This shocking figure was reported Aug. 28 by UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russel who told a UN session that child recruitment to armed gangs in Haiti had surged 700% in the first three months of this year. Children are used in combat, as couriers, lookouts, porters who carry weapons, or recruiters of other children, Reuters reported her saying. This horrific destruction of Haiti’s future is the result of the U.S. State Department’s nation-wrecking policies over past years, in both the Biden and Trump administrations. The vaunted Kenyan-led Multilateral Security Support Mission (MSS) that former U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken orchestrated in order to put a Black face on a foreign intervention force, was never providing financing, or equipment and weapons, or sufficient manpower to have an impact after it first deployed in June 2024.
Now, as gang activity has spread aggressively to more parts of the country, the State Department, backed by European allies, has proposed revamping the MSS into a “Gang Suppression Force” of 5,500 people, with salaries to be paid by UN members’ unreliable “voluntary” contributions, but with a new UN Support Office in Haiti that will fund “logistical support,” according to a draft U.S.-Panamanian memo circulated Aug. 28 at the UN, reported the Miami Herald. Dorothy Shea, acting U.S. Ambassador to the UN, assures that the new office will be able to “properly and sustainably” support the new force, although “international stakeholders” and donors will have to contribute as well.
