Are We on a Suicide Mission to Haiti?

Chief Justice & President of the Supreme Court of Kenya, 2011-2016.

As I write this article, I do not know whether our compatriots are already in Haiti. If they are then our government, the US and the UN Security Council should be held accountable for what is a suicide mission to Haiti. Our government, the US, and the UN Security Council have simply lured our compatriots to a deadly trap. In total defiance of the orders of our courts, and the Constitution, the President and all state officers involved in this decision, are guilty of overthrowing the Constitution. It is on the basis of actions like these that our Constitution has envisioned the impeachment of the President, and the withdrawal of our sovereign power from the President and his government.

What are these troops for?

A few recent historical facts are necessary. The US organized the overthrow of Aristide in 2004. From 20042017 the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, also known at MINUSTAH, a front for the US and France, occupied Haiti. Jovenel Moise was elected President in 2016. Ariel Henry was a functionary in the government of Moise at different levels. Moise was assassinated in 2021 and Henry took over political power. He has been in power

unelected since the assassination of Moise. Henry has postponed promised elections, saying security must first be established for a free and fair election. Henry also acts as Haiti’s President.

At the end of February 2024 Henry traveled to Kenya to meet our government that has volunteered to lead a Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission to Haiti. Our government had offered to send a thousand police officers to Haiti. The fly on the wall in the room where the two leaders met has a lot to tell us. Were they reflecting also on the trials and tribulations of serving imperialism?

It is in public domain that the High Court has declared the position of our government unconstitutional. Those of you who watched Honourable Otiende Omollo, a Senior Counsel and Member of Parliament on television, must be convinced by the legal arguments he advanced against the deployment of a police force in Haiti. Besides legal arguments, there are also political arguments about the government sending its citizens on a suicide mission. Are we being told that the lives of our police officers do not count in the eyes of our government? Why was there no public participation in these decisions? Everyone in our government, including the President, swore to protect, uphold, and defend the Constitution. They also sought the help of the Almighty God in their obedience of the Constitution. Have they forgotten that one of God’s commandments is “Thou shalt not kill?” How much did the US government pay our government to clean its continued mess in Haiti? Should there be transparency and accountability of this issue also? Both transparency and accountability are values in our Constitution.

It has become clear that our government, the US, and the UN Security Council while pontificating about democracy, the rule of law, collectively subvert these values. How can we describe such actions? Hypocritical, perfidious, the employment of double standards, and for the US and UN, racism? Who do the three entities think they are hoodwinking? Foreign interests here trump over our rule of law and the supremacy of our Constitution. Our government, just like that of Henry before he was overthrown, is pro-imperialism.

(This is one of a series of weekly columns from Guyanese in the diaspora and others with an interest in issues related to Guyana and the Caribbean)

Did the US overthrow its puppet government in Haiti?

According to the Herald, Henry spent two days in the US upon return from Kenya. He is reported to have informed the US government and the UN of when and how he intended to return to Haiti. As Henry’s plane approached Santo Domingo, he was suddenly told by the Dominican officials that he would not be allowed to land. The Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, was reported as saying that the US had requested to have Henry make an “indefinite stop over” in the republic. The Dominican Republic had refused the request, prompting Henry’s plane to land in San Juan, the capital of Puerto Rico. One can be forgiven for suggesting that the US has overthrown its puppet government in Haiti led by Henry.

Jimmy Cherizier, alias Barbecue, who leads a broad alliance of the so-called “criminal gangs” has signaled the gangs could fight the proposed mission as a united front. The Port-au-Prince international airport is no longer secure. Local rights group RNDDH has reported that at least nine police stations have been torched while 21 public buildings or shops have been looted. The group also reports that over 4,600 prisoners have escaped in the past two weeks.

So, our compatriots, if in Haiti, are operating or will be operating under conditions of Haiti having no authority or government at the moment. It is clear that Port-auPrince is possibly under the rule of the broad alliance that our poor compatriots are supposed to police. What a death trap? What a suicide mission?

Whether our compatriots are still with us, or are in Haiti, what can we do to support them from these deadly actions by our government? I believe we should think through a demonstration against these unconstitutional orders by our government. We can walk peacefully to the offices of the Inspector General of Police and hand over to him our withdrawal of sovereign power from the government and his leadership of the police force on this matter. Our sovereign power must reinforce what the courts have decided.

For once, let all activists in Kenya come together and protect the lives and humanity of our 1000 police officers, even if their colleagues teargas us or use water cannons to stop us.