US rebuffs Haiti troops request after president’s assassination
WASHINGTON/PORT-AUPRINCE: The United States on Friday rebuffed Haiti’s request for troops to help secure key infrastructure after the assassination of President Jovenel Moise by suspected foreign mercenaries, even as it pledged to help with the investigation.
The killing of Moise by a squad of gunmen in the early hours of Wednesday morning at his home in Port-au-prince pitched Haiti deeper into a political crisis which may worsen growing hunger, gang violence and a Covid-19 outbreak.
Haitian Elections Minister Mathias Pierre said a request for US security assistance was raised in a conversation between interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday. Haiti also made a request for forces to the United Nations Security Council, Pierre said.
But a senior US administration official said there were “no plans to provide US military assistance at this time.”
A letter from Joseph’s office to the US Embassy in Haiti, dated on Wednesday and reviewed by Reuters, requested the dispatch of troops to support the national police in reestablishing security and protecting key infrastructure across the country following Moise’s assassination.
A similar letter, also dated on Wednesday and seen by Reuters, was sent to the UN office in Haiti.
“We were in a situation where we believed that infrastructure of the country — the port, airport and energy infrastructure — might be a target,” Pierre said.
Another aim of the request for security reinforcements would be to make it possible to go ahead with scheduled presidential and legislative elections on September 26, Pierre said.
The UN political mission in Haiti received the letter and it was being examined, said Jose Luis Diaz, spokesman for the
UN Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs.
“The dispatch of troops under any circumstances would be a matter for the (15-member) Security Council to decide,” he said.
RIDDLED WITH BULLETS
The United States and Colombia said they would send law enforcement and intelligence officials to assist Haiti after a number of their nationals were arrested for Moise’s murder.
Police in Haiti said the assassination was carried out by a commando unit of 26 Colombian and two Haitian-american mercenaries. The two Haitianamericans were identified as James Solages, 35, and Joseph Vincent, 55, both from Florida.
Seventeen of the men were captured — including Solages and Vincent — after a gun battle with Haitian authorities in Petionville, the hillside suburb of the capital Port-au-prince where Moise resided.