The current international “stalemate” over sending a security force to stabilize Haiti may be broken if a credible plan is found for the crisis-wracked country’s political future, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Monday.
Guterres and Haitian leaders have pushed for months for a new international mission to stabilize the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation, which has not held national elections since 2016 and has been wracked by gang violence, a worsening public health situation and political instability.
“There is indeed some reluctance from the countries that have a stronger capacity to be able to lead this kind of operation,” Guterres said at a press conference in Kingston alongside Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness.
“The only way in my opinion to overcome this reluctance… is to put in place a political process that is credible,” said Gutteres, who described the current situation as “kind of a stalemate.”
“We have a political problem, the need to bring the different stakeholders together to find the political way for a legitimate government to be recognized by all,” said Guterres.
Several nations including Canada, the United States and France have said they support the idea of an intervention effort, but none has yet offered to lead it.
The proposal of sending in an armed force does not have unanimous support, neither within the Haitian population nor within the Security Council.
For Haitians, the idea of sending in a peacekeeping force evokes painful memories. The country has already been host to American, French and Canadian troops, and UN missions — one of which brought about a cholera epidemic that killed more than 10,000 people.
Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who has led the nation since its last president Jovenal Moise was assassinated in 2021, pleaded in October for intervention.
Echoing comments made last month by the UN’s Haiti envoy, Guterres said Monday that the intervention would be “more like a police operation than anything else.”
He also thanked Holness for Jamaica’s work in the 15-member CARICOM Caribbean bloc to find a “way out of this political crisis” in Haiti.
“I hope that if we can make the political process move forward positively, we will be able to overcome the stalemates, and I strongly appeal to those countries that have the capacity to be ready to do so,” the UN chief added.