It’s time for U.N. peacekeepers to return to Haiti — and to get it right this time | Editorial

It’s time for U.N. peacekeepers to return to Haiti. The situation is that dire. And such intervention needs to be front and center today when the Biden administration convenes a virtual meeting of international partners to “address security, political and economic challenges” on the island.

But, there can be no addressing political and economic challenges — much less the possibility of elections — until the lack of everyday safety and security is confronted. All of the good intentions are pie in the sky until violent gangs are quelled, kidnappings reduced and streets are measurably safer.

When the Haitian gang, named 400 Mawozo, kidnapped 17 Christian missionaries in October, the United States warned Americans on the island to get out— now.

All the while, the Biden administration was sending planeloads of Haitian migrants in the United States back to their violent homeland. The message? Haiti’s too dangerous for Americans, but it’s good enough for Haitians.

According to information from the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration and from Witness at the Border, both of which monitor the flights, the United States has expelled more than 10,000 Haitians on 99 separate flights since Sept. 19, and about 13,000 total on 135 flights since the beginning of the Biden administration.

It’s an unmistakably cruel and inhumane policy, and the expulsions should stop.

Another disaster

The kidnapping of the missionaries — 16 Americans and one Canadian — focused the Biden administration’s attention on Haiti in a public way usually reserved for hurricanes and earthquakes that strike the beleaguered island.

But these kidnappings, born of incessant gang violence, were no less of a disaster. And though all 17 hostages have been released — five initially, and the remaining 12 on Thursday — and are safe, the international community, led by the United States, must not view it as the end of the crisis.

Not when 800 Haitians have been kidnapped this year alone. After all, it’s a successful extortion tactic for violent gangs, who operate with impunity. They demand ransom, and ransom is paid. (The 400 Mawozo gang demanded $17 million to release the missionaries. It’s not known publicly how much — or if any — ransom was paid to secure their freedom.)

Not when Haitian police are outgunned, demoralized and underpaid — turning corrupt if only to be able to feed their families.

Not when the country is still reeling in political chaos after the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July.

Not when Haiti remains a major narco-state in the region, a major transshipment point for cocaine and heroin destined for the United States. Law enforcement, such as it is, aids and abets the traffickers.

Enter the U.N.

When U.N. peacekeepers entered Haiti in 2004, the country was roiling with political chaos, violent narco-traffickers and a corrupt and overwhelmed police force. When peacekeepers pulled out about 15 years later, not much had changed; moreover, peacekeepers left a deadly cholera epidemic and women facing single motherhood.

Why, then, do we call for the U.N. Security Council to return peacekeepers to the island? If not the U.N., then who? Not an outgunned Haitian police force. Not the Biden administration alone. There’s no stomach in either country for that. Plus, the United States has always backed the wrong side, the corrupt and anti-democratic to lead in Haiti, always seeking a yes-man, then always spurring the flight of desperate migrants — who we, of course, expel.

We believe that the United Nations has the capacity to honestly assess what went wrong between 2004 and 2019, recalibrate, truly listen to Haitians as to what is happening on the ground. Ensure Haitians in civil society are partners, instead of imposing an uninformed authority on them. Bring some measure of peace and security to Haitians’ everyday lives.

We are not just watching Haiti deteriorate; we are witnessing its implosion. If the global community stands by and does nothing, it will be sending another unmistakably cruel and inhumane message.