Blinken to visit Haiti, hoping to boost security gains

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit violence-ravaged Haiti on Thursday as he looks to consolidate gains by a multinational force and discuss finding new ways of funding.

The high-security visit comes two months after Kenyan police officers arrived in the Western Hemisphere's poorest country to launch a long-awaited mission backed by the United States to start restoring order.

Residents speak of persistent violence of gangs, who seized some 80 percent of the capital Port-au-Prince, but US officials have pointed to signs of progress, including the resumption of commercial flights and an increasing presence by both the international force and Haitian police.

"We are seeing a dramatic increase in patrols and operations designed to restore security and a sense of normalcy in Haiti," said Brian Nichols, the top US diplomat for the Western Hemisphere.

"But we also need to see progress on the political side," Nichols told reporters, saying that Blinken will press for elections, which have not been held in Haiti since 2016.

The United States and Caribbean nations in March helped broker a plan that led to the installation of a transitional council representing key stakeholders and an acting prime minister, Garry Conille, who will serve until new elections.

Blinken, the top US official to visit Haiti since then secretary of state John Kerry in 2015, will meet Conille and other key players as well as the Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS).

He will continue later Thursday to the neighboring Dominican Republic, which days earlier complied with a US request to seize the airplane of Venezuela's leftist leader Nicolas Maduro, whose allies are accused of rigging July elections to secure a new term for him.

- Open to greater UN role -

President Joe Biden, who early in his term ended America's longest war by pulling out of Afghanistan, has ruled out putting any US troops at risk in Haiti, the scene of repeated US interventions.

But his administration has contributed $360 million to the multinational mission, including offering logistical support and equipment.

"Our challenge going forward is to make sure that there's a reliable, sustainable source of funding for the MSS to take it through stabilization, elections and the growth of the Haitian National Police," Nichols said.

He said that the United States would keep pressing for more contributions both of people and money to the force.

Nichols said that the United States was open to making the mission a formal UN peacekeeping operation as a way to ensure consistent funding.

"Our goal is to have a mission that is effective, strong and able to deliver the kind of security progress that the Haitian people deserve," he said.

The UN Security Council gave its blessing to the mission, but the United States initially sought to avoid making it a UN peacekeeping mission.

Many Haitians have dark memories of UN peacekeepers.

The United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, which deployed from 2004 to 2017, counted some 10,000 Blue Helmets at its peak.

But its reputation was tarnished by accusations of sexual abuse and a cholera epidemic linked to peacekeepers that killed some 10,000 Haitians, with any security gains wiped out by a devasating 2010 earthquake.