Blinken visits a Haiti wracked by corruption, gangs

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Haiti on Thursday in a display of American support for international efforts to wrest the nation from the grip of tyrannical violent gangs.

Blinken landed in the capital, Port-au-Prince, where he planned to survey the work of a Kenyan-led security force, backed by the United Nations, that arrived in Haiti this summer. Its mandate is to support the Haitian police as they combat the gangs, which have subjected large areas of the Caribbean nation to brutal rule, enforced by torture, rape and murder.

Overshadowed by crises in the Middle East and Europe, Haiti’s collapse into criminal anarchy is among the most intractable problems faced by the Biden administration and the international community.

Efforts to improve the lives of Haiti’s largely impoverished population of roughly 11 million people have been complicated by past interventions by the United States and the United Nations that only seemed to exacerbate the country’s problems. But the United States also cannot afford to ignore Haiti, which lies about 800 miles south of Florida, and from which streams of migrants have fled to America in the past, creating a refugee crisis in the early 1990s.

Those failures, as well as a legacy of colonialism, help explain why the United States has played a supporting role behind Kenya’s deployment of police officers, now numbering about 380 in the country. That is well behind a stated goal of 2,500 personnel, to which at least six other nations have said they would contribute.

U.S. officials said Blinken — the first American secretary of state to visit Haiti in nearly a decade — would assess the state of the security mission, which has so far done little to dislodge the power of well-armed gangs that have marauded through the country, blocking roads, emptying prisons and attacking police stations.

Blinken landed at Haiti’s international airport, which is operating again after an attempted takeover by armed gangs shut it down for several weeks in March. After traveling in an armored motorcade through the capital’s narrow and crumbling streets to a meet with provisional leaders, Blinken struck an optimistic note.

“This is a moment of challenge, but also a moment of hope,” Blinken told reporters after meeting with Edgard Leblanc Fils, the leader of Haiti’s Transitional Presidential Council. That body is tasked with steering the country to its first national elections since November 2016. Blinken said the goal of Haiti’s provisional leaders was to hold elections next year.

But noting the grim conditions in a country where U.S. diplomats often cannot move freely, Blinken called security “the foundation for everything that needs to happen going forward.”

While the United States has provided only a few State Department contractors to the security mission, it is giving equipment and financial support, with a commitment so far of $309 million, the State Department spokesperson, Matthew Miller, said Wednesday.

Some $200 million of that has already been delivered to Haiti by the Defense Department in the form of equipment such as armored personnel carriers. The State Department is supplying the rest, including radios, night-vision capabilities and police gear, Miller said.

But the need far outstrips such contributions. “It seems easier for the U.S. to release billions for Ukraine than a few hundred million for Haiti,” grumbled a commentary about Blinken’s visit published by the website Haiti Libre.

Despite the small number of Kenyan police officers in the country, Haiti is far more stable than it was several months ago, Brian A. Nichols, the assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, told reporters on Wednesday.

Nichols noted that, in March, Haiti’s former prime minister, Ariel Henry, was stranded when gangs fired on the country’s international airport, shutting it down. The airport is again operational. Around the same time, a former rebel leader threatened to march on Port-au-Prince and take over the government.

“We’ve come a long way since those very dark moments,” Nichols said. “We’re seeing that forward movement on the security side that we’ve long waited for.” He said that Kenyan forces have been conducting joint operations with the Haitian national police and the Haitian army, “going after gangs and their leaders in a way that hasn’t happened in years.”

But Nichols struck an ominous note, warning that progress could be reversed without more outside support. Some nations that have pledged donations to the Kenyan-led multinational effort have yet to deliver funding. “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,” he said.

Also at issue is what will become of the mission after its current U.N. mandate expires on Oct. 2. Some analysts have said the Kenyan-led deployment, which is authorized but not funded by the United Nations, should be replaced by a traditional U.N. peacekeeping force — despite lingering anger over previous U.N. peacekeepers, who raped women and girls and introduced cholera into the country.

Asked about the possibility of a peacekeeping mission, Miller did not rule out the possibility, saying the U.S. government “will always look at all the available options.”

During his remarks on Thursday, Blinken said the annual gathering of world leaders for the United Nations General Assembly in New York later this month would be a venue for that conversation.

While security is essential to restoring the country’s stability, officials and analysts say that any long-term success will depend on a successful transition back to democratic rule following years of turmoil after its president, Jovenel Moïse, was assassinated in his bedroom in July 2021. The country is nominally ruled by its prime minister, Garry Conille, a former U.N. official who was appointed in May, and with whom Blinken met on Thursday.

A transitional council established this year is paving the way for national elections to choose a new president. But that process has been plagued by delays and infighting, and three members of the council are under investigation by the country’s anti-corruption agency over the handing out of government jobs to members of its coalition of political and economic groups.

Nichols expressed concern about the allegations, saying that Haitian authorities should investigate the charges and “hold anyone who’s responsible for corrupt acts accountable.” He added that the Haitian people deserved good governing and that international donors required “confidence that funds that flow through the Haitian government are used appropriately and transparently.”

After stopping in Haiti, Blinken will visit neighboring Dominican Republic, State Department officials said. The Dominican Republic has been a political and economic success story in contrast to its neighbor and, unlike Haiti, is secure enough for the secretary of state to spend the night.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.