Secretary of State Tony Blinken spent barely a day in Haiti yesterday, the first visit in a decade of a U.S. Secretary of State, best described as presiding over funeral services for the much-vaunted Multinational Security Support mission (MSS), which was supposed to save Haiti from the violent gangs that have turned the country into a living hell for most of this year. Instead, this joint mission of the Haitian National Police (PNH) and Kenyan police officers has been an embarrassing flop, bereft of funding, equipment and personnel which made it impossible to operate under conditions of overwhelming gang violence and firepower.
According to the original plan, 10 nations were to contribute equipment and personnel to create an MSS force of at least 2,500. The reality is that there are 400 Kenyans currently deployed next to understaffed and underequipped Haitian police. The U.S. ended up being the sole financier of the operation, which is why the Biden administration is now considering converting the MSS into a UN peacekeeping force, despite the disastrous history of such operations in Haiti.
The MSS’s one-year UN mandate comes up for renewal on Sept. 30. The UN’s hated 2004-2017 MINUSTAH mission in Haiti left behind a legacy of gross human rights violations—murders and rapes of Haitian women and girls—and introduced cholera into the country, among other crimes. The way Washington sees it, a peacekeeping force would solve the funding and equipment problem and let the U.S. off the hook. UN member states would have to pay as part of their normal mandatory contributions, and helicopters and other military equipment would be provided by the UN. But any proposal to create a peacekeeping mission requires approval from the UN Security Council, which is unlikely given Chinese and Russian opposition. Secretary General Antonio Guterres has also expressed his opposition to peacekeeping missions.