HAITI: the trade shock in the making for Latin America

By: Beatrice E. Rangel - 12/03/2024

The takeover of Petion's country by organized crime was to be expected given the total dissolution of the state and the empowerment of criminal gangs by those individuals who can still do business in Haiti.

These forces took shape to the extent that the institutions collapsed as the country had Prime Minister Ariel Henry as its helmsman, a character identified by countless international reports as part of the criminal political coalition led by former president Michel Martelly.

And while this is happening in Port au Prince, the nations of Latin America have decided to remain defenseless, thinking that this is a problem for the United States and Canada due to the migration bomb it generates without seeing how the conflict threatens to paralyze the Atlantic trade routes between the United States. and the region.

It is now being said in the corridors of world power that in the face of Latin American indolence, the United States is trying with its financial support to create an international peace force led by Kenya. This is a recipe for disaster. Although the Kenyan police are recognized as one of the best in the world and have an impeccable tradition of civilized use of force, efficient use of intelligence information and effective and efficient use of resources, that body admired by the world is going straight to the catastrophe in Haiti.

Because you are going to enter a nation that is falling apart in which the only effective power is organized crime whose leaders have already shown the world that they control the country by not allowing the return of Prime Minister Henry, who was returning precisely from Nairobi to sign the agreement. for the entry of the Kenyan police force.

Therefore, the peacekeeping force deployment plan would have to be paused until the conditions for its entry are favorable.

And the conditions are none other than the achievement of a national political consensus - including the criminal gangs that control the country today - for the installation of a transitional government. And the beginning by that government of institutional reconstitution. The first stone for this task has already been laid. Following the assassination of President Moselle, there exists a group that brings together all Haitian civil society organizations known as the Montana Group. The Montana Group made an agreement with the largest coalition of political parties in Haiti to establish the PEN group (Protocole D” Entente Nationale) for the French acronym of the instrument signed between the Montana Group and 70 political parties.

Fortunately for Haiti, the Caribbean community has understood the magnitude of the problem and the danger of magic solutions and is negotiating this transitional government with the Montana Group and the political parties that are signatories to the PEN.

The intervention of Caricom solves the serious problem of the lack of priority that Haiti has had for the nations of Latin America, which has translated into a dangerous Laissez Faire whose results are the current chaos. Caricom is playing today the role that France, Canada and Venezuela played in 1987 in fostering a political consensus within Haiti to install a transitional government that would lead to democracy, establish a Constituent Assembly, hold a constitutional referendum and elections that They favored Jean Bertrand Aristide. And there began the drama that plagues Haiti today. Aristide, instead of dedicating himself to strengthening the fragile political consensus, used his electoral wealth to destroy it and persecute his opponents. The fragmentation of the political body promoted by Aristide gave rise to the return of the ton-ton macoutes and all kinds of violations that were accentuated with two military interventions without political consensus.

Once the political consensus for the transition is created, it will be necessary to restart the reconstruction of the state, starting with the police. And this program that the Kenyan police could perfectly carry out should have the support of countries with interests in the stability of Haiti, such as France, Canada and the United States. These three nations could not only support the police reconstruction mission but also open channels of support for institutional improvement by relying on Caricom development agencies.

Returning to the path already taken and with partial success would be the way to avoid the total collapse of Haiti and the impact of this outcome on the Dominican Republic in addition to protecting the Atlantic trade routes between the United States and Latin America. Because as we are observing in the Red Sea, criminal elements bomb merchant navies around the world on a daily basis. A scenario of this nature together with the disastrous management of the Panama Canal would be lethal for the economies of Latin America whose leaders continue to think that Haiti does not matter.

«The opinions published herein are the sole responsibility of its author».