Haiti's U.N. Mission is Failing

Submitted by gjohnsit on Tue, 10/15/2024 - 2:06pm

While we send countless billions of dollars to Ukraine and Israel, a tiny nation in the Caribbean is dying in silence.

Kenya will send 600 more police officers to Haiti next month to bolster an international anti-gang mission, President William Ruto said on Friday during a visit by the Haitian prime minister intended to speed up deployments to the force.
At least 10 countries have promised to send a total of about 2,900 troops to participate in the Kenyan-led Multinational Security Support (MSS).
But only about 430 have deployed since the U.N.-authorised mission got under way in June, nearly 400 of them from Kenya.

Trying to do this on-the-cheap is just one of the problems, but the results have been horrific.

Weeks before a powerful gang slaughtered at least 115 people in a small rural town in central Haiti in the middle of the night, members of the community pleaded for help from the country’s police chief, prime minister and members of the ruling presidential council to no avail, a leading Port-au-Prince-based human-rights group says. Not only were the residents’ cries ignored, so were the warning signs of an imminent attack on Pont-Sondé by the heavily armed Gran Grief gang based in neighboring Savien, a new report by Fondasyon Je Klere/Eyes Wide Open Foundation says...
Even though more than 100 people were killed in the Pont-Sondé attack, “no state official took responsibility,” the Fondasyon Je Klere/Eyes Wide Open Foundation report said. “Neither the minister of the Interior, nor the minister of justice, nor the director general of the police felt guilty. None offered their resignation to the nation.”

This colorful NY Times article details how the gangs are actually gaining ground, rather than losing it.
Why is the mission failing? Just look at the people that we put into power.

Haiti’s Transitional Presidential Council (CPT) is teetering on the brink of collapse after a corruption scandal hit three key members. The Anti-Corruption Unit (ULCC) accused voting members Emmanuel Vertilaire, Louis Gérald Gilles, and Smith Augustin of bribery, deepening public mistrust. Now, political parties and civil society groups are calling for their immediate resignation.

Despite these calls, none of the implicated officials have stepped down. They continue participating in critical decisions, raising concerns over their value and fears about the council’s future.

This group of Haiti's exiles that we've put into power reminds me of the Iraqi exiles in 2003 that somehow convinced the neocons that they had more influence and followers than they did, and were really only interested in getting rich fast.

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Submitted by humphrey on Tue, 10/15/2024 - 2:40pm

is accurate except the part about the fact that it is in fact a UN mission in name only.

In reality it is more the direct involvement of the State Department and its proxies.

https://themilitant.com/2024/05/18/us-led-intervention-in-haiti-deepens-...

Related to the above image. U.S. Air Force cargo plane arrives at Toussaint Louverture airport in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, May 11 to build operations base for Kenyan-led military force backed by Washington, U.N.

Under the pressure of Washington and other capitalist powers, a transitional presidential council was established in Haiti April 25 prior to the arrival of a Kenyan-led foreign military force. It’s tasked with quelling the current levels of gang violence and cobbling together a government amid a severe social, economic and political crisis.

According to a plan concocted by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and endorsed by the Caribbean Community trade bloc, the transitional government is charged with selecting a president, prime minister, a cabinet and a provisional electoral council to organize national and local elections by February 2026.

Haiti has been engulfed in a protracted political crisis marked by sharp factional battles among ruling circles that has dismantled any semblance of stable bourgeois democratic rule. The weak ruling class in Haiti has no solution to the social breakdowns that are fueled by the worldwide capitalist economic crisis.

Days before the announcement of the provisional council’s composition, Prime Minister Ariel Henry resigned. The new body is mainly composed of representatives of parties working people blame for the crisis.

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Submitted by gjohnsit on Tue, 10/15/2024 - 2:49pm

@humphrey @humphrey For instance, Kenya only sent their police there after the U.S. basically bribed them. In fact, I think that they even promised NATO membership (but I'm not sure).
It's even worse than your article, but that's more than I wanted to type right now.

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Submitted by Bring Back Civics on Tue, 10/15/2024 - 7:48pm

Fatigue or cover? Misrepresentation by omission is the most insidious form of propaganda. Does the NYT get off by saying I was too tired to type the whole truth?

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Submitted by Another Peasant on Tue, 10/15/2024 - 11:52pm

Excuse me, but gjohnsit has done an awful lot of digging for the facts, and keeping us informed about all manner of ugly secrets of TPTB, for years now. It seems a bit rude to tell him he needs to provide more info than he already has, about an obviously depressing subject. If you really have a problem with him taking a break, may I suggest you put him on your payroll, so he can work at it full time. It is also pretty rude to bring up the NYT as some sort of ideal of journalism. They commit the sin of propaganda by omission, all the bloody time, as well as basic character assassination when it suits them. Their "journalism" currently includes defining a narrative FIRST, and then using AI to scour the Web for "facts" to fit the narrative. Back when there was actual journalism, they looked for facts FIRST, and let the facts define the narrative. gjohnsit has always tried to bring the facts. The snide suggestion that he might be "covering" for someone or something is not adding any data to the story, or contributing to our understanding of it. It was, in fact, totally unnecessary and impolite.

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—

“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.”
― Franklin D. Roosevelt

Submitted by Snode on Wed, 10/16/2024 - 8:17am

@Another Peasant @Another Peasant Besides the NYtimes omits, shades and obscures when it feels like it. We can't all write Encyclopedia entries every time we post, and it's hard enough for us to separate deliberate misinformation and crank fantasies from facts in the online information highway.

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Submitted by gjohnsit on Wed, 10/16/2024 - 2:46pm

@Another Peasant
I was miffed by that comment. i've been all over the eff'd up news out of Haiti for years.

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