U.S. tries to downplay role in Haiti, but it’s hard to hide the planes
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Hundreds of foreign police officers, requested more than 18 months ago by a prime minister who has since resigned, will soon touch down in Haiti, a U.N.-approved stabilization force for a country in chaos.
The mission is to be led by Kenya, with up to 2,500 police officers and soldiers from several countries to support Haiti’s beleaguered national police against the armed gangs who control an estimated 80% of the capital. The coalition was painstakingly assembled by the Biden administration, which said from the outset it would neither lead the effort nor provide troops but struggled to find a country willing to take it up.
“We concluded that for the United States to deploy forces in the hemisphere just raises all kinds of questions that can be easily misrepresented about what we’re trying to do,” President Biden said Thursday during a news conference with Kenyan President William Ruto. “So we set out to find a partner or partners who would lead the effort that we would participate in.”
Still, the effort is to be financed, armed and trained largely by the United States. And on the ground right now in Port-au-Prince, the Americans appear to be running the show.
U.S. diplomats co-wrote the U.N. resolution approving the force. The C-130s that bring construction equipment and supplies into the international airport here daily belong to the U.S. Air Force. American taxpayers are to provide the bulk of the funding. U.S. Southern Command is setting up a base of operations here.
“The real country backing the Kenyans with materials and support is the United States,” said Louis Gérald Gilles, a member of the interim council that is running Haiti.
A small group of Kenyan officials arrived in Port-au-Prince this week, and Gen. Laura Richardson, the Southcom commander, has said “we will be ready to go on the 23rd of May.” Ruto told the Washington Post last week that he expected a contingent of 200 officers to arrive in Haiti by the end of the month.
“There are outstanding issues around equipment,” he said. “There are (also) some outstanding agreements with the neighboring countries for purposes of evacuation if need be, of our personnel.
“We believe that those outstanding matters will be resolved in the coming days.”
As Ruto arrived in Washington, D.C., for a state visit on Thursday, it was unclear whether that deployment was still on track, or whether Haiti’s skeletal interim government was prepared to receive it. Congressional Republicans have blocked some funding, citing unanswered questions about the rules of engagement and exit strategy. Members of the transitional presidential council, running the government until a new president and legislature are elected, say they have received few details.
“If we’re saying this is to support the Haitian authorities but the Haitian authorities are not fully empowered or functional, how can we be moving forward with this deployment and surging resources on the ground?” asked Jake Johnston, a research associate at the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research. “Nobody knows who is ultimately calling the shots.”
This Caribbean nation of 11 million is beset by gang violence, political chaos and poverty. The presidency remains vacant since the 2021 assassination of Jovenel Moïse; embattled Prime Minister Ariel Henry resigned last month.
Three missionaries, two of them Americans, were shot to death in a gang attack in Port-au-Prince on Thursday evening, Oklahoma-based Missions in Haiti Inc. said. The mayor of the Croix-des-Bouquets neighborhood told The Post that there has been no police presence in the area since an attack on the local police station on Feb. 29, and investigators were unable to reach the scene.
The transitional council, sworn in last month, has yet to create a national security council to coordinate with the mission. The council was expected to discuss rules of engagement with Kenyan officials during a meeting on Thursday, member Leslie Voltaire told The Post.
On Wednesday, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, joined fellow Democrats in urging Republican leaders on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to lift a hold on $94 million for the security mission.
The United States has pledged $300 million. In April, Biden used his drawdown authority to direct $60 million to provide “anti-crime and counternarcotics” support for the mission and the Haitian National Police.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned this week that Haiti “is really on the precipice … of becoming a failed state.”
The mission is “focused on police and it’s really focused on strengthening and bolstering the capacity of the Haitian National Police to take this on themselves,” Blinken said Wednesday. “This is not us policing the world.”
Kenya will provide the bulk of the troops here. Also pledging personnel are Caribbean neighbors Barbados, Jamaica and the Bahamas, plus Bangladesh, Belize, Benin and Chad. Canada and France have provided funding.
But Haitians see the United States as the real power here.
“I have the impression that we are facing a U.S. force disguised as Kenyan,” said Wethzer Piercin, a 25-year-old linguistics student in Port-au-Prince. “They are leveraging Kenya’s history to their advantage. It’s their best option, but they are the ones bolstering the force and organizing meetings with President Ruto.”
Piercin said he felt “some hope” at the arrival of the Kenyans, but said it was local forces who should solve Haiti’s security crisis.
Cadafy Noël, a 31-year-old digital entrepreneur in Jérémie, was skeptical of U.S. intentions.
“When it comes to the United States’ involvement in the strategy to establish peace in the country, we don’t see many results,” he said. “Most of the guns come from the U.S. We don’t see any effort to curb gun trafficking.”
Still, he said, “we are eager to see the force working with the police to bring some results and peace.”
Haiti has suffered a long history of destabilizing foreign interventions. The U.N. mission from 2004 to 2017 achieved mixed results against Haiti’s armed gangs. The military component of the mission, led by Brazil with troops from more than 20 countries, is remembered largely for alleged rights abuses and a cholera outbreak that killed nearly 10,000 people.
The United States and Haitian police have resumed flights here by strengthening security around the international airport, said Gilles, the transitional council member. Richardson said a “limited” number of uniformed U.S. personnel would handle logistics and sustainment.
Dennis B. Hankins, the U.S. ambassador to Haiti, appeared alongside Haiti’s chief of police and the airport’s director on Sunday to present the country with 10 armored vehicles.
Hankins said the United States had identified, in coordination with the Haitian government, the site for the mission’s operations, which “should begin before the end of the month.”
Each military flight includes a small contingent of security personnel for the aircraft, Hankins said, and a private security firm has been contracted to secure the construction site. The foreign troops, he said, “are here to reinforce the government’s forces, not replace them,” Hankins said.
Gilles welcomed their coming arrival.
“To avoid past mistakes,” he said, “they need to support the national police, vet the institution to remove corrupt officers, provide weapons to the police, increase the police force, modernize it, and train them in techniques to combat gangs.”
They’ll face the challenge of dislodging the heavily armed militias. Even if they manage to push the gangs out of the capital, Voltaire said, he fears they could simply spread violence in other parts of the country.
Some members of the presidential transitional council are arguing for a pathway for gang members to turn over their weapons and surrender to the justice system.
“Nobody favors amnesty,” Voltaire said. But he said he plans to suggest the creation of a truth and justice committee and a system that would encourage gang members to demobilize, appear before victims “and repent.”
—-
Schmidt reported from Bogotá, Colombia. Coletta reported from Toronto. Katharine Houreld in Nairobi and John Hudson in Washington contributed to this report.