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1 / 5Photo: Odelyn Joseph/AP/TT
Murders are rampant and cholera threatens. When the outside world intervenes in the spiral of hell Haiti again – after catastrophic failures – an ounce of hope is nevertheless awakened in desperate residents.
– It’s like God has heard Haiti’s prayers, says Haitian Wensley Johnson.
There is no clean water in Haiti. When the rainy season comes, the cities are flooded with brown sludge, where garbage and diseases are carried around.
Criminal gangs have taken control of large parts of the country with extreme violence. More than 2,500 people have been murdered this year alone and hundreds of thousands have been driven from their homes.
It is then, when the worldly powers fail, that Wensley Johnson thinks he sees a higher power intervene.
– And now he is sending help, the 40-year-old tells the news agency AP in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince.
The unemployed Johnson fled his home earlier this year when gang members raided his small community. He has sent the children to relatives in the countryside.
– Stability is the key for everyone to be able to return to their usual tasks.
Bad memories
A Kenyan-led force will arrive in Haiti to try to combat gang violence, after the UN Security Council gave the go-ahead for a new intervention earlier in October.
It is not designated as a peacekeeping operation. The long-running UN operation Minustah (2004–17) was partly followed by accusations of sexual abuse. In part, Nepalese UN soldiers are believed to have brought cholera to Haiti.
The large-scale epidemic caused nearly 10,000 deaths as it ravaged the racial masses of an even greater disaster: the massive earthquake in January of that year that killed more than 200,000 people.
– It (an intervention) brings back bad memories in Haiti, says the 60-year-old teacher Jean-Pierre Elie to AP, but he is nevertheless positive about the new effort, because it is “unbearable to live in Haiti” today.
Elie, like many Haitians, doubts the ability of the local police. Some residents have gathered in the civic guard and taken up arms against the gangs.
Like Sundsvall
Last October, cholera broke out again, in the gang-controlled slums of Cité Soleil (City of the Sun) in Port-au-Prince. The widespread violence has in many cases made healthcare efforts impossible.
– Even though we have less cholera today, there are millions of people who do not have access to healthcare or clean water. The risk of cholera diseases is very high, says Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) operations manager in the country, Jean-Baptiste Marion, to TT.
The organization is preparing for the upcoming rainy season, where new outbreaks may take off. To put the latest eruption in proportion, Marion has looked at the map.
– There were 50,000 people who were affected by the disease last time, as if the whole of Sundsvall in Sweden would be affected.
As for the upcoming operation, the MSF chief is keeping his hopes in check.
– We have an everyday situation which is of course not sustainable, and which will not improve in the short term. The decisive thing for us is that everyone who is here and provides humanitarian aid should be able to avoid being involved, he says.
Enough?
Haiti’s government already appealed to the international community for help a year ago. In the end, Kenya took the lead with a promise to send at least 1,000 police, with financial backing from the United States.
Analysts question whether the force will be large enough and whether it has the skills for urban firefights in a foreign country. Add to that language confusion and the fact that Kenya’s police officers are repeatedly accused of excessive force.
– Everything that is done in the short term will quite obviously fall apart if you don’t solve the political problems, says Robert Fatton, an American Haitian expert at the University of Virginia, to AFP.
Jean-Baptiste Marion at MSF also calls for a broader approach:
– Alongside the security effort, it is very important that there is a large-scale humanitarian effort, but that discussion is not heard.
FACT Background: Should last for one year
The UN Security Council on October 2 – almost a year after Haiti asked for help – gave the go-ahead for countries to participate in a multinational security and support effort.
It is to be led by Kenya and carried out “in close cooperation and coordination with the government of Haiti”, initially for a year. After nine months, the situation must be re-evaluated.
The aid is to be directed to the Haitian National Police, to enable it to curb violence and widespread crime, protect infrastructure and enable the delivery of humanitarian aid.
The resolution also underlines the need for broader efforts in the future to address the underlying problems behind the violence.
13 of the council’s 15 members voted in favor. Two permanent members – China and Russia – abstained.
Alongside Kenya, Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas and Jamaica have pledged to contribute manpower. The US has pledged a billion in financial aid.
Source: Security Council resolution number 2699
Read moreFACTSHaiti
With just over 11 million inhabitants, Haiti is the Caribbean’s most populous nation.
The country is located in the Caribbean Sea, where it shares the island of Hispaniola with the neighboring Dominican Republic.
The island was already divided in the 17th century into two parts – one part held by France and one by Spain. After a slave revolt, Haiti’s independence was proclaimed in 1804. The new country became the first to abolish slavery.
But Haiti has never managed to achieve any long-term stability. The 19th century was characterized by continued wars and during the 20th century the cruel regimes replaced each other.
The latest era can be said to have begun with the catastrophic earthquake of 2010, with hundreds of thousands of victims. It was followed ten months later by a large-scale and deadly cholera outbreak.
Several elections were held in the years that followed, but the results were inconclusive and heavily disputed. When President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated in his home on July 7, 2021, the situation worsened further. The murder remains unsolved and in the unrest, criminal gangs have taken control of parts of the country.
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