"modified":"2022-12-05T06:33:53","modified_gmt":"2022-12-05T06:33:53","slug":"regional-leaders-raise-doubts-over-us-backed-plan-to-send-foreign-military-to-haiti","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2022\/12\/regional-leaders-raise-doubts-over-us-backed-plan-to-send-foreign-military-to-haiti\/","title":{"rendered":"Regional Leaders Raise Doubts over US-Backed Plan to Send Foreign Military to Haiti"},"content":{"rendered":"
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US Secretary of State Blinken Meets Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau in Ottawa<\/p><\/div>\n

28 Nov 2022 – <\/em>Six weeks after Haiti\u2019s de facto government requested a foreign military intervention amid unprecedented levels of insecurity and the United States began work on a UN Security Council resolution authorizing a \u201crapid action force,\u201d regional leaders are speaking out in opposition to the plan. Over the past few weeks, multiple countries, including Canada, which the US had hoped would lead such a mission, have said that political changes are a necessary first step. At the same time, as the weeks pass, the mandate and scope of a possible foreign military intervention appears to be changing.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe security situation cannot be divorced from the political situation,\u201d Ralph Gonsalves, prime minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, told the press<\/a> following a meeting between US, Canadian, and CARICOM leaders in mid-November. He said that first, Haitian actors would need to come together and define the path forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnless you address that political question of a national dialogue bringing about this government of national unity, an inclusive government, you\u2019re not going to be able to solve properly the security question because any security force which goes in there would be looked at with suspicion as though they\u2019re propping up the current Haitian government,\u201d the Western Hemisphere\u2019s longest-serving political leader explained.<\/p>\n

Gonsalves said that some countries instead favor a rapid response, not contingent on any political accord, and, he explained, those countries have been heavily lobbying CARICOM nations to get their support for such a mission. \u201cWell, one thing I\u2019ll tell you, St. Vincent and the Grenadines will not be sending any police in that situation because I don\u2019t want anybody to interpret us as going to send the police there to help to prop up the government,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Though he did not mention any other countries by name, the reference is likely to the United States, which has remained a steadfast ally to Haiti\u2019s de facto prime minister, Ariel Henry. While the US has been the most vocal proponent of a foreign-led security mission in Haiti, it has thus far refused to contribute its own personnel and has been persistently reaching out to other nations in the hope of finding a third party to take the lead. Those efforts have focused primarily on Canada, and included a visit to Ottawa<\/a> by Secretary of State Antony Blinken last month.<\/p>\n

Canada, while not explicitly rejecting the idea that it could lead such an intervention, has said it is considering its options. But, last week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau publicly backed Gonsalves\u2019s analysis.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not enough for Haiti\u2019s government to ask for it,\u201d Trudeau said.<\/a> \u201cThere needs to be a consensus across political parties in Haiti before we can move forward on more significant steps.\u201d The Canadian leader once again said his country was open to participating in a military intervention, but that \u201cwe must have a Haitian consensus\u201d first.<\/p>\n

The US has approached a number of other countries about participating in such a mission, including Brazil, which led the last United Nations military force in Haiti, MINUSTAH, from 2004 to 2017. Diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks reveal that<\/a>, at the time, the US sought to find a third-party country to lead the UN mission as a way to save money and outsource its control over Haiti. \u201cWithout a UN-sanctioned peacekeeping and stabilization force, we would be getting far less help from our hemispheric and European partners in managing Haiti,\u201d the then ambassador wrote<\/a> in 2008.<\/p>\n

But it appears Brazil has little appetite in returning to Haiti now. \u201cAny Brazilian participation would be difficult, overall in a multinational force,\u201d Celso Amorim, Brazil\u2019s former foreign minister and a top advisor to president elect Lula da Silva, told Reuters<\/a>. \u201cWe made an enormous effort that brought us a lot of problems, even internally,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Of course, obtaining UN authorization at all remains a question mark. China and Russia, who both hold veto power at the Security Council, have expressed skepticism. Last month, the Miami Herald reported<\/a> that the US was \u201cplanning contingencies for a multilateral force that would enter Haiti without formal U.N. authorization,\u201d though it is unclear if that could mean the deployment of US military assets.<\/p>\n

What is clear, however, is that the US appears committed to at least some sort of foreign security intervention in Haiti. In closed-door meetings in recent weeks, US officials have repeatedly indicated their optimism that something will be done.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo Strategic Clarity\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re very supportive of something to be done for Haitian people,\u201d Gonsalves, the St. Vincent & the Grenadines prime minister said. \u201cBut you have to learn properly the humanitarian, the security and the political. You can\u2019t just link humanitarian and security and forget the political and there is a lot of tactical confusion because there is no strategic clarity.\u201d<\/p>\n

The military intervention was initially framed as a \u201crapid action force\u201d that would help unblock the country\u2019s main fuel terminal in Port-au-Prince and help to resolve the immediate humanitarian situation. \u201cThis resolution will propose a limited, carefully scoped\u201d mission, Linda Thomas Greenfield, the US Ambassador to the UN, told the security council in mid-October<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, more than a month has passed and the fuel terminal has been operational for two weeks. Meanwhile, the scope of a possible mission appears to have expanded.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere continue to be longer-term challenges that an enabling force authorized by the UN Security Council would be able to help address,\u201d State Department spokesperson Ned Price said<\/a>, in response to a question about if the resumption of fuel deliveries had lessened the need for an intervention. Thomas Shannon, a former high ranking US diplomat, suggested<\/a> that what Haiti really needs is a long-term \u201cstate-building\u201d mission akin to U.S. efforts in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

After initially saying the plan would be ready by early November, last week, the Miami Herald reported that the US sees little hope for progressing its UN resolution over the holidays \u2014 pushing a potential timeline out until early in 2023. \u201cA second U.S. official said that the plan is not dead, but that the formation of such an ambitious military mission would take time,\u201d the Herald reported.<\/a><\/p>\n

Nobody, it seems, has any idea what this military endeavor would actually look like. A spokesperson from the French embassy told Politico<\/a>: \u201cTo date, the contours of this possible intervention force have yet to be specified.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem is that nobody really believes that you can restore order and leave quickly,\u201d Richard Gowan of the International Crisis Group said earlier this month<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In 2004, following the February coup d\u2019etat against Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the de facto government requested urgent foreign military assistance. The same day as Aristide was flown into exile, the Security Council authorized the deployment of a three-month multinational force led by the US and Canada. That, however, was always just a stop gap measure while longer-term preparations for the arrival of the UN Blue Helmets took place. That mission stayed for 13 years.<\/p>\n

Though pitched to the world as a fine-tuned intervention only to help address a dire humanitarian situation, the US\u2019 failure to find immediate support has revealed what has likely been the case all along: any military intervention is likely to morph into yet another long-term, foreign-led attempt at nation building in Haiti.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Jake Johnston is a Senior Research Associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Go to Original – cepr.net<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

28 Nov 2022 – How Haiti’s neighbors are resisting the USA inciting them to participate in another military intervention in Haiti.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":158106,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[867,2642,417,2093,2864,100,975,976,1126,1050,541,780,91,86,99,2200,70],"class_list":["post-225023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latin-america-and-the-caribbean","tag-anglo-america","tag-anti-imperialism","tag-bullying","tag-central-america","tag-cultural-imperialism","tag-direct-violence","tag-haiti","tag-haiti-action-committee","tag-hegemony","tag-imperialism","tag-latin-america-caribbean","tag-military-intervention","tag-nato","tag-occupation","tag-structural-violence","tag-us-empire","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}