U.S. President Joe Biden is considering a joint effort with Haiti’s neighbors to deal with the country’s rapidly deteriorating security and health situation, raising concerns that intervention is needed to prevent its collapse.
The U.S. is evaluating options, including a possible mission led by another country, to end the violence, confront armed gangs and deal with a growing humanitarian crisis that has even seen a cholera outbreak, said people familiar with the talks, who asked to speak on condition of anonymity.
While no alternative has been ruled out, sending U.S. troops is unlikely.
The Biden administration is wary of doing anything unilaterally.
Instead, the people said it is studying what joint efforts with neighbors – including Canada and Latin American countries – might be feasible.
The people said other measures could include more funding, material aid, and sending security forces or trainers to the country.
Two weeks before the midterm elections, which will determine whether Democrats retain control of Congress, Biden’s desire to intervene abroad to quell a looming humanitarian crisis is seen as minimal.
He is already under heavy pressure from Republicans over the increasing number of immigrants from Latin American countries, such as Cuba, Haiti, and Venezuela, crossing the southern border.
GOP lawmakers are becoming reluctant to provide aid to Ukraine.
If Republicans win control of one or both houses of Congress, the political cost to Biden of intervening in Haiti will increase.
After World War II, the United States contributed soldiers to peacekeeping missions worldwide, and assignments in Haiti, Somalia, and the Balkans featured a strong U.S. presence in the 1990s.
But the deaths of 18 U.S. soldiers in Somalia, documented in the book Black Hawk Down, led the U.S. to reduce its participation in those missions drastically.
Haiti has endured decades of political instability, receiving several humanitarian missions and billions in foreign aid that did little to lift the country out of its poverty and lawlessness.
The situation only worsened after the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in 2021, making any foreign intervention even less likely to succeed.
On the streets of the Caribbean island, many remember the U.S.-led military intervention in 1994, called “Uphold Democracy,” and the decade-long U.N. mission in Haiti, which ended in 2017.
Neither brought the political stability or end to violence they promised, said Joseph Harold Pierre, a Port-au-Prince-based political analyst.
“Those missions didn’t succeed because, in Haiti, we didn’t have a government capable of guiding those missions,” he said.
To complicate matters further, many consider Prime Minister Ariel Henry illegitimate after he came to power without elections following Moise’s assassination.
Thousands of Haitians are currently suffering from famine conditions, gang violence, and protests crippling the economy and hampering food supplies, according to the U.N. World Food Program.
Haiti has asked the U.N., the United States, and other countries for troops to help curb the violence and control the gangs.
UNREST
With the situation boiling over, neighboring nations are scrambling to help without stoking unrest or repeating the interventionist mistakes of the past, the people said.
The United States and Canada have sent armored vehicles to Haiti this month, and USAID personnel are already on the ground.
The U.N. Security Council last week voted in favor of a solution proposed by Mexico and the United States to impose sanctions on specific figures in Haiti who the multilateral body says are fueling the unrest.
The United States and its partners “believe the status quo is unsustainable given the security situation, the public health situation, and the economic situation facing Haitians,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said.
“We continue to work with our partners to determine the next steps.”
Last week, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that discussions were ongoing “with partners with the necessary expertise who have expressed interest in leading that effort and contributing to a non-U.N. mission.”
“The United States is considering the most effective ways to support, enable and resource that effort directly,” she said.
For his part, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has spoken this month with leaders in the region, including an Oct. 14 call with Suriname’s President Chan Santokhi, who chairs Caricom, a group of Caribbean nations.
The Canadian leader also assembled his Incident Response Group of ministers and senior advisors.
The people said that Trudeau and Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly are weighing options.
Trudeau and the Caricom leaders discussed the need to remove gang blockades around the country, which aggravate the humanitarian crisis, curb rising hunger, and impose sanctions on corrupt officials.
In a statement, they also addressed ways to “facilitate an inclusive, Haitian-led dialogue toward free and fair elections,” Trudeau’s office said.