By: DaQuan Lawrence
AFRO International Writer
DLawrence@afro.com
U.S. President Joe Biden recently invoked the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (FAA) and declared that Secretary of State Anthony Blinken will be vested with the power to utilize funds to provide assistance and military training to countries that will lend support to Haiti via a Multinational Security Support Mission.
Under section 506(a)(2) of the FAA, Biden delegated authority to Blinken, who can direct up to $60 million in resources from U.S. federal agencies and direct the Department of Defense to provide anti-crime and counter-narcotic assistance to nations that contribute personnel to the Multinational Security Support Mission for Haiti and to the Haitian National Police.
In November 2023, the United Nations (U.N.) Security Council approved a resolution allowing the deployment of a multinational force to Haiti, under the command of Kenya, to combat gang-related violence. The MSS mission is authorized by the U.N. resolution “to take all necessary measures” to stop the violence in the beleaguered Caribbean nation.
The resolution was ultimately delayed by a court injunction after a petition was filed by the opposition group, Thirdway Alliance, which called the choice to send troops overseas unlawful, as reported by Reuters.
The international legislation was drafted by the U.S. and Ecuador and was approved with 13 votes in favor and two abstentions from China and the Russian Federation. Biden’s decision to appropriate additional funds to support Haiti comes after the U.S. committed up to $200 million in support of the MSS, which authorizes a one-year deployment of military force with a nine-month review and would be supported by voluntary donations.
“This idea of bringing police officers all the way from Kenya, who have had a brief, intense training to prepare them for Haiti – but they don’t even speak a common language – is a very wrong minded approach,” Melinda Miles told The AFRO.
Miles is a Miami-based coordinator of the Haiti Response Coalition, a cross-sectional platform for different organizations that work in Haiti. The group focuses on sharing information and taking collaborative action to enable stakeholders to serve and improve Haiti.
“The coalition is based on a human rights approach,” she said.
Miles added that various mainstream media narratives about gang activities in Haiti are challenging because they tend to misleadingly depict the entire nation or capital city of Port-au-Prince as being in pandemonium.
She mentioned that she believes solutions in Haiti must be led by Haitians, and international legislative acts to support the nation must be comprehensive and seek to address political, environmental, social and economic issues.
“The answer has to be holistic. The gangs are certainly connected to former and current political leaders as well as private sector stakeholders,” Miles told The AFRO. “The outcome is fighting between gangs aligned with government interests versus gangs aligned with private sector interests, and that has been driving these devastating and brutal ongoing battles.”
According to the World Population Review, Haiti, the nation formerly known as Ayiti which is globally known as the first free Black republic in the world and was once the richest European colony and nation in the Western Hemisphere, is now the poorest nation there.
The already economically struggling country has been further impacted by both earthquakes that plagued the nation in 2010, 2018 and 2021 and the political instability incited by the assassination of the nation’s 43rd president, Jovenel Moïse on July 7, 2021.
In the wake of these challenges, members of civil society across the U.S. are focused on supporting Haiti and its population. Last month the Institute of the Black World 21st Century (IBW) convened at the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C., to organize U.S. citizens and members of the international community to contribute toward the Haiti Support Project.
Led by Dr. Ron Daniels, the Haiti Support Project has spent the previous three decades working to build a constituency that can work collaboratively with the Haitian population. Its current campaign, the Montana Accord Movement is about educating members of the African Diaspora and allies about emerging events in Haiti and what will happen moving forward.
“Our rally is against the backdrop of one of the worst crises in Haiti that I have observed in the 29 years that we’ve been working there,” Daniels said.
The Montana Accord, also known as the Aug. 30, 2021 Agreement, is a movement led by the Commission to Search for a Haitian Solution to the Crisis (CRSHC). The CRSHC was created on March 6, 2021, as an initiative of many committed civil society organizations during a Civil Society Forum. The agreement is the first to seek a Haitian solution to the crisis that the nation has been undergoing since July 2018.
“The Montana Accord came out of nine months of roundtable discussions to create a consensus on what a transition should look like in Haiti. A nine-member presidential transition council has been submitted to CARICOM (Caribbean Community), who has facilitated negotiations among the parties in Haiti for about a year,” Miles said.