Kenya will lead an international force of 3,000 police officers to restore order in Haiti. But what order exactly? That of bandits and incompetents.
For decades, and especially since the 2010 earthquake, those who govern Haiti have shown their corruption and their total incapacity to rebuild the country.
The excuses are always the same: it’s the foreigners’ fault. Those who govern Haiti are in reality hiding in the shadow of the American, Canadian and French embassies.
It is a web of lies intended to excuse the politicians who govern Haiti.
Who dares to talk about foreign merchants, Lebanese in particular, who monopolize a large part of the retail trade in the country’s cities?
Who denounces a Catholic church which encourages procreation on this overpopulated island?
Who talks about the smuggling of drugs and weapons in which Haitian politicians are involved?
But above all, how can we excuse the absence of elections and the consolidation of the dictatorship of Ariel Henry, the interim prime minister of Haiti?
- Listen to international politics expert Loïc Tassé on Benoit Dutrizac’s show via QUB :
Unified gangs
A former police officer turned gang leader, Jimmy Chérisier, has just announced that he has managed to unite the gangs that rule the roost in Port-au-Prince.
He asks for Ariel Henry to leave.
Under his leadership, Haitian gangs attacked the capital’s main prison and freed many of the gang leaders who were languishing there.
Chérisier has other strategic objectives. Obviously, he is trying to seize the airport and get his hands on as much weaponry as possible. This is why he attacks police stations.
The gangs do not want the planes that would transport the police to be able to land in Haiti. They are ready to fight together against forces from outside.
Therefore, now, to properly fight against gangs, it would take more than police officers, it would take an army.
But who would protect these foreign forces? Other bandits, bandits with ties, grouped around Ariel Henry.
Photo AFP
Bad choice
Canada and other countries that support sending police officers to Haiti are making the wrong choice.
Between bandits in ties who don’t have the courage to take to the streets to fight and gang leaders who face the brutality of harsh conditions, the latter is preferable to the former. They know how to organize themselves.
And above all, Chérisier seems to cherish the ideal of the restoration of an effective political order. In addition, he is supported by the party of former president Jovenel Moïse, who was assassinated in 2021.
The best way to solve the problem in Haiti is to let the Haitians deal with it themselves. The fighting between the gangs is certainly horrible. But when it is over – and it may be now – a group strong enough to govern Haiti will emerge. A group that we can help.
In the meantime, it is better not to intervene directly.