By AGENCIES
The officers were seen patrolling outside the US embassy building in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince on Friday.
Wearing their usual uniform of body armor and helmets and holding Kalashnikovs automatics, they smiled at people asking questions, and one officer responded, “We are here to bring peace, of course, not to fight.”
“Let’s focus on the solution; the real solution is a national dialogue where every Haitian without discrimination has the right to speak,” he said.
“We want dialogue because we don’t want war. We want dialogue because we want peace.”
In a symbolic move, Cherizier abandoned his usual uniform and guns in favour of a flashy red suit.
On Wednesday, during an address to the United Nations Security Council in New York, Connille had positive feedback on Kenya’s deployment of 200 officers to the Multinational Security Support Mission and called for a build up.
María Isabel Salvador, the head of the United Nations Integrated Office in Port-au-Prince told the council the arrival of the specialized officers after months of delays is an important step and renews hope for the people of Haiti.
However, with 3,252 murders recorded since January, including 20 police officers killed by armed gangs, Haiti remains in a vicious cycle of killing by armed gangs and so-called vigilante, self-defence groups, according to leader.telegraph.com.
Salvador said the gangs’ recurrent attacks since February 29 also “have severely hampered national and international efforts to fast track the recruitment process of new police officers and attrition rates in the national police continue to be high.”
Salvador’s comments come as the Security Council weighs the fate of her political office in Haiti, whose mission some members stressed is even more important now and necessary for the success of the mission amid criticism that previous foreign interventions have failed to break
During the meeting, council members expressed cautious optimism over what they described as a new momentum in Haiti after months of gang attacks, a shuttered airport and seaport and the capital becoming paralyzed by the violence..
In a separate press call, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Brian A. Nichols and Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Todd D. Robinson both touted the missions arrival, and the changes taking place.
Neither Nichols nor Robinson would say when the next contingent of Kenyan officers would arrive. Robinson also declined to go into details on whether, for example, the Kenya forces would go to areas controlled by the gangs, a question many Haitians have been wondering. The mandate of the mission, he said, is to work with the Haitian police but at all times the “Haitian forces are going to be in the lead on all of these operations.”
Nichols said that the U.S.’s support for the people of Haiti remains unwavering and touted the international experience and technical skills of Prime Minister Garry Conille, who welcomed the international community’s support for Haiti but also criticized their approach.
“The difficulties facing Haiti are enormous with an inflation rate in excess of 27%, almost 50% of jobs lost in the textile sector alone and food insecurity affecting 4.5 million people, not to mention 600,000 [internally displaced persons] and 500,000 children out of school,” he said. “There’s also violence paralyzing hospitals and health care centers. Dozens of police stations and prisons have been damaged or destroyed and thousands of prisoners are on the loose.”
Before his appearance at the UN, where he worked as a longtime development expert, Conille visited Washington. While there, he and his delegation met with members of the Biden administration, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, congressional lawmakers and financial donors, which have curtailed funding to Haiti due to the ongoing gang violence and concerns over corruption. Following a meeting with representatives of the Inter-American Development Bank, which is currently accessing the financial impact of the recent gang attacks on infrastructure, Conille announced Haiti would receive $40 million in aid.
An IDB spokesperson told the Miami Herald that the $40 million isn’t necessarily new money but unallocated funding from the 2023-2024 net income allocation to Haiti for concessional resources.