Why is the US meddling in Haitian affairs now?
Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, is plagued by extreme gang violence. Rival criminal groups were already wreaking havoc in Port-au-Prince before President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated in July last year. This violence has only increased in the power vacuum that Moïse left behind. The gangs rule almost every neighborhood of the capital, which is home to about a million people.
In addition to the shootings, murders and kidnappings, Haiti faces a massive gas shortage that is pushing up food prices. The gangs also play a role here: criminals blocked the main port, including the oil terminal, of Port-au-Prince. The island nation is almost entirely dependent on imports of food and fuel. It marks the balance of power: the criminals rule, the government has to watch helplessly.
That is why interim Prime Minister Ariel Henry is asking for international help. International partners must ‘immediately send a special armed force’, was his cry for help last week. Henry not only struggles with gangs, the population is also turning against him. There have been massive protests in recent weeks. Yet he still has the political support of its great neighbor America. On Wednesday, the US complied with his request, the Americans are going to send ‘support’.
What exactly does US aid look like?
That is the key question. For the time being, Henry will not receive military intervention, but will receive ‘security assistance’ from the Americans. “We will work in the coming days to strengthen the capacity of the Haitian police,” said US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. The goal is to ‘restore stable security’. How many American agents will assist the Haitian police and in what role exactly, remains to be seen. The US announced a three-stage missile: it is also expanding humanitarian aid and introducing visa restrictions for gang members and their families.
Haiti has a long, unfortunate history of foreign missions, so why should this intervention work?
Results are absolutely not guaranteed. Blinken formulates laboriously precisely because the US does not want to give the impression that, as in the past, it is sending soldiers to put things in order in Haiti. Two centuries ago, the slaves on the island fought their way free from the French yoke, but Haiti never became free from foreign interference. Over the past three decades, the country has hosted eight UN missions in the wake of political and natural disasters.
The US also stationed thousands of soldiers in Haiti after the devastating earthquake of 2010. The soldiers and the billions in aid money brought the country little good. “Haiti has only become more unstable,” Haitian economist Enomy Germain told Moise last year. de Volkskrant. ‘International aid weakens institutions and promotes corruption.’ Haiti was not a safe country, the question is whether a little American police help can ‘restore’ security.
What do Haitians think of new US interference?
Although Haitians yearn for an end to violence and scarcity – hence the fierce protests – there is at the same time great aversion to any new intervention from outside. As the US rallied last year with Henry’s interim government, announced as new prime minister just days before Moise’s death, a large group of politicians and activists called for a “Haitian solution” to Haitian problems. That group, known as the Montana Accord, is suspicious of the unelected US-backed politician.
The opposition group immediately acted against Henry’s request for foreign intervention. “History tells us that no foreign military has ever solved a people’s problems.” In the same statement, the Montana Accord wrote that only the Haitian police have an answer to the Haitian security crisis. The US offer is a middle ground between Henry’s request and society’s critique: police help. Yet it is again a foreign answer to Haitian problems.