McLeod Group guest blog by Stephen Baranyi, August 30, 2021
Haiti is in the news once again. The earthquake that hit its southwestern region on August 14, causing more than 2,000 deaths, has prompted humanitarian responses from Canada and many other international partners. This tragic event followed the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse on July 7 by foreign mercenaries, allegedly financed by foreigners and prominent Haitians.
This situation leaves the country in political disarray and international engagement is required. However, foreign governments, including Canada, have been accused of persistent interference. In the light of the current crisis, Canada needs to do more listening and provide more strategic support to Haitian partners.
Soon after the president’s assassination, the US-led Core Group – which also includes representatives of Brazil, Canada, several European Union members, the Organization of American States and the United Nations – confirmed acting Prime Minister Claude Joseph in his role. A week later, it reversed itself and confirmed Ariel Henry as Prime Minister. The Core Group has also insisted that the Haitian government hold national elections to unblock the governance impasse. After Moïse had resisted calls to hold them earlier, elections were scheduled for July 2021, then postponed to September and rescheduled for November 2021.
Opposition parties and respected civil society organizations (CSOs) are deeply concerned with the flagrant international interference in Haiti’s affairs. They are also troubled that attempts to organize elections without changing the composition of the Provisional Electoral Council, appointed by Moïse but not approved by the Supreme Court as constitutionally required, will lead to another unpopular government, more violence, no justice and little development.
In that context, CSOs and opposition parties formed the Commission to Search for a Haitian Solution to the Crisis. That broad-based initiative includes feminist CSOs such Solidarite fanm ayisyen, human rights organizations, private sector associations, professional associations including the Fédération des barreaux d’Haïti, labour unions, universities, and major Christian and voodoo churches. On July 30, they tabled a proposal for a Council of National Transition, composed of respected Haitian personalities, to designate an inclusive provisional government that could reform the Electoral Council and organize credible elections on that basis. They also proposed measures to initiate rigorous judicial investigations into allegations of large-scale corruption and grave human rights violations over the past decade, including Moïse’s assassination.
Although the Commission’s proposals have received little media coverage in Anglophone Canada, a large network of CSOs in Quebec has called on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to recognize its importance and support its proposals. Those CSOs include the Association québécoise des organismes de coopération internationale (whose members have decades of development experience in Haiti); labour federations such as the Confédération des syndicats nationaux and the Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec; diaspora associations including the Coalition haïtienne au Canada contre la dictature en Haïti and La Maison d’Haïti; and Développement Desjardins International, which also has decades of experience in Haiti.
In an open letter published in Le Devoir on August 6, the Quebec-based associations called on the Canadian government to reconsider its support for quick elections “controlled by oligarchic powers as well as armed, violent and antisocial gangs linked to drug trafficking”. They urged the prime minister to endorse an inclusive transitional process that could lay the foundations for a refondation:transformative policies to address the country’s structural problems. They also called on Canada to support a more transparent and accountable response to the COVID pandemic that is also ravaging Haiti.
On August 23, in an interview with Radio-Canada, acting PM Ariel Henry surprised some by indicating that the elections will be postponed and a new Electoral Council will be appointed: “We will not be able to hold elections this year. I will do everything so that we can hold elections next year… The first priority is to name an Electoral Council that inspires everyone’s confidence. It is that council which will set the date”.
As it responds to humanitarian needs in southern Haiti, official Ottawa should also listen to voices calling for a new strategy, now including those of acting Prime Minister Henry. On that basis, the federal government may find ways to distance itself from the tone-deaf approach of the Core Group and of previous Canadian governments. It is not too late to join the Haitian search for innovative approaches that could lead to more legitimate governance and durable solutions to the country’s interconnected development, environmental, justice and security challenges.
It is also not too late for Ottawa to align its actions in Haiti with the feminist international policy it champions. In Haiti and elsewhere, Canadians are judged not only by our words, but by our actions. Not only by our gender equality programming, but also by the wisdom of our overall approach in the country, especially in periods of intense contestation. Now is the time for Canada and its Core Group partners to show more wisdom and less arrogance, by supporting the Haitian search for appropriate solutions.
Stephen Baranyi is a Professor at the School of International Development and Global Studies, University of Ottawa. He has been working in and on Haiti for over 15 years. Image: Canada & Haiti Action.