US pledges an additional $100M for a multinational force awaiting deployment to violence-hit Haiti
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday announced an additional $100 million to finance the deployment of a multinational force to Haiti following a meeting with Caribbean leaders in Jamaica to halt the country’s violent crisis.
Blinken also announced another $33 million in humanitarian aid and the creation of a joint proposal agreed on by Caribbean leaders and “all of the Haitian stakeholders to expedite a political transition” and create a “presidential college.”
He said the college would take “concrete steps” he did not identify to meet the needs of Haitian people and enable the pending deployment of the multinational force to be led by Kenya. Blinken also noted that the U.S. Department of Defense doubled its support for the mission, having previously set aside $100 million.
The joint proposal has the backing of Caricom, a regional trade bloc that held Monday’s urgent meeting.
“I think we can all agree: Haiti is on the brink of disaster,” said Guyanese President Irfaan Ali. “We must take quick and decisive action.”
Ali said he is “very confident that we have found commonality” to support what he described as a Haitian-led and -owned solution.
Meanwhile, Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness said the meeting was a work in progress.
“It is clear that Haiti is now at a tipping point,” he said. “We are deeply distressed that it is already too late for too many who have lost far too much at the hands of criminal gangs.”
Embattled Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who faces calls to resign or agree to a transitional council, did not attend the meeting. He has been locked out of his own country while traveling abroad, due to surging unrest and violence by criminal gangs who have overrun much of Haiti’s capital and closed down its main airports.
Henry remained in Puerto Rico and was taking steps to return to Haiti once feasible, according to a brief statement from the U.S. territory’s Department of State.
While leaders met behind closed doors, Jimmy Chérizier, considered Haiti’s most powerful gang leader, told reporters that if the international community continues down the current road, “it will plunge Haiti into further chaos.”
“We Haitians have to decide who is going to be the head of the country and what model of government we want,” said Chérizier, a former elite police officer known as Barbecue who leads a gang federation known as G9 Family and Allies. “We are also going to figure out how to get Haiti out of the misery it’s in now.”
The meeting in Jamaica was organized by members of a regional trade bloc known as Caricom, which for months has pressed for a transitional government in Haiti while protests in the country have demanded Henry’s resignation.
“The international community must work together with Haitians towards a peaceful political transition,” U.S. Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs Brian Nichols wrote on X, formerly Twitter. Nichols will attend the meeting.
Concerns remain that a long-sought solution will remain elusive. Caricom said in a statement on Friday announcing the urgent meeting in Jamaica that while “we are making considerable progress, the stakeholders are not yet where they need to be.”
Mia Mottley, Barbados’ prime minister, said that up to 90% of proposals that Haitian stakeholders have put on the table are similar. These include an “urgent need” to create a presidential council to help identify a new prime minister.
