International Community Paralyzed as Horror Envelops Haiti

May 10, 2023, 2022 (EIRNS)—The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Volker Turk the head of the UN Integration Office in Haiti (BINUH) Maria Isabel Salvador, and Christo Dupuoy, special representative to the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS) have all issued urgent pleas this week calling for the deployment of an international security force to Haiti to assist the Haitian National Police in dealing with the uncontrolled upsurge in gang violence, killings, kidnappings and rapes that have occurred during the first quarter of 2023, intensifying the grave humanitarian crisis.

The gangs are themselves creations of internationally controlled drug-running networks, part of the London-run “Dope, Inc.” apparatus—a fact which none of the above reports touches upon.

The reports issued by OHCHR and BINUH for the first quarter of 2023 are horrific enough, documenting acts of “extreme cruelty” committed by gangs against the population, with 1,634 victims killed, abducted or injured compared to 674 for the same period a year ago. Gangs now deploy snipers and move into areas and start shooting randomly to kill as many people as possible—beheadings, lynchings and burning people alive are not uncommon. No one is safe. It’s estimated that 80% of Port-au-Prince is controlled by gangs, and now gang violence is extending into other regions such as the Artibonite Valley.

The UN, the OAS and many governments have been discussing the Haitian situation for almost a year, watching it spiral out of control but stuck in a state of paralysis, with no idea of a coherent policy.

The recent emergence of vigilante groups—citizens who organize and arm themselves with axes, machetes, rocks, knives or anything they can find to fight back against the gangs, using their same brutal methods—has created another level of horror. Sometimes the police try to stop these vigilante groups or sometimes they join with them, to capture gang members, stone them to death, lynch them or burn their bodies on the streets. In the past few weeks, an estimated 75 gang members have been killed in this way. Residents are appealing to the Haitian diaspora to finance the purchase of more axes and machetes.

Daniel Foote, the former U.S. Envoy to Haiti, told the Guardian that he wasn’t surprised by the violence, given the failure of police to deal with the gangs. “At some point, I thought they were going to start to take matters into their own hands because they’ve got no choice. They’ve got nothing else. The Haitians, like anybody, can only take so much. The gangs have stolen their lives from them.” As for a foreign intervention, Foote said he was “100% ideologically opposed” to another foreign intervention, given the utter failure of previous ones, including by the UN. But, he said, “I believe that they’re going to need an intervention. It’s just that bad.... It’s not Haiti any more; it’s a prison.”