US Officials Sound the Alarm - Armed Forces Must Deploy in Haiti: 'Next Step Becomes Biblical'
As violence and fighting in Haiti have continued in recent months and thousands have been fleeing, some officials in the Biden administration are advocating that armed forces be sent to Haiti to intervene in the chaos.
For years Haiti has been struggling with natural disasters and a collapsing government. But 2021 was a new downturn for the country as President Jovenel Moise was assassinated in July 2021 and the country descended further into gang violence, the Council on Foreign Relations reported.
As violence and fighting in Haiti have continued in recent months and thousands have been fleeing, some officials in the Biden administration are advocating that armed forces be sent to Haiti to intervene in the chaos.
For years Haiti has been struggling with natural disasters and a collapsing government. But 2021 was a new downturn for the country as President Jovenel Moise was assassinated in July 2021 and the country descended further into gang violence, the Council on Foreign Relations reported.
For several months, Haitian police and authorities have been battling gangs who took control of areas of the country, turning neighborhoods and cities into hubs of violence and shoot-outs, CNN reported.
“And this is a familiar routine: Police probe into gang areas to show their reach, and gangs respond with intense volleys of bullets,” CNN reported in August when the police seemed to be unable to make successful strides against gangs’ control.
At the beginning of November, the Haitian police did succeed in retaking control of one of Haiti’s main ports that had been controlled by criminal organizations, the New York Times reported.
But even with this success, the nation of Haiti is still suffering and “conditions in the country have plunged to horrifying new lows in recent months, as gangs carried out such extreme violence that the carnage has been compared to civil war,” the Times noted.
“Gang-related violence in Port-au-Prince Metropolitan Area had resulted in racketeering, kidnappings, and wider criminal acts in a context characterized by deep inequalities, high levels of deprivation of basic human needs, and a fragmented security environment,” IOM also reported.
The extraordinary violence and overall conditions have spurred hundreds of thousands of Haitians to flee, IOM reported.
Just from June to August of 2022, IOM estimated that there were 113,000 internally displaced people in Haiti.
Meanwhile, many other Haitians have tried fleeing to the U.S. for safety, which has the Biden administration now considering what to do to mitigate the possibility of mass immigration, the Times reported.
The Times noted that the U.S. Coast Guard has already seen the number of Haitian migrants trying to come to U.S. shores increase by four times, compared to last year.
“That has always been the U.S. government’s biggest Haitian nightmare, a mass migration event. It’s already upon us; the next step becomes biblical, with people falling off anything that can float. We aren’t that far away from that,” said Daniel Foote, a former member of the U.S. envoy to Haiti, the Times reported.
With this possibility on the horizon, the Times reported that there has been discussion among administration officials about the idea of sending a collection of armed forces, from various nations, to intervene.
In fact, this is precisely what the Haitian government already requested in October, according to the Associated Press.
Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry and 18 other officials formally requested international troops be sent to the nation to help with the gang violence that has thrown the population into dire circumstances
The request asked for “the immediate deployment of a specialized armed force, in sufficient quantity,” the AP reported.
“It is imperative to restart activities to avoid a complete asphyxiation of the national economy,” the official request added, according to the AP.
In October, the U.S. even drafted a United Nations Security Council resolution to respond to the situation.
The resolution advocated for “the immediate deployment of a multinational rapid action force,” the Washington Post reported.
However, the Times reported that some officials are concerned about sending American troops to Haiti, even in the face of such a desperate plea.
“Now, the Biden administration is encountering resistance to rallying a multinational force, including from American military leaders who do not want to be drawn into a mission that would require a significant amount of time and resources, the U.S. officials said,” the Times reported.
The Times added that the UN resolution from October has been at a standstill as well.
But in the midst of this seeming “catch-22,” the Biden administration has not made any further comments and there has yet to be any action taken for intervening in Haiti.
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