CARICOM still in dialogue over fix to Haiti chaos

There are concerns within the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) that a pending United States resolution to the United Nations Security Council seeking support for the deployment of forces to Haiti may be vetoed by China and Russia even as nationwide unrest roils the French-speaking country.

Haitian Prime Minister Dr Ariel Henry last week called for solidarity from the regional bloc and has requested assistance to “alleviate the deepening humanitarian, security, political, and economic crises” unfolding as gang violence peaks.

But several Gleaner sources, seasoned in diplomatic and foreign relations, have said that CARICOM is grappling to find an “appropriate” intervention strategy amid weak diplomatic relations and few formal agreements between some CARICOM member states and Haiti.

State minister in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Senator Leslie Campbell, confirmed in a Gleaner interview Wednesday that CARICOM is working towards a legal framework that would allow for assistance and intervention.

“The discussions are continuing within CARICOM for a decision to be made in finding a legal basis for intervention,” he said, but would not comment further when pressed on Jamaica’s potential role in the affairs of its northeastern neighbours.

John Briceño, prime minister of Belize, told The Gleaner Wednesday that the country will “work along with CARICOM” to “do all we can to assist” in helping to curtail the deterioration in governance and socio-economic conditions in Haiti.

“But we are waiting for other countries in the region to decide how exactly they can help. Our countries don’t have the wherewithal to go into Haiti alone,” Briceño said, noting that Belize had, in the past, deployed troops.

On Friday, The Miami Herald reported that the Biden administration had drafted the resolution encouraging the immediate deployment of a multinational rapid action force to Haiti to address the nation’s worst security and health crisis in decades.

However, one diplomat who was not authorised to speak on the matter but spoke on condition of anonymity suggested that China, which has been deepening relations with several Caribbean nations, and sanction-scarred Russia would not support the resolution.

Diplomatic relations between Washington on one hand, and Beijing and Moscow, on the other, are frosty.

“Aside from the legal basis that member states would need to go in, it is almost sure that China and Russia [are] going to veto,” a source said.

The two countries, along with France, the United Kingdom, and the US, constitute the five permanent members of the Security Council with veto power.

President of the Haiti-Jamaica Society, Myrtha Désulmé, on Wednesday slammed the US over the resolution, arguing that the North American country, the United Nations, and the international community are to blame for the crises dogging Haiti.

Désulmé insisted that the US was the chief architect of the chaos, noting that Washington has been aided and abetted by CARICOM states, which she called “useless”.

She said successive US administrations have stoked political tension in the country while using backchannels to install corrupt governments.

“Haiti doesn’t produce any arms, but those gangs have more powerful weapons than the US army. People who didn’t know where their next meals were coming from are walking around with weapons that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and all those weapons are coming from the US,” Désulmé told The Gleaner.

“Instead of occupying Haiti, why don’t they go for the low-hanging fruit, which is the most obvious and simplest solution? Cut off the flow of weapons coming from the US. Once you do that, the gangs are dead.

Désulmé rebuked CARICOM, arguing that it consistently offers up “empty platitudes” while “rubber-stamping fraudulent elections” in the country.

“Nobody is willing to stand up against the US and the UN while watching Haiti sink into a sea of blood and bile,” she said.