Canada, UN step up calls for Haiti assistance as Jamaican security forces arrive to help

As two dozen members of Jamaica’s military and police forces arrived in Port-au-Prince on Thursday to begin their country’s participation in an armed security mission in Haiti, the international community reiterated the call for a surge in assistance to the non-United Nations security mission.

The Jamaicans landed late afternoon aboard a U.S. Coast Guard aircraft. They face a tough challenge. Earlier this week, armed gangs took their criminality to the sea. Two members of a cargo ship docking in the Port-au-Prince seaport were kidnapped, a source familiar with the incident confirmed to the Miami Herald.

The ocean heist raises new concerns for the Kenya-led security mission, which already lacked air support, and currently has no maritime assets.

“It’s going to take an incredible amount of effort to get us to where we need to be, but the fact is, we have no choice but to pursue the course that we’re on because right now it’s the only option in town,” Canada’s top diplomat to the U.N., Robert Rae, told the Miami Herald following his first official visit to the country as the newly elected president of the U.N.’s Economic and Social Council.

Rae spent three days in gang-ridden Port-au-Prince meeting with Haitian authorities, civic leaders, U.N. representatives as well as the head of the Kenya-led security mission known as the MSS. His visit led off a string of high-profile visits to the troubled-county that have been taking place in recent weeks. Other diplomats have included U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who spent the day in Port-au-Prince last week before traveling to the other side of the island to meet with Dominican Republic President Luis Abinader, and Miroslav Jenča, assistant secretary-general for Europe, Central Asia and the Americas.

Jenča, arrived in Haiti last Friday and completed his visit on Wednesday. The U.N.’s independent expert on human rights, William O’Neill, is also currently traveling the country to report on the deteriorating human rights situation.

During Jenča’s visit, the U.N. diplomat met with Prime Minister Garry Conille and members of his cabinet; Edgard Leblanc Fils, the current head of the scandal-clad Transitional Presidential Council; the head of the Haiti National Police and commander of the Kenya forces, as well as members of the international diplomatic corps. He also spent time in the northern port city of Cap-Haïtien where some are pushing for a greater U.N. presence given the tightening grip of armed gangs that now control more than 85% of the capital.

“All of those he met emphasized that security remains the biggest challenge,” Stéphane Dujarric, the spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, said about Jenča. “While some success has been achieved in anti-gang operations conducted by the Haitian police with the support of the Multinational Security Support mission in Port-au-Prince, it is imperative for the international community to urgently and substantially increase its support for the MSS as well as the Haitian national police. This is fundamental to improve security and allow progress on the political track and in development.”

Jenča, in a social media post, said in his meeting with the foreign diplomatic corps that he had emphasized the importance of coordination in the international community to assist Haiti with its ongoing challenges.

The high-profile visits come at a pivotal time. Donor support for Haiti’s security and humanitarian crisis has been slow to pour in—the U.S. remains the biggest financial contributor of the MSS, providing more than $300 million for its operations as well as armored vehicles, radios and other equipment — and the Biden administration is seeking support from the U.N. Security Council to transform the ill-equipped and understaffed Kenya-led mission into a formal U.N. peacekeeping operation in order to guarantee staffing levels and funding.

The move not only requires support from Guterres, but also from China and Russia, who have been vocal critics of past U.N. peacekeeping interventions in Haiti. The U.S. is also likely to face tough questions even from its supporters. Among them: Why the effort on the ground has not yet produced the kinds of results the administration, and even Guterres, promoted in their effort to field an international armed force to help Haiti’s national police put down gangs?

Those goals include not only loosening the hold of violent gangs that have expanded their presence since 400 Kenyan police officers began arriving in late June, but opening up roads to allow more humanitarian assistance to reach the nearly 600,000 Haitians who have been displaced from their homes in the last three years by the violence and the more than 5 million in need of help.

“My impression is that from talking to the commander, and also from talking to the prime minister, is that the challenge facing the mission has been that, as opposed to a U.N. mission, where there’s a tremendous amount of work done, logistics, background, preparation, prior to people arriving in on site, a lot of this has been done on site,” said Rae. “And there’s been challenges with getting the right equipment to the right people at the right time.

“But having said that, it’s important to stress that these problems are being addressed, and there’s a tremendous willingness on the part of donors to meet more regularly,” he added.

Even with the mission’s shortcomings, Rae said, he believes it has been “quite remarkable” what the international community has managed to do “in the absence of a U.N. mission, to get countries to agree, to come together, to get troops coming in, to provide additional equipment to the [Haiti National Police], to get the port open, to get the airport open, to get the airport secure.”

“I think people have to look at things in some perspective,” he said. “Six months ago, four months ago, things looked very dire in terms of where this was headed.”

He acknowledged that countries supporting the mission face the task of explaining to the rest of the world how much there is still to do. The upcoming meetings in New York during the high level week of the U.N. General Assembly later this month presents such an opportunity, he said, in addition to asking for more donor support ahead of the Sept. 30 vote at the Security Council where the U.S. and Ecuador are asking for support on a resolution extending the current mission until October 2025 and for planning to commence on transitioning it into a U.N. peacekeeping operation.

More money needed for Haiti’s humanitarian crisis as well

In addition to seeking support for the security mission, the U.N. is also asking for more money to fund Haiti’s deepening humanitarian crisis. A request for $674 million had produced around 24% of funding as of August. The U.N. average, Rae said, is less than 30% around the world, and some projects are funded at only 15%.

“We’re in the middle of a global humanitarian crisis of displacement,” he said referring to the estimated 120 million people around the world who have been forcibly displaced. “We have more people now who are moving, who have been displaced internally, or who are on the move from one country to another than we’ve ever had since 1945 and we’re facing it with lower contributions and less money. It’s a global crisis.”

Still, he acknowledged, even with Haiti coming in at the global average, it is “depressing as well,” he said.

“This is something that’s going to be happening in New York during high level week…getting a global focus” on the problem, said Rae, who was recently elected president of the U.N.’s Economic and Social Council. “There’s no desire with anybody to sugar coat the message, the message is very tough: People are facing unprecedented health and food shortages and …with no place to live, people with no place to find food, that problem is very clear for everybody.”

Tasked with setting up a command center, the Jamaicans are part of phased deployment of Caribbean security personnel. Col. Kevron W. Henry, who accompanied Thursday’s contingent, will serve as deputy force commander of the MSS and head of the Caribbean Community Joint Task Force. Also leading the group is Deputy Superintendent of Police Adrian Hamilton.

Rae, whose nation helped trained the 250 members of the Jamaica Defense Force and Jamaica Constabulary Force tapped for the Haiti mission, said the message he got from the head of the Multinational Security Support mission, Godfrey Otunge is that “they’re ready for the Jamaicans to come.”