United States Proposes Expanded Security Force to Combat Gangs in Haiti
A UN police force member keeps peace at a food distribution site in Haiti | Rawpixel
On August 28, Panama and the United States co-proposed a resolution to the UN Security Council to raise a force of 5500 troops to combat gang violence in Haiti. The resolution intends to replace the current Multinational Support System (MSS), which has sent 1000-odd mainly Kenyan troops to the country, and which is due to expire in early October. This latest development in Haiti’s crisis highlights a nation that has been engulfed in turmoil since the assassination of President Jovenal Moïse in 2021 and subsequent vacancy of the office of the President for over four years, amid a political vacuum that has also seen five separate prime ministers hold power. General elections have not been held since 2016, though they are planned for November.
Gangs have taken advantage of the chaos to take control of much of the country, including an estimated 90 percent of the capital, Port-au-Prince. In April, the UN warned that over half of Haiti’s population was facing “acute food insecurity”. However, international aid has been shortcoming, partially due to the riskiness of providing it. For instance, in March, the medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) withdrew from Port-au-Prince after one of its convoys was shot at. Though highly touted, the MSS mission has failed to stem the flow of violence, having supplied less than half of its promised 2500 men. The Haitian government is turning elsewhere for help, including a plan to train 700 of its own troops in Mexico.
The American-Panamanian proposal would create “independent, intelligence-led targeted counter-gang operations to neutralize, isolate, and deter gangs,” a seemingly appropriate escalation for the dire situation. Still, Donald Trump’s willingness to provide foreign aid, which he calls “tremendous fraud,” to Haiti, appears strange at first glance. But this decision makes more sense when viewed in light of his administration’s recent legal troubles with deportation. In February, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem revoked Haiti’s Temporary Protected Status, a status which allows foreign nationals from specific countries to stay and work in the United States as long as their home country remains unsafe. However, that order, which had not yet come into effect, as well as one from January regarding Venezuelans, was deemed unlawful in a ruling by a US District Judge on September 5. Trump likely plans on appealing to the Supreme Court, and he may believe that trying to clean up Haiti could be key in proving that migrants can be returned there. A similar strategy may underlie his administration’s zealous approach to Venezuela. This month, the president has issued two separate strikes on Venezuelan ships allegedly carrying drugs to the United States, killing a combined 14 people.
Across the West, governments are struggling with the legality of mass deportations as their citizens have pushed them to take up harsher anti-immigration positions. Successive Labour and Conservative governments in the UK have spent years attempting to deport larger volumes of asylum seekers despite the Supreme Court’s objections. The European Court of Justice recently annulled an Italian plan to fast-track deportations to Albania and 18 other “safe” countries. Since 2017, the EU has been paying Libya to deter migrants from arriving on European shores. Tunisia, Mauritania, and a myriad of other countries have since struck their own immigration deals. With global foreign aid drying up, many developing countries are eager to receive whatever funding they can, even if it comes with human strings attached. Haiti is in no position to debate human rights when it is unable to control its own airports.