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U.N. approves militarized force to take on Haiti’s gangs

The Security Council vote was an acknowledgment that the police mission it once backed had failed to wrest back control of the beleaguered Caribbean nation.

United Nations peacekeepers from Argentina attempting to clear the streets of armed gang members in Gonaïves, Haiti, in 2004.Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

United Nations peacekeepers from Argentina attempting to clear the streets of armed gang members in Gonaïves, Haiti, in 2004.Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

The U.N. Security Council agreed Tuesday to replace the international police mission in Haiti with a larger, more aggressive, militarized force to take on armed gangs and clear the way for the country’s first presidential and legislative elections in nearly a decade. The vote was an acknowledgment that the Kenya-led police mission the United Nations once championed has failed to wrest back control of the crisis-racked Caribbean nation.

The resolution, written by the United States and Panama, calls for a “gang suppression force” of 5,500 military, police and civilian personnel, more than five times the size of the current multinational security support mission, or MSS. It will be authorized to operate independently of the Haitian police and the Haitian army and to make arrests. A U.N. office in Haiti is to provide logistical and administrative support.

The force will be deployed for an initial period of 12 months, according to the resolution, to conduct “intelligence-led targeted, counter-gang operations to neutralize, isolate, and deter gangs” that continue to threaten the civilian population and to secure critical infrastructure such as ports and schools.

But much as when the Security Council green-lit the MSS in 2023, key questions remain, including when the force will be deployed, which countries might participate, the rules of engagement and an exit strategy.

 Analysts warned that the new effort risked being hobbled by the same funding and resource constraints that have stymied the current mission.

“Any security support mission in Haiti should be backed by predictable and sustained funding,” Human Rights Watch warned in a statement last week. “Predictable resources to cover salaries and operational costs are essential to prevent the gaps that crippled the MSS, and binding commitments for troop contributions are needed.”

Haitian Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé welcomed the new force.

“This initiative represents a strategic lever to curb gang violence and protect the Haitian population,” he said in a statement.

Twelve of the 15 Security Council members, including the United States, approved the resolution. Russia, China and Pakistan abstained.

The MSS “managed to prevent the complete collapse of the Haitian state in the face of this onslaught of terrorist gang violence,” Michael Waltz, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told the Security Council after the vote. “However, it was a mission that unfortunately lacked the resources to fully turn the tide. … Today’s vote sets that right.”

Vasily Nebenzya, Russia’s permanent representative to the United Nations, was skeptical. Stability would not come to Haiti, he warned, unless efforts were made to stem the flow of illegal firearms to the country — much of them from the United States — and strengthen its institutions.

“The tools of international assistance to Haiti pushed through the council have failed to produce any sustainable results,” he said, “and we have every reason to believe that this new mission under yet another grand title will meet the same fate.”

He called the deployment a “dangerous and poorly thought-out venture,” but given the Haitian government’s support of the new force, he said, Russia would not block it.

 

The U.N. Security Council last week in New York. (Eduardo Munoz/Reuters)
The U.N. Security Council last week in New York. (Eduardo Munoz/Reuters)

 

 

 

Haiti is “a modern-day Guernica,” Laurent Saint-Cyr told the U.N. General Assembly last week, “a human tragedy at the doorstep of America.” Saint-Cyr leads the council that’s overseeing the government in the absence of a president (the last one was assassinated in 2021) or legislature (the last senators went home in 2023 after their terms expired).

The killing of President Jovenel Moïse opened a power vacuum now largely filled by the gangs. In 2022, as security and humanitarian crises spiraled, then-Prime Minister Ariel Henry appealed for an international force to support the country’s outnumbered and outgunned police. The request was divisive, given the troubled history of foreign interventions, but the situation had grown so dire that human rights groups and many Haitians saw no alternative.

The Biden administration proposed the MSS, but it ruled out deploying U.S. personnel in frontline roles and struggled to find a country willing to lead the mission. Several nations approached by Washington declined before Kenya agreed, in keeping, officials said, with their “commitment to Pan Africanism.”

But with little success against the gangs, the MSS has lost the confidence of the Haitian government, which this year turned to foreign mercenaries to try to stem the violence, and of many Haitians, who refer to its officers as “tourists.” In the 15 months since it arrived, gangs have gained control of more territory, the number of displaced people has more than doubled, and no major gang leader has been captured or killed.

 

Kettia Jean Charles combs her niece's hair last week at the Ministry of Public Works, Transport and Communications office, which was converted into a shelter for people displaced by gang violence, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. (Odelyn Joseph/AP)
Kettia Jean Charles combs her niece's hair last week at the Ministry of Public Works, Transport and Communications office, which was converted into a shelter for people displaced by gang violence, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. (Odelyn Joseph/AP)

 

 

The force’s top challenge has been a lack of resources. U.N. member state contributions, whether of personnel, equipment or money, have been voluntary. Kenyan officials planned for a force of 2,500 but struggled to field 1,000. Countries that pledged officers never provided them. Benin, for example, pledged at least 1,500 soldiers and deployed none.

In many cases, the equipment that it did obtain, including armored vehicles from the United States and Canada, has struggled to navigate Port-au-Prince’s dense urban geography and has frequently broken down. The United Nations reported this year that shortages of spare parts had rendered half of the force’s combat vehicles unserviceable.

“Limitations in enabling capacities, including air support, medical support and communication systems, further constrain Mission effectiveness and raise concerns about personal safety,” U.N. Secretary General António Guterres wrote to the Security Council in February, and questions about financing were “casting doubt on the continuity of its operations.”

Biden administration efforts last year to turn the MSS into a U.N. peacekeeping mission, which would have guaranteed its funding, met resistance.

Critics questioned a peacekeeping mission, given conditions in the country, and said it would it be premature to transition the MSS into something else without giving it adequate time and money. Then Donald Trump was elected president, leaving the future of U.S. policy in Haiti uncertain.

Kenyan President William Ruto told the U.N. General Assembly last week that the MSS “has been underfunded, unequipped and operated below 40 percent of its authorized personnel strength.” Kenyan police, he added, “have valiantly shouldered responsibilities without the full logistical support that would accompany any mission sanctioned by the United Nations.”

It was unclear how the new force might avoid the same obstacles. Contributions to the gang-suppression force would remain voluntary. Henry T. Wooster, the chargé d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince, told reporters last week he was “confident” that “we will gain sufficient personnel, whether they’re gendarmes, police types or military.”

“To be clear,” he said, “the mission is colored overwhelmingly as military due to the urban combat nature of it. But [we’re] also happy to take police.”

Fu Cong, China’s ambassador to the United Nations, called the resolution “ambiguous on several critical issues” and chided its sponsors, saying they failed to “provide meaningful information” before putting it to a vote.

“Over the past three decades, the Security Council has authorized three multinational force deployments and seven peacekeeping operations in Haiti only to get in return persistent instability and recurring crisis, along with resentment and grievances towards the United Nations amongst the Haitian people,” he said.

Questions remained, he added, about how to ensure that the gang-suppression force “will not repeat past mistakes” and whether “the hasty deployment of yet another multinational force [is] a responsible approach towards the Haitian people.”

Widlore Mérancourt contributed to this report.

Source: The Washington Post

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