Biden official on Haiti: “Incredibly complex, challenging.” Still no respite in sight

The Biden administration is defending the slow pace of financial sanctions against Haitian politicians and business leaders, saying that the United States’ evidentiary standard is much stricter than that of most countries and any decision needs to be corroborated by evidence.

“Each country has its own legal authorities, which can make it a little bit confusing to track what each country is doing,” a senior State Department said in a press call Thursday with reporters about the deteriorating situation in Haiti. “We have to bring more evidence to the table and corroborate that evidence.”

The U.S. has publicly named five Haitians nationals, four of whom are politicians, whose assets have been frozen or who have been banned from traveling to the United States, or both, as part of financial sanctions. Meantime Canada has imposed the punishment on 17 Haitians. Ottawa’s list includes two former presidents, two former prime ministers and three high-profile businessmen.

Both governments have cited alleged ties to gangs, corruption and or drug trafficking in their announcements, though Canada’s lack of details has created consternation in recent days after it added a ormer interim president, Jocelerme Privert, to its list. Privert governed the country from 2016-17 and had been lauded by international observers for self-financing the presidential elections that brought Jovenel Moïse to power after elections had to be re-run due to fraud allegations.

The stark difference in the issuance of sanctions has been a source of debate by both supporters and critics of the measures, which Washington and Ottawa are increasingly turning to in hopes of stemming the rising tide of gang violence and instability in Haiti.

Extending their grip on the capital and beyond, gangs are increasingly behind a rash of deadly attacks on Haitian police officers, who after the death of 14 cops last month rioted in the streets and abandoned their posts.

The gangs are also showing that no one is immune from kidnappings for ransom. In recent days, the list of kidnapped victims have included the chief of protocol at the presidential palace and several doctors. Among them is a physician who serves as a political party leader; the spokesman for the ministry of health who has been keeping journalists inform about the cholera epidemic, and Dr. Geneviève Arty, pediatrician and founding member of St Damien Hospital, who hasn’t been heard from since her Feb. 2 abduction on the road to Frère in Port-au-Prince.

“We are in a situation where the [Haiti National Police] cannot defend itself or assure the security of the national territory,” said Samuel Madistin, a lawyer and chairman of the board of directors of Fondasyon Je Klere, a Port-au-Prince human rights group. “I don’t see how Haitians can get out of this without a massive training and intervention of young soldiers in the army, a cleaning and reinforcing of the police, and we can’t do that without the support of an international force.”

How U.S. sanctions turn people into ‘economic pariahs’ and why some call it a civil death

In October, Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry asked for the deployment of international forces to the country. The request was supported by the U.S., which authored a resolution for the United Nations Security Council, and the U.N. Secretary General António Guterres. Guterres’ representative in Port-au-Prince, Helen La Lime, said last month that police cannot address the crisis on their own. Her comments came on the same day that seven police officers were killed during three attacks on their police substation in the rural Artibonite Valley.

On Wednesday, after police officers had already abandoned two police stations in the region, including one that was targeted in Liancourt, a third police station, in L’Estere, was emptied out after police could not longer hold out against the gangs.

“We are continuing to be seized with the security situation in Haiti. It is a tremendous challenge,” the senior State Department official said. “There’s no way to downplay the situation is critical, and the international community and and the Haitian polity need to come together to address it.”

He also downplayed concerns that the ongoing defections in the police were due to a new Biden humanitarian parole program. Henry told Caribbean Community leaders last week that soon after the program’s Jan. 5 announcement, 600 Haitian police officers had applied for passports to leave for the U.S. The head of the country’s immigration department told the Miami Herald that he estimated at least a third of the force’s 9,000 active members would leave based on passport demands that led him to open a separate passport office just for police.

Of the Haitians admitted into the U.S. under the program so far, the State Department official said “fewer than 20” were members of the Haiti National Police.

Acknowledging that the situation in Haiti remains “incredibly complex, challenging,” the official said the U.S. continues to hold talks “with potential partners in the Western Hemisphere, Africa and Europe” about supporting Haiti’s request for international help.

“But there’s also a big focus on the need for Haitian political actors to come together in a deeper way. And that was part of the conversation that really dominated in Nassau with CARICOM,” the official said, referencing last week’s gathering of leaders from the 15-member Caribbean Community trade bloc known as CARICOM in the Bahamas.

Some observers had hoped that Canada, which was represented by its prime minister, Justin Trudeau, would agree to lead the deployment of troops into the country. Instead, Trudeau spoke of his country’s aggressive sanctions measures and ongoing assistance to the embattled National Police. CARICOM later declined to support a foreign troop deployment in Haiti.

Despite the decision and Bahamas Prime Minister Philip Davis’s characterization in a strongly worded national address over the weekend that the bloc’s position was a response to the Haitian migration crisis, the Biden official said he remains optimistic about the Caribbean community’s engagement. Jamaica has said that the country is willing to deploy soldiers and that Prime Minister Andrew Holness remains determined to play a leadership role.

“One of the things that makes me somewhat optimistic is that CARICOM is finally engaging on this and in a more hands on way,” the State Department official said. “Coming out of Nassau, they did have an agreement to host Haitians and to visit Haiti and I think those are important steps.”

Also being viewed as an important step is a Dec. 21 agreement by Henry to form a High Transition Council, whose members include former First Lady and presidential candidate Mirlande Manigat. Since the council’s installation, Henry has also been engaged in hours-long discussions with other political actors about broadening the engagement.

“We continue to urge all stakeholders including Prime Minister Henry, the Montana Group and others to set aside their differences and compromise on a path forward for the country,” the official said. “I view the December 21 Accord as a positive step. But nonetheless, it’s been halting in its progress and we want to see greater political progress.”

Keith Mines, director for Latin America at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, believes the accord could be “the arrangement” many international partners are waiting for to directly support a reset of security in Haiti. He also adds that he believes Caribbean leaders last week “may have missed an opportunity in the tepid support” they offered to the political accord.

“The accord will only work if it receives full support and resources from an international community that has to date hid behind the mantra of ‘Haitian-led solutions,’” he said. “There are those Haitian-led solutions that still need a lot of help from Haiti’s friends to succeed.”

Meanwhile, the United States will continue to use sanctions, the Biden official said, adding that he looks forward to the results of a newly appointed United Nations panel of experts that is currently in Haiti. The panel is the result of the first sanctions regime voted by the Security Council in five years and the first ever in the Western Hemisphere.

“I’m encouraged by the work that they’re doing, and will do to identify new targets for multilateral sanctions,” the official said. “We’ve also imposed our own U.S. visa restrictions and financial sanctions on malign Haitian actors. [The] goal of our restrictions and financial sanctions are twofold: To disincentivize those who would impede political negotiations for their own benefit and to change the behavior of those who fund or otherwise support gang violence.”