U.S. pushes Kenya-led force for Haiti
Sept. 21, 2023
Kenya reiterated its commitment to send a multilateral security force to aid Haitian police combat criminal gangs. The two countries established diplomatic ties yesterday, in a ceremony in New York.
The U.S. administration plans to seek UN Security Council approval as early as next week to deploy a Kenya-led multinational force to Haiti, reports Bloomberg. President Joe Biden urged the U.N. to advance on the issue in his General Assembly speech, on Tuesday. (See yesterday’s briefs.)
The ecurity Council could vote on the multinational force for Haiti in about a week, Brian Nichols, U.S. assistant secretary for western hemisphere affairs, told Voice of America.
The move comes even as critics in Haiti, Kenya and the international community voice skepticism about the Kenyan police force’s human rights record: it has long been accused by watchdogs of deadly force, torture and other abuses, reports the Associated Press.
Many in Haiti fear the mistakes of past interventions could be repeated, and that this effort will in effect prop up the government of Prime Minister Ariel Henry, in the mist of a long-term political crisis in a country with no remaining elected officials. (Washington Post)
Earlier this week, Jimmy "Barbecue" Cherizier, a former police officer who now heads a powerful coalition of gangs that controls large parts of Port-au-Prince, led a group of armed men on a march through Port-au-Prince, reports Reuters. "We are launching the fight to overturn Ariel Henry's government in any way," he said. "Our fight will be with weapons."
More Haiti
The Dominican Republic’s closure of the border with Haiti — in retaliation for construction of a canal that allegedly violates an international agreement — has provoked a united front in the country, reports Haïti Magazine.
“In the past week thousands of Haitians, who share the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic, have been making their way to the river to see what the fuss is about and to lend their support to the canal’s excavation. Some work while others provide supplies, and Haitian living abroad are raising and sending money,” reports the Miami Herald.
“As violence goes unchecked in Port-au-Prince, displacement within the country is on the rise,” reports the Christian Science Monitor.
Regional Relations
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy held a long-postponed bilateral meeting, yesterday, and said both sides reaching an understanding of each other’s positions on Russia’s war, reports Bloomberg. The presidents also promised to maintain contact going forward.
Biden and Lula emphasized their shared affection for workers’ rights at a meeting in New York, yesterday. They avoided, in public, discussing their differences on Ukraine, reports the Associated Press.
Together they launched the U.S.-Brazil Partnership for Workers' Rights, which will work to end forced labor and child labor, mitigate the impact on workers of the clean energy and digital economic transitions, promote safe and decent workplaces, and end workplace discrimination, reports Reuters.
Developing nations’ mounting debts owed to international creditors is dragging those nations into an “abyss,” Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said at the U.N. General Assembly, yesterday. Cuba itself has defaulted on payments to a group of creditors, reports the Miami Herald.
U.S. lawmakers Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and several others introduced a resolution that formally commemorates the 50th anniversary of the 1973 military coup in Chile and apologizes for the role the United States played in the toppling of the Latin American nation's democratically elected government.
The resolution also calls for the declassification of all remaining U.S. documents related to the coup and the events preceding and following it. (Common Dreams)
Former U.S. President Donald Trump said that if elected again he would send thousands of overseas-based troops to the U.S.-Mexico border, reports Reuters.
Migration
The U.S. Biden administration said it will offer temporary legal status to more than 470,000 Venezuelan migrants in the United States. The move comes in the midst of “a border influx in Texas that has stretched holding capacity to the brink,” reports the Washington Post.
Venezuela
A deployment of 11,000 Venezuelan security forces surrounded the notorious prison of Tocorón in Aragua state, the home base of the country’s most powerful criminal structure, the Tren de Aragua, yesterday. “This operation, the first against the Tren de Aragua, and the largest of its kind to date, is a clear show of force by the Venezuelan government,” according to InSight Crime.
Peru
Corruption company corruption in Peru is a significant factor “distorting (the country’s) political system and parties, which became instruments to extract rents from the state, tipping Peru into crony capitalism,” argues Alfredo Thorne in Americas Quarterly.
Bolivia
Bolivia is open to tie-ups with European and other global companies for lithium exploration and extraction, president Luis Arce said yesterday. (Reuters)
Critter Corner
“National park authorities on the Galápagos Islands have heightened biosecurity measures to protect the archipelago’s unique fauna from the deadly H5N1 strain of avian influenza after scientists confirmed that three birds had died from the virus,” reports the Guardian.