ourde is the responsibility of the international community — the United States, Canada, France, etc. — in the appalling disintegration of the Haitian state that we are witnessing. This responsibility spans decades, dating back to the Duvaliers. Moreover, the recent positions and declarations of the Trudeau government are too incomplete and ambiguous for us to conclude that Canada is finally trying to correct itself from its complacency.
The accelerated gangsterization of Haitian public life nonetheless opens the door to the possibility—to the hope—that the federal government will realize, by force of the tragic things that are happening on the island, that ‘we need to make a change in policy and take the necessary steps.
Ottawa will not cease tomorrow to be under strong American influence. This should not, however, prevent him from asserting himself. The Trudeau government is carrying out a promising intermingling of ideas regarding the orientations of its foreign policy, which is currently too vague and too scattered. Haiti presents Canada with an opportunity to display an independent spirit, to get out of American petticoats.
In early November, Ottawa and Washington jointly announced financial sanctions against two influential political figures, Senator Joseph Lambert and ex-Senator Youri Latortue, for drug trafficking and “collaboration with criminal and gang networks”. A gesture followed last Sunday by Canada’s exceptional decision to sanction three other personalities, including former President Michel Martelly, for the fact that they “directly benefit from the work of gangs and are associated with the system of corruption”, declared Mélanie Joly, Minister of Foreign Affairs. The words are strong, of course, even though Martelly’s assets are in Miami, not in Canada.
It is indecent that these governments waited until the Haitians were in the worst situation to lift a finger against “corruption systems” that had been in place for a long time. The collusion between gangs and corrupt members of the state, which is now claimed to want to break, was already well documented under President Jovenel Moïse, assassinated in July 2021. This means that Washington – and Ottawa behind him — is today overtaken by its tolerance of its corruption.
However, we should not stop there. Many observers judge the current government of Prime Minister Ariel Henry, without much legitimacy, also guilty of instrumentalizing the gangs, like Moïse before him. However, nothing for the time being indicates that the support of Ottawa and Washington for Ariel Henry is weakening, a man who, for having added to the popular distress and the violence of the gangs by decreeing in September an increase in the price of the essence of 128%, now demands from its guardians the intervention of an emergency international military force.
The multiple military interventions in Haiti, UN or not, have, in the end, only worsened the situation, for lack of broad and sustained political dialogue. Yes to a professionalization of the National Police of Haiti, an area in which Canada has obvious skills. Yes also to humanitarian aid, as Ottawa has again pledged, since the impoverishment of the population is currently combined with a new wave of cholera.
There is a great risk that, having left things to rot, the “international community” will impose an intervention force as a last resort under the pretext of restoring relative security. Which would be tragic, a large proportion of Haitians being strongly opposed to it. And this puts Canada in a unique position, like the United States, which is basically outsourcing the problem, and which is pressuring Ottawa to take the lead in a military mission.
The Trudeau government obviously does not want to embark on this mess, but procrastinates… Says that Canada, if it intervenes, wants to do it “with and for the Haitians”. Except that intervening “with and for Haitians” has always come down to supporting the government in place.
We must put an end to this dynamic littered with bogus elections. Breaking the bandit state, yes, along with history and the complicity by which the United States considers Haiti its stronghold.
Last Sunday, at the end of the Francophonie Summit in Tunisia, Mr. Trudeau pleaded for a “renewed” approach to the Haitian question. Canada, whose diplomacy in Haiti goes a lot through Quebec, would keep its word by finally lining up with the relevant project for a transitional government defended by a broad coalition of political parties and civil society organizations, contained in the Montana August 2021. In Canada to build bridges. Archi-complicated site, but unavoidable site.