As Trudeau hosts CARICOM, will he repeat mistakes of the past?

OTTAWA—Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hosting the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), which includes Haiti, is a historic first. He should not turn it into a scheme to muck things up again in that ill-fated island nation. The last chapter of our meddling in Haitian affairs was in 2004, when then-prime minister Jean Chrétien invited France and the United States for his “Ottawa Initiative on Haiti,” designed to overthrow the country's first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. A Catholic priest who practised liberation theology, Aristide was seen as dabbling a bit too much into socialism. Following the regime change, Canada installed 1,000 RCMP and military personnel to rebuild Haiti. Others took a different approach. Venezuela’s then-president Hugo Chavez provided Haiti with 14,000 barrels of oil a day, at 60 per cent of the market rate, to reconstruct its infrastructure. Cuba dispatched doctors and nurses to stand up Haiti’s health-care system. The current prime minister is now going to repeat Chrétien’s mistake. He will rely on guns and ammunition to solve Haiti’s deep-rooted structural problems of inequality, plutocracy and racism. But unlike Chrétien, Trudeau will keep his hands clean. He has recruited CARICOM to do the dirty work. “Haiti needs us,” Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly declared last year, standing next to visiting U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken on Oct. 27, 2022. One week earlier, she had deployed a fleet of armoured vehicles in Port-au-Prince for what she called “an assessment mission.” The negative press was swift. Trudeau and Joly had to distance themselves from hints of that Canada leading a military intervention. That’s when they called on the CARICOM. On Feb. 15, Trudeau joined the CARICOM leaders in the Bahamas to request their support for, as he put it, “security and humanitarian assistance” in Haiti. As inducement, he allocated $44.8-million to CARICOM. CARICOM leaders jumped at the chance. To deflect criticisms from Haitian activists and diaspora groups opposed to Canada’s military presence, they counselled that the intervention be led by an African country. It worked. On Oct. 2, the UN Security Council voted to send a contingent of 1,000 armed Kenya-led soldiers to Haiti. This will be the second time in 20 years that foreign troops will enter Haiti to fix its socio-political difficulties. Joly wants “to do more.” That usually means humanitarian aid will rapidly follow the soldiers. Since 2010, Canada has directed $1.87-billion in aid to Haiti. Haiti, however, remains broken and impoverished, a virtual failed state. Humanitarian aid, like our military intrusions, has not helped in the least. Perhaps it was never intended to. One popular theory states that aid only helps create aid-worker jobs in donor countries like Canada. Another theory is that aid is a tool to advance foreign policy goals. In Haiti, this translates to keeping the likes of Aristide, Cuba and Venezuela from exerting influence among the poor and working classes. A 2019 case study by the London School of Economics revealed that aid can entrench existing political structures; and the pilfering of funds by privileged elites and corrupt officials often acts as a negative incentive for any socio-economic reforms. Richard Sanders, fellow with Wilson Center’s Canada Institute, contends that Chrétien’s 2004 incursion into Haiti was a payback to then-U.S. president George W. Bush for not joining the American invasion of Iraq. He senses that in the present day, Trudeau is probably being asked by the Americans to curb the sharp rise of Haitian emigration to its southern border under a misguided belief that international soldiers will stop the poor and desperate Haitians from migrating. This is all speculation. The only thing certain is that, as his policy in Ukraine has shown, Trudeau favours military force over diplomacy and dialogue. This is unfortunate. Chances are the Kenyans—like the 8,000 foreign troops sent in 2004—will face resistance and limited local support. Haitians are still very weary of foreign militaries spreading disease and sexual predation. There are alternatives, to be sure. Proposals like the 2021 Montana Accord for a workable political transition have widespread support among Catholic and Protestant churches, Haitian business groups and labour unions. All such proposals first require that Ariel Henry, who is currently acting as Haiti’s unelected president, and the loudest voice of foreign intervention, be replaced with a provisional body as a basis for subsequent national elections. Trudeau and his CARICOM enablers are no doubt aware of these proposals, which has Haiti watchers wondering if military intervention is just an excuse to bolster Henry and his sponsors in the Haitian plutocracy. It is, after all, what Canada has always done: prop up illegitimate puppets as the presidents of Haiti. Why would we do anything different this time around? Bhagwant Sandhu is a retired director general from the federal government. Between 2002-21 he held senior roles in several departments, including Fisheries and Ocean Canada, Infrastructure Canada, the Treasury Board Secretariat, and Public Works Canada. He has also held executive positions in the governments of Ontario and British Columbia. The Hill Times

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As Trudeau hosts CARICOM, will he repeat mistakes of the past?

Justin Trudeau is at risk of repeating the mistakes of former prime minister Jean Chrétien when it comes to Haiti, relying on weapons to solve Haiti’s deep-rooted structural problems of inequality, plutocracy, and racism.

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As Trudeau hosts CARICOM, will he repeat mistakes of the past?

Justin Trudeau is at risk of repeating the mistakes of former prime minister Jean Chrétien when it comes to Haiti, relying on weapons to solve Haiti’s deep-rooted structural problems of inequality, plutocracy, and racism.

To keep reading, subscribe and become a political insider.

Only $7.76 a week for an annual subscription.

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