When considering the current situation in Haiti, Americans living in the United States usually get news reports from legacy media; U.S., Canadian, and French government sources; international organizations like the United Nations; or via regional groups like CARICOM—if they get Haitian news at all. Much of what we’re served focuses on Haiti’s instability, corruption, and gangs. It’s a nation in continuing crisis, we’re told, incapable of saving itself.
The situation now is no different as calls to send in troops and support for yet another “outside intervention” are ramping up again. But it is also important to pay attention to the voices of resistance.
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Caribbean Matters is a weekly series from Daily Kos. If you are unfamiliar with the region, check out Caribbean Matters: Getting to know the countries of the Caribbean.
The Miami Herald’s Jacqueline Charles is a Pulitzer Prize finalist journalist who regularly reports on Haiti and the 15-member Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM), which met last weekend in Nassau, the Bahamas.
The Caribbean Community’s focus on strengthening the Haitian police comes after some observers had hoped Canada would lead a multinational force into Haiti, which Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry requested in October. His request was supported by the United Nations Secretary General as well as the Biden administration, which penned a resolution in the U.N. Security Council supporting such a deployment. But months after the request, few countries have stepped forward.
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Now, added to the problems is a new humanitarian immigration program launched by the Biden administration on Jan. 5 for nationals of Haiti and three other countries. During discussions, Henry, trying to explain the challenges the program has created, told leaders that at least 600 officers have applied for passports to benefit from the program, which requires a financial sponsor in the United States. Henry’s numbers, however, were from January. Since then, the number of officers flocking to the passports offices around the country have skyrocketed, leading the country’s immigration director last week to establish a separate center to receive passport applications from police officers.
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Bahamian Prime Minister Philip Davis elaborated on the impact of the new program, noting that it was “counterproductive” for the U.S. to encourage Haitian police to leave their posts “for the bright lights of Miami.”
Yet CARICOM leaders believe Haitians are still willing to fight for their country.
“We can’t just allow what is going on to stop us from inaction,” Davis added. “There’s still a belief there are a number of Haitians who are prepared to put themselves, or to work toward having a peaceful country, to return it to normalcy and we are encouraged that there are a number of Haitians, once they know they will be properly supported, properly resourced, they will come to the fore to assist.”
Here is the full CARICOM statement.
Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), at their 44th Regular Meeting in The Bahamas reiterated that the Community must play a leadership role in addressing the deteriorating situation in Haiti, a Member State of the Community, towards which there are moral and political obligations.
Heads affirmed that decisive action is needed at the earliest opportunity by CARICOM in view of the mounting insecurity and its widespread impact on all facets of Haitian life. The Heads of Government were joined in part of their discussions by the Right Honourable Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada.
The Heads of Government acknowledged the adoption of the December 21, 2022 political agreement, the National Consensus for an Inclusive Transition and Transparent Elections, launched by the Honourable Ariel Henry, the Interim Prime Minister of Haiti, but were of the view that it needed to be more inclusive. In this regard, Heads of Government agreed to convene an early meeting of stakeholders in Jamaica.
They also agreed to participate in a meeting to be convened in Haiti with Haitian stakeholders, to assist in the development of a plan to restore security and the rule of law.
The Heads of Government noted the various forms of security assistance provided by the Government of Canada and placed emphasis on strengthening the capacity of the Haitian National Police to protect the general population from criminal activities.
Finally, the Heads of Government agreed to build international partnerships in support of efforts to return Haiti to peace and stability as a necessary precursor for free, fair and credible elections.
RELATED STORY: Caribbean Matters: CARICOM meets in Belize
Voice of America (VOA) also covered the CARICOM position. This four-minute video touches on Haiti’s “multifaceted crises.”
VOA also published a longer piece on the CARICOM proceedings.
Caribbean leaders attending an annual trade bloc meeting say they will not send a force to Haiti to help stop worsening gang violence in that country.
The spiraling violence in Haiti has been a key topic at the 15-member CARICOM meeting in the Bahamas with Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry asking for an international military intervention to stop the gang attacks in his country.
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At the opening meeting Wednesday, CARICOM Secretary-General Carla Barnett reiterated the preference for finding a Haiti-led solution to the country's challenges. "Even as progress is being made on some fronts, CARICOM and indeed the wider international community continue to struggle to help Haiti resolve its multifaceted crises," Barnett said. "We will continue our efforts to assist all stakeholders in Haiti to ensure a Haitian-owned resolution to the crises."
In addition to leaders from CARICOM's 15 member states, representatives from other nations, including Canada and the United States, are participating in the meeting.
Those who live in the U.S may not be aware of Canada’s history and involvement in Haiti, but it was no surprise that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was in attendance.
The Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) offered a short report.
As the CBC notes, “Canada is facing increasing pressure to help Haiti.”
Associated Press reporter Dánica Coto reported that at CARICOM, Trudeau announced sanctions, and that he would be sending navy ships to Haiti.
Canada will send navy vessels to Haiti for intelligence-gathering as part of efforts to quell worsening gang violence in the Caribbean nation, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Thursday.
Trudeau made the announcement in the Bahamas at an annual meeting of Caribbean leaders where a key topic has been Haiti’s surge in killings, rapes and kidnappings blamed on gangs emboldened since the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.
Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry, also at the meeting, has pleaded for a full-fledged international military intervention to stem the mayhem. His country requested help from the U.N. Security Council in October, and has suggested the U.S. and Canada lead a force. No such intervention has come together, and neither country has offered to take the lead.
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[T]he Canadian leader said his government would give an additional $12.3 million in humanitarian assistance and $10 million to support the International Office on Migration, to protect Haitian women and children along Haiti’s border with the Dominican Republic. The neighboring country has deported tens of thousands of Haitian migrants and those of Haitian ancestry in the past year.
But what do Haitians want? One of the loudest U.S. voices calling out the current situation—and for Haiti to lead any and all solutions—is that of former Special Envoy to Haiti Daniel Foote, who resigned from his post in September 2021. His advocacy for Haiti has attracted both Haitian supporters and detractors.
Analyses of Haiti by outside experts and foreign policy analysts, like those included in this story for Foreign Policy by Robert Muggah, author and principal at the SecDev Group, and a co-founder of the Igarapé Institute, views Haitians as the cause of their own problems, as this headline reinforces.
Haiti Is on the Brink of State Failure
From criminal gangs to elite corruption, cascading ills are almost entirely homegrown.
Facing an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe, Haiti is on the brink of state failure. No stranger to political and economic emergencies, the Caribbean country has been the focus of a half dozen United Nations peacekeeping missions since the 1990s. But never has this long-suffering nation seen the array of cascading crises now converging on its estimated 11.8 million residents: Some 4.7 million people are threatened by acute hunger, including around 2.4 million children. Cholera is spreading across most of the country’s departments. A succession of natural disasters has compounded these miseries.
Yet the country’s worst afflictions, including an ongoing security crisis paralyzing the nation, are fundamentally man-made. The underlying drivers of Haiti’s woes are complex, but metastasized criminal gangs and the predatory political and economic corruption that enable them have made the country’s plight immeasurably worse. If left unattended, Haiti’s security crisis will only deepen, leading to further upheaval at home and beyond, with grim implications for regional stability.
I would beg to differ with this assessment since the long history of outside invasions and exploitation of Haiti is certainly not “almost entirely homegrown.”
RELATED STORY: The New York Times 'gets woke' to the Haitian history it has ignored in the past
Of course, similar opinions can be heard when speaking to activists on the ground, and those who speak out in solidarity from the outside. These voices are both Haitian and non-Haitian allies.
One of the most powerful documentaries on Haiti to date scathingly castigates global powers, with a focus on Canada. Here’s the powerful trailer for Elaine Briere’s Haiti Betrayed: How Canada Destroyed a Democracy.
You can rent the film on Vimeo for about $3. It’s worth it. There’s also free option as of this writing, but it’s unclear how long that will be available. More on that in a moment.
Lys Morton, writing for The Discourse, profiled director Briere in January. She mentioned the man who inspired her to make the film.
Nanaimo-based filmmaker Elaine Brière discusses her film Haiti Betrayed: How Canada Destroyed a Democracy and why film gives voice to human rights.
It was a camera around her neck that sparked Brière’s intertwining history with Haiti. In 2009, while in Port-au-Prince with her partner, who was working on water infrastructure in the region, Brière was approached by a Haitian in the town square of Cham Mas. “He was shouting, ‘Blan, blan, (foreigner) you don’t know what is happening here,'” Brière recounts. “He wasn’t being aggressive, he was just very tired of the truth not being told, of people not understanding why Haiti is in the position it’s in.”
Brière would later learn the man was from Cité Soleil, a heavily impoverished commune near Port-au-Prince that’s been under United Nations Stabilization Mission watch since 2004.
“Taking off his hat, he spoke again,” she recounts. “‘They are killing us! We are poor people. Life is very hard. Tell them what they are doing to us. Tell them to stop.’ He began to cry. I held his hand until he composed himself. Then he put on his hat and slowly walked away. And this film is my response to that request.”
On Feb. 16, a Zoom panel discussion on the current and historical situations in Haiti and Canada’s role in it was held by the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute (CFPI). Here’s how the CFPI describes its mission:
The Canadian Foreign Policy Institute informs people about the country’s diplomatic, aid, intelligence and military policies abroad. The CFPI opposes the racism embedded in Canadian foreign policy. The nonpartisan organization also monitors corporate Canada’s international activities. While Canadians generally believe their country is a benevolent force Internationally, the facts often suggest otherwise. CFPI seeks to bridge the gap between government policy and public perception.
Quite simply, the CFPI clearly doesn’t offer the perspective espoused by all of the official governments that have their hands in Haitian affairs. As part of their critique, the CFPI is, as of this writing, also providing free access to Haiti Betrayed to educate anyone interested. You can watch the film at no cost here, with password HB1915. The CFPI “encouraged” participants to watch the film ahead of the panel.
The event is being held to remember the coup orchestrated by Canada, France & the United States against the democratically elected Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and to demand accountability. It is also to mark Black History Month and to stand in solidarity with the people of Haiti.
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SPEAKERS:
GARRY AUGUSTE: Garry Auguste was born in Bel-air, the centre of Port au Prince, Haiti. He joined the first group of cadets who started the current Haiti National Police at a time of great political turmoil in Haiti. Garry offers a unique perspective on the current political crisis facing Haiti.
JAFRIKAYITI: Jafrikayiti, also known as Jean Saint-Vil, is an Ottawa-based author, radio host & social justice activist who publishes in English, Kreyòl & French on his blog http://Jafrikayiti.com. With Solidarité Québec Haiti comrades, Jafrikayiti often tweets #BlackNationhoodMatters.
ELAINE BRIÉRE: Elaine Brière is a Canadian documentary filmmaker & photographer. Her current film, Haiti Betrayed, exposing the role of Canada in the 2004 coup d’état in Haiti, was released in 2020. Translated into French and Spanish it was the opening night film at the International Political Film Festival in Buenos Aires in 2021.
GABY PAUL: Georges Gabrielle Paul graduated from École Súpérieur Catholique de Droit de Jérémie, GranAnse, Haiti. She is a human Rights Activist & the founder & president of Fondation Julia et Jade.
Here’s the panel—it’s about 90 minutes.
Panelist Jafrikayiti can be found on Twitter. He also publishes a blog.
Jafrikayiti’s “Below Zero in Haiti, 20 Years into The Ottawa Initiative” is an absorbing look into recent interventionist history. It’s a potent contrast to the framing from other nations, especially Canada and the U.S.
In January 2003, Haitians were in the midst of planning celebrations for their bicentennial liberation from the white slavers of Spain, Britain, and France. Famous Black actors, activists, and intellectuals like Danny Glover, Dr. Molefi Asante, and South African President Thabo Mbeki, together with progressive minds of all shades and origins, were making plans to travel to Haiti. At the same time, a group of white women and men gathered with very different plans at a Canadian government resort.
Adding to a long history of foreign conferences on “fixing Haiti” with catastrophic consequences, the Ottawa Initiative on Haiti (OIH) took place near my hometown on January 31-February 1, 2003. At the invitation of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien’s Liberals, the event brought together officials from the United States, France, and the Organization of American States to discuss ousting Haiti’s democratically elected president, establishing a Kosovo-like trusteeship, and reinstating the U.S.-subservient Haitian armed forces.
Jafrikayiti closes his piece with a bit of U.S. history that many folks may be unaware of.
At the end of the 19th century, as it conspired to steal Haiti’s Mole St-Nicolas, the US Government briefly called upon famous abolitionist Frederick Douglass to serve as “U.S. Ambassador to Hayti”. Two years later, in July 1891, Douglass resigned in disgust at U.S. policy. By his dignified behaviour, Douglass taught us that, whereas taming the wickedness of racist imperialists might be beyond our individual powers, behaving honourably towards one’s ancestors and people remains forever a sacred duty.
RELATED STORY: Time to push against Haiti hate yet again, and learn some hidden U.S. history
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