Haiti seeks help but Latin American leaders look away

What irony! Many Latin American leaders often make grandiose speeches about regional solidarity, but when Haiti declared a state of emergency this week as armed gangs took control of more than 80% of the capital, not one single big country in the region offered help to restore order.

In fact, few Latin American presidents are saying anything about Haiti’s takeover by gangs that are terrorizing the population, and killing thousands.

Haiti’s beleaguered prime minister, Ariel Henry, had to knock on the doors of African countries to ask them to send police forces to his country under a United Nations-coordinated security plan. Henry traveled to Kenya last week to try to expedite a planned U.N. Multinational Security Support Mission to Haiti.

Under the U.N. plan, Kenya will lead that force by sending 1,000 of its police agents to Haiti, and other countries will supply thousands more. But the deployment of Kenyan police to Haiti has been delayed by legal hurdles. Other countries that have so far formally pledged personnel to the international force are Benin, Chad, Bangladesh, Bahamas and Barbados, a U.N. spokesman said Feb. 29.

The Haitian government declared a state of emergency Sunday, after armed gangs broke into the country’s largest high-security prison and freed up to 3,500 inmates.

On Monday, U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres and Organization of American States Secretary General Luis Almagro called for urgent international help to avert a full takeover of the Haitian government by the gangs.

More than 1,000 Haitians have been killed by gang members in January alone, amid a wave of crime.

The Biden administration has reportedly offered $200 million to help fund the planned U.N. security mission. Washington is reluctant to send police forces because a long history of U.S. military interventions — especially a 1915-1934 U.S. occupation of the country — has made many Haitians suspicious of U.S. motives.

While Brazil led a multinational peacekeeping force known as the U.N. Stabilization Mission in Haiti, or Minustah, for several years until 2017, neither Brazil nor any other major Latin American country is willing to take on that role today, experts say.

Latin American officials say countries in the region have their own security problems at home and that their police forces are understaffed. “That makes it very unpopular for any government in the region to send police agents abroad,” one well-placed diplomat told me.

In addition, Haiti’s violence and political crisis today are much worse than when Brazil led the U.N. peacekeeping force. There could be many deaths among foreign police forces, experts say.

Diego Da Rin, a Haiti analyst with the International Crisis Group, a Belgium-based think tank specializing in helping prevent wars, told me that questions about prime minister Henry’s legitimacy are also a factor in the lack of greater regional security assistance for Haiti.

Henry’s legitimacy is being questioned by Haiti’s opposition, and Latin American countries want Haiti to resolve its domestic political crisis before they decide to help a controversial Haitian government, he said.

The Biden administration earlier this week asked Henry to resign and cede power to a transition government as a way to restore international confidence, The Herald reported Wednesday.

“There should be much more [Latin American] regional pressure for Haiti’s government and opposition to reach a powersharing agreement,” Da Rin told me. “That would pave the way for the muchneeded foreign security cooperation.”

I agree. Henry had promised to step down by February, but now says he needs to re-establish order before he can hold free and fair elections. He is now proposing to hold elections by Aug. 31 next year.

The least Latin American countries and Washington can do is take an active role in pressing Haiti’s prime minister and the opposition to form an emergency unity government, so that more countries decide to send police forces to Haiti. The worst thing Latin American countries can do is what they are doing now, which is nothing.

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