Last month I was in the zoom room where among the audience were the former US Ambassador to Haiti and the head of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti plus an assortment of brainiacs from academia. The topic was “What is the way forward for Haiti?”
There was a strong consensus that intervention by a foreign country would be an utter disaster. That is all I understood. It didn’t sound like any alternatives were being proposed but then again there were a lot of fancy words flying around and I could have missed something.
I am having a hard time reconciling this with what I am hearing from NGOs still operating in country. The violence and brutality are of a level not seen before and the entire country is a panicked desperate attempt to keep body and soul together. Waiting for the proverbial political solution to bubble up seems like the idea of folks with no skin in the game.
If I ran the zoo (like Dr. Seuss) I would agree with the many who would quintuple the police force to 5,000 with efforts to keep out former gang and militia members. Having Haitians police Haitians makes a lot more sense than having strangers do so. Kenyans do not speak Kreyol, know the lay of the land, or are culturally aware. Combined with resources to increase police presence I would beef up the justice apparatus to ensure speedy fair trials and decent prison facilities. Start with the $200 million the US was prepared to pay Kenya to make this happen.
But to get his jumpstarted it will take some foreign boots on the ground to do the training. These should come from a police background rather than a military one since policing is a different practice than soldiering. And it is made crystal clear that these trainers are not to operate as police in Haiti - only Haitians are to do that.
As this is going on continue the transition committee and have the US make a pinky swear it will stay out of elections so the Haitians can feel their votes actually mean something. And if those elected begin to favor the working class and peasants the US remembers its pinky swear and keeps hands off. Resist the temptation to meddle if the US favorite doesn’t get elected. This will give real hope to the people and taking the gangs down will help keep them alive to fight another day.
I’d love to hear your opinion since you all have boots on the ground and many have been in Haiti for decades.
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Hi Winifred, I very much appreciate your reflections right from the beginning of what you wrote to the end. N ap swiv. I agree that the big part of big challenge is in trying to get alignment and unity toward having more influence in effecting policy and US gov relationship in general with Haiti. Thank you for opening up the conversation by sharing your ideas regarding the best way to move forward right now. To say its a heartbreaking situation is an understatement. So much suffering. On a note that brings hope, would love to learn more about the important details you see in a good konbit. It's a super important word in our work and with our teams in Haiti. We have our ideas about what konbit is but we would benefit from having more conversations with people outside of our organization about how they see it and define the tenants and improve konbit type skills. I love that you have it in name of this initiative. Here are some of the things we write and say about konbit. www.konbit.org I look forward to continuing the conversation. By the way, we have a number of mutual good friends. My wife and I look forward to meeting you in person.