US mulling creation of UN peacekeeping operation for Haiti to fight gangs

SAN JUAN (AP):The US is mulling a UN peacekeeping operation in Haiti as one way to secure funding and staffing for a Kenya-led mission deployed to quell gang violence in the Caribbean country, a top US diplomat said Wednesday.

Brian A. Nichols, US assistant secretary for Western Hemisphere affairs, spoke hours after The Miami Herald reported that the administration of US President Joe Biden is considering the possibility of a traditional UN peacekeeping operation given the limited funding and equipment available to the current mission.

“A (peacekeeping operation) is one of the ways we could accomplish that,” Nichols told reporters. “But we are looking at multiple ways.”

The UN Security Council would ultimately have to vote on a peacekeeping mission. But experts have said it’s unlikely it would support one, and note many Haitians would likely baulk at it given the introduction of cholera and sexual abuse cases that occurred when UN troops were last in Haiti.

When asked about a possible peacekeeping mission, a UN spokesman said only that, “It would be a decision of the Security Council.”

Nichols noted that the current UN-backed mission to Haiti depends on voluntary contributions, with the US and Canada providing the bulk of the funding so far.

Some 400 Kenyan police are currently in Haiti, but the mission also calls for the deployment of police and soldiers from The Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Benin, Chad and Jamaica for a total of 2,500 personnel. They would be deployed in phases that would cost roughly US$600 million a year. Currently, the UN has US$85 million in pledges for the mission, out of which US$68 million has been received.

Contributions to the UN fund for the mission, however, have been limited, and Haitians complain that they have not seen a decrease in gang violence since the first contingency of Kenyans arrived in late June.

“We need the rest of the international community to step forward with much more significant financial contributions so that the force can continue to operate and that additional nations can deploy their units as part of the (mission),” Nichols said.

He spoke a day before US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is scheduled to visit Haiti on Thursday and the neighbouring Dominican Republic afterwards.

Blinken is expected to meet with Haitian Prime Minister Garry Conille and a transitional presidential council and push for the appointment of a provisional electoral council so Haiti can hold long-awaited elections.

“The prime minister is rightly concerned about the future, but I think we have come quite a long way since the beginning of the year,” Nichols said.

Haiti held its last presidential election in November 2016, with gang violence and political upheaval preventing any elections since then.

Former President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated in July 2021, and gang violence surged in the political vacuum that followed. In February, gangs launched coordinated attacks targeting key government infrastructure to prevent the return of former Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who was in Kenya to talk about the upcoming mission.

Gangs raided more than two dozen police stations, opened fire on the main international airport, forcing it to close for nearly three months, and stormed Haiti’s two biggest prisons, releasing thousands of inmates.

Henry, unable to return to Haiti, resigned in April. A transitional presidential council was later created, and it appointed Conille as prime minister.

“We’ve come a long way since those very dark moments,” Nichols said, noting that Haiti’s police and military recently launched its first joint operation with the Kenyans, “going after gangs and their leaders in a way that hasn’t happened in years.”

But gangs still control 80 per cent of the capital of Port-au-Prince, and their leaders continue to order attacks into surrounding areas. From January to May, more than 3,200 people were killed, with violence leaving more than half a million people homeless in recent years.

Efforts to move forward politically also have stalled, and Haiti’s transitional council now finds itself embroiled in a high-profile corruption scandal. Three of its nine members have been accused of demanding more than US$750,000 from the director of the government-owned National Bank of Credit to secure his job. The director has since resigned, and the three council members have denied accusations that the government is investigating.

“The Haitian people deserve transparency and good governance, and the international community, which provides good assistance, also needs to see that,” Nichols said.

After visiting Haiti, Blinken is expected to meet with Dominican President Luis Abinader, who has barred Haitians from flying into the country and is building a fence along a border that both nations share on the island of Hispaniola.

Nichols said the US hopes to see more normal relations between the two countries, “but obviously those are sovereign decisions.”