For many months, daily life in Haiti’s capital has been marked by widespread violence and deepening political instability since powerful armed gangs seized control of the streets of Port-au-Prince.
The still-unfolding crisis is expected to figure prominently in discussions this week between Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and United States President Joe Biden, who will be making his first official trip to Canada since taking office in early 2021.
Washington has been pushing Ottawa to lead a multinational armed force in Haiti, and Biden is expected to seek an answer from Trudeau on whether Ottawa intends to take up the mission during his visit to the Canadian capital on Thursday and Friday.
But experts say Canada is not ready to lead such a deployment, instead supporting what it calls a “Haitian-led solution” to the country’s political crisis while also advancing a sanctions regime and increased assistance to the Haitian National Police.
Canada is “not going to get pushed – even by a very strong, powerful neighbour like the US – into doing something it doesn’t want to do here”, said Stephen Baranyi, a professor of international development at the University of Ottawa and an expert on Haiti.
He said Ottawa’s strategy is based on an assessment that Trudeau and other officials have stated publicly, “that past interventions have failed, that a new approach is needed and at the centre of that has to be a respect for and support for this idea of Haitian-led solutions”.
“That’s been a sensible position, but we have to acknowledge that the dilemmas arising from that approach are becoming sharper and sharper,” especially as the security situation continues to deteriorate in Port-au-Prince, Baranyi told Al Jazeera.
“The political process is taking a long time, and so many people are asking, ‘Well, until when can Haitians wait?’” he said.
Haiti’s interim prime minister, Ariel Henry, asked the international community in October to help deploy a “specialised armed force” to push back gangs and restore order in the country of 11 million people.
At the time, a powerful gang coalition had maintained a weeks-long blockade on the main petrol terminal in Port-au-Prince, causing water and electricity shortages, forcing the closure of health facilities and severely disrupting movement in the city. (AlJazeera)
