296 - Truth Telling About Haiti and Haitians

Not the Litany of Lies

            The Republic of Haiti, the Western Hemisphere's poorest and most troubled, is still gang ridden and immensely dangerous.  Despite the arrival of 400 (not the promised 1,100) police from Kenya, and two handfuls of Jamaican police, the vastly outgunned and overwhelmed Haitian police and the country's tiny army are still unable to stop criminalized outlaw detachments from preying on and upsetting "normal" life in and around Port-au-Prince, the nation's capital.

            The gangs have also extended their hegemony into rural areas beyond Port-au-Prince; few parts of the country are safe.  None is fully secure. But the Kenyans now control the main airport and harbor near Port-au-Prince and relief flights can land there. They also secured a nearby hospital. Secretary of State Antony Blinken touched down there briefly on a whistlestop visit two weeks ago.

            As predicted, the Kenyan police have been hindered in their patrols by their linguistic weaknesses.  KiSwahili is no substitute for speaking French and Kreyol. Moreover, the Kenyans have not yet been joined in their anti-gang efforts by once-promised soldiers from Benin and Chad (who speak French) or by police from such Caribbean nations as the Bahamas, Barbados, and Belize.  No one has arrived from Bangladesh. The Jamaicans offered trained police in their hundreds, but many fewer are on the ground now.

            The Kenyans and Jamaicans lack equipment -- helicopters, night vision goggles, drones, and more reliable armed vehicles.  As a result they are mostly confined to areas near the airport and rarely patrol or engage with the gangs.  An international observer declared that “So far, the people of Port-au-Prince are seeing no tangible change on the ground linked to the force’s presence.”

            Kenya's President William Ruto, who visited Port-au-Prince over the weekend, promised to send another 600 Kenyan policemen to Haiti -- before December. He also agreed to convert the ad hoc gang-suppression initiative into a proper UN peacekeeping mission, if authorized.

            One big problem is cash.  The U.S. has put $380 million into the Haitian security fund; $60 million arrived from Canada.  But $160 million is still lacking. The Kenyans and Jamaicans are not being paid regularly, slowing the arrival of soldiers and police from other nations. Haiti cannot be made secure on promises alone.  Next month, the UN Security Council will need to reauthorize a proper peace mission to Haiti and, possibly, to bring it fully under the UN and its budget.

            The gangs  -- there are eighty or so, but three or four are the chief marauders -- in the first quarter of this year murdered  2,500 civilians, raped hundreds, set fire to police stations, sequestered fuel and food at the country's main port, kidnapped more than 400 civilians for ransom, and looted much of Port-au-Prince before the Kenyans arrived in July. The gangs still control 80 percent of Port-au-Prince (once a city of 3 of the country's 12 million inhabitants).

            Now, the capital city is a little more orderly (and rural areas less so) but nearly 1,000  more civilians have nevertheless lost their lives since July.  And Haiti must still be regarded as a country with no export earnings, immense shortages of food and deep pockets of hunger, and tough beleaguered people who fear for their lives.  Multitudes would escape to the nearby U.S. if they could. We should welcome them if they come.

            A transitional council led by interim prime minister Garry Conille is planning to hold elections for president and parliament (the first balloting since 2016) late next year.  But that may be a bridge too far.  It is not evident that Haiti will be orderly enough to conduct free and fair elections that soon.  The gangs still hustle, maim, and extort.

            But just maybe Kenyans and Jamaicans can guide the long-compromised 9,000 person Haitian police to squash the gangs, or at least reduce their zones of control. Anything that helps to stanch the ability of gangs to murder, harm, and rob civilians would be applauded internally as well as by the 1.2 million Haitians who legally reside and work in the United States and attempt to send remittances to support relatives still stuck inside Haiti.

            Most of those 1.2 million have long (since World War II) lived in Boston, Brooklyn, and Miami. (Across our northern border there is a major Haitian diaspora in Montreal.) More recently, Haitians have legitimately migrated to smaller cities in the post-industrial heartland to replace second- and third-generation descendants of European immigrants who have aged out of the work force and shifted their aspirations away from blue collar jobs.  The Haitian influx has thus materially helped to resuscitate once dying cities like Springfield, Ohio. It is well on its way back up to prosperity thanks to Haitian newcomers.  The Republican governor of Ohio (who grew up in nearby Yellow Springs, a college town) and the current Republican mayor of Springfield, both extoll the uplift that Haitians have brought to Springfield -- and to so many other once faltering cities and towns in Ohio and the Midwest.

            But not the foul-mouthed Republican presidential and vice-presidential contenders. It is despicable that both (the first in a national debate!) have spewed out the falsities that Haitians in Springfield and other unnamed places have been eating native pets and even wild rabbits. "They're eating the dogs, the people who came in, they're eating the cats. They're eating the pets of the people who live there." Who says such untruthful things just to inflame audiences?

            We know that both men are bigots and haters. We know that from long before 2016, Trump (a cowardly germaphobe) was obsessed with the false notion that Haitians were huge carriers of HIV-AIDs.  In the White House, he callously labelled Haiti and African nations as "s---thole countries."  Why didn't his mother wash his mouth out with soap?

            Vance says repeatedly that "people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn't be in this country." No pets are missing. None is eaten. And the Haitians involved are all in the U. S. legally.  And you thought that Vance was an honest lawyer, now a senator!

            Vance says that he knows his narratives about Haitians other immigrants are exaggerated if not totally false, but nevertheless he confesses to continue to use them in order to rouse his followers to extreme behavior.  Trump -- who knows what he really believes? -- clearly has learned that his followers are bigoted and stories (fake or not) about immigrants taking their jobs (demonstrably false), immigrants being mostly criminals intent on increasing homicide and burglary rates in the U.S.  (totally untrue), and crime rates overseas receding while crime rates here in the U.S. rise (absolutely false according to the latest official and unofficial statistics), play well among many potential voting groups.

            Trump has for decades pushed the privileges of our expansive first amendment enshrining of free speech, especially political speech, well beyond traditional expectations. In no other country on earth -- certainly not Britain, Brazil, France, or Germany -- would anyone be allowed to pile falsehood on falsehood and utter prejudicial, hate-filled, declarations one after another without censure or curtailment. More dangerously, no other major country would allow a public figure to arouse his followers to assault Democrats, repeatedly. The pervasive political climate of violence is no accident. Trump is responsible, and now Vance has piled on.

            Trump urged a mob to hang Vice President Pence, to "lock-up" his 2016 opponent, and to invade the Capitol in 2021 and assault the Speaker of the House of Representatives. More recently, he blamed his opponents for "causing me to be shot at." Moreover, he said, "Because of this Communist Left Rhetoric, the bullets are flying, and it will only get worse!" He calls the perpetrators of unlicensed mayhem on Jan. 6, 2021 "political prisoners," thus undermining our legal order.  Election officials running the polls in November feel themselves endangered; several state officials in charge of overseeing the balloting on Nov. 5 have sought extra protection after thousands of serious threats against them and their personnel.

            We as Americans need to welcome, not excoriate and blemish, the Haitians who have revived Springfield and other smaller cities and who work diligently in the beleaguered and labor scarce health and homecare sectors, who drive taxis in Cambridge, Mass. and long ran Social Security in Boston and now help run Boston's city council as well as numerous other political institutions across our land. Researchers say that by 2040, the U.S. will be short of 6.1 million workers unless we embrace immigration. Already seven of ten U.S. employers can’t fill their job openings.

            Likewise, despite the bloody wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, we need to help Haitians in Haiti right their sinking sometime democracy. We need to help put more preferably French-speaking peace enforcement boots on the ground, and quickly. Haiti's future should be a charge on our consummate conscience, not a punching bag for hostile political gaming.