‘Forgotten crisis’: United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres visits Haiti

Haiti’s “forgotten crisis” will be the focus of a visit Saturday by the United Nations Secretary-General, who is making his first trip to the crisis-ridden Caribbean nation.

António Guterres is scheduled to arrive early Saturday and leave later in the day. While on the ground, he will meet with Prime Minister Ariel Henry and members of his caretaker government as well as members of the U.N.’s humanitarian aid community and his new special representative in Port-au-Prince, María Isabel Salvador, who has been on the job since April.

A large part of the visit is to shore up support for the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti, headed by Salvador. There are currently ongoing negotiations its future and whether its mandate, which expires this month, should be renewed. On Thursday, the U.N. Security Council in New York will debate the future of the political office, which has come under scrutiny by both Russia and China, both of which sit on the council.

As part of his support for the political office’s continued presence in Haiti, Guterres’ visit is expected to focus largely on the volatile humanitarian and human-rights situation in Haiti, where thousands of children are increasingly caught in the crossfire and armed groups control more than half of the capital. However, the gang problem the continuing political paralysis are also expected to come up. The U.N., along with the U.S., Canada and others, have called on Haitians to work harder at finding a broad political consensus that would allow for elections and improved security.

In October the secretary-general, supported by the United States, backed the call by Haiti’s government for the deployment of a security force to assist the Haiti National Police. But nine months later, no country has stepped up to take the lead and those who have traditionally led interventions in Haiti — the United States, France and Canada — don’t want to do so, despite recognizing the worsening crisis.

Last month, while attending the Paris Finance Summit, where he was hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron, Henry met with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Rwanda President Paul Kagame. Rwanda and Brazil, which led the last U.N. peacekeeping mission into Haiti, have experienced armies that could help, but so far neither leader has publicly said if they will do so.

After leaving Haiti, Guterres will travel to Trinidad and Tobago on Sunday, where members of the 15-member Caribbean Community will be meeting Monday through Wednesday to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the regional bloc’s founding and to discuss issues of regional importance. Guterres has been engaging Caribbean leaders on various subjects including Haiti, climate change and better access to financing for small island nations, and is expected to be among several high-level foreign officials, including Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, attending the gathering in Port-of-Spain.

The secretary-general’s trip to Haiti comes on the heels of recent visits by U.N. humanitarian officials. The executive directors of the World Food Program and UNICEF, Cindy McCain and Catherine Russell, respectively, visited Haiti 10 days ago and the U.N.’s new independent expert on human rights in Haiti, William O’Neill, concluded an official 10-day visit on Thursday.

While McCain visited a school feeding and farmers co-operative in Jérémie, a quake-recovering city on Haiti’s southern peninsula, Russell met with victims of rape and healthcare providers in Port-au-Prince. Of the 5.2 million Haitians in need of humanitarian assistance, an estimated 3 million are children.

“Haiti is truly becoming a forgotten crisis,” Russell told journalists on Thursday at U.N. headquarters in New York. The purpose of her visit, she said, was to “learn and to help galvanize attention and support for the humanitarian response in Haiti.”

“International solidarity and support for Haiti has largely faded away since 2010,” said Russell, who was among members of a U.S. delegation that traveled to Port-au-Prince with First Lady Michelle Obama and Jill Biden following the devastating Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake that killed over 300,000 and left at least 1.5 million homeless.

“Haitians on our team, they’re telling me it’s never been worse than this now: unprecedented hunger and malnutrition, grinding poverty and crippled economy, resurgence of cholera, and a massive insecurity that creates a deadly downward spiral to violence,” Russell said. “While of course flooding and earthquakes continue to remind us all just how vulnerable Haiti is to climate change and natural disasters.”

All of of these are of concern to Guterres, who has been trying to get the U.N. Security Council and the international community to respond to the country’s, which has only worsened since President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated two years ago.

All of his U.N. colleagues came to the same conclusion as they departed Haiti: the country’s police force, about 3,500 active duty officers, cannot tackle the gangs on its own.

“The current... insecurity is truly unacceptable,” Russell said ahead of Guterres’ visit. “Women and children are dying; schools and public spaces that should be safe spaces are not. Collectively, the world is failing the Haitian people.”

O’Neil, who helped established the Haiti National Police in 1995 and the Magistrate School for the training of judges when he worked for the United Nations, shared similar sentiments when he met with journalists in Port-au-Prince at the conclusion of his visit this week.

“Unfortunately, I found a country bruised by violence, misery, fear and suffering. The human rights situation is dramatic. All rights are violated,” he said. “Gangs continue to terrorize, especially in more than half of the capital Port-au-Prince, which has become a lawless zone. Women and girls continue to be raped by gangs, often collectively, to establish their control over the population.

“Beyond the gang violence that rages in the capital and has pushed tens of thousands to move, land grabbing by oligarchs in the northeast has also driven thousands of peasants exposed to precariousness,” O’Neill added. “The Haitian authorities face immense challenges. But the situation is not irreversible. Much can be done to address the structural and economic challenges that have led to the current crisis.”