Opinion: There are good reasons to worry about sending U.N. troops to Haiti. But does

[Boats]

Opinion: There are good reasons to worry about sending U.N. troops to Haiti. But does anyone have a better idea?
By: Editorial Board - Washington Post - 07-13-21
Re: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...e-better-idea/

Well over 3 billion doses of the coronavirus vaccine have been administered worldwide, but not one has been received or distributed in Haiti, one of just a handful of countries so deprived. Haitian deaths officially attributed to the coronavirus are relatively low, but that likely results from a scarcity of testing and dubious reporting by a broken-down public health system. In fact, the pandemic has lately tightened its grip on the country, with predictable results — overwhelmed hospitals, oxygen shortages, rising fatalities.

Given the political chaos and rampant gang violence that predated the assassination last week of President Jovenel Moïse, and the growing turmoil since, Haiti now faces an even worse humanitarian meltdown. Its government is in a state of collapse, with almost no legitimately elected leaders holding office.

Barring international intervention, there is every probability that Haiti’s current suffering — from acute and worsening food insecurity as well as covid-19 — will intensify. No one savors the prospect of intervention in a country where past such efforts have been problem-plagued, to put it mildly. Yet in the absence of a robust international presence, Haiti’s agony, and that of many of its 11 million people, will only accelerate.

Abundant evidence of Haiti’s spiraling emergency was recorded by international organizations in the weeks and months before Mr. Moïse’s July 7 death. The world was mostly indifferent. In the face of a humanitarian appeal by UNICEF for roughly $50 million to meet the urgent needs of some 1.5 million penniless people, nearly half of them children, less than a third of the requested funding had been received. Less than a month ago, the top U.N. official in Haiti, Helen La Lime, noted that the country’s overall humanitarian plan for 2021-2022, targeting just a third of an estimated 4.4 million Haitians who need relief, faced a shortfall of $198 million of $235 million requested.

Every recent analysis of Haiti’s deteriorating socioeconomic, nutritional and health situation has cited two pressing needs: First, to break its political paralysis ; second, to get a grip on the gang violence that has impeded delivery of food, medical supplies and other assistance. With gun battles raging in the capital, Port-au-Prince, and cutting off main roads to provincial towns, relief groups have often been stymied in their distribution efforts. Meanwhile, thousands of people, terrified by the gang warfare and an epidemic of kidnappings-for-ransom, have fled their homes to the countryside, where basic health services and food supplies are inadequate.

Now, in addition to an absence of basic security, Haiti is faced with a power vacuum in which at least four men have staked a claim to its government; no constitutional road map exists for installing an interim president; and the national police and army, which have proved powerless or complicit in the rising gang violence, report to no one. No agreed-upon blueprint has emerged in Haiti to extricate the nation from its mayhem. Without international intervention, the country’s ordeal will deepen.

Three more Link Post are available on this site - if interested?

Read more:

Max Boot: Sorry, Haiti. The world’s policeman is officially off duty.

August Ducena: How the U.S. can choose to be on the right side of history on Haiti

The Post’s View: Haiti needs swift and muscular international intervention

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Personally: I think its terrible what's going on in Haiti. But I don't think the US should entertain another prolonged watchdog or police exercise. If anything NATO should step up if Haiti is a member - otherwise we have too much on our plate right now and we just left Afghanistan - we don't need to entertain another prolonged police action there right now!
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Boats