(OTTAWA) Haiti’s beleaguered government is accusing Canada of delaying promised deliveries of armored vehicles, saying the delay is hampering a plan to eliminate violent gangs from Port-au-Prince.
Posted at 12:25pm Updated at 1:53pm
Dylan Robertson The Canadian Press
In an interview with Haitian radio, acting justice minister Emmelie Prophète-Milcé said the company supposed to supply the armored vehicles “did not keep its word.”
Violent gangs have controlled much of the Haitian capital for months, leading to shortages of basic food and medical supplies and a rise in sexual assaults.
As part of Canada’s response, Ottawa says it was flying armored vehicles bought by the Haitian government, which could avoid the need for international military intervention.
However, Minister Prophet-Milcé claims that the majority of the 18 armored vehicles ordered by her country have not yet arrived, and she says that “the police could implement their strategy if all armored vehicles were delivered on time”.
Global Affairs Canada has not responded to these allegations.
The minister’s comments come as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau continues to call on Europe and the United States to emulate Canada and sanction Haitian elites.
“For me, the best way to restore stability to Haiti is to first sanction the elites, telling them they can no longer fund the gangs. [ni] political instability,” he said Monday during a public gathering in Montreal’s Saint-Michel neighborhood, which has a large Haitian diaspora.
Canada has imposed sanctions on 17 members of Haiti’s political and business elite over their alleged gang connections. Ottawa specifically prohibits them from financial transactions in Canada. Many of those affected by the sanctions dispute these allegations, arguing that Ottawa acted on substandard information.
Last December, Mr Trudeau called on Europe to follow suit. Canada’s ambassador to the United Nations, Bob Rae, said in January that France could make a difference by also imposing similar sanctions.
Trudeau said Monday he was not satisfied with the response these countries have had so far. “The United States started imposing more sanctions. We need them to do a lot more. We need the countries of Europe, France, to do more,” he argued.
France said it instead adheres to a United Nations process to sanction bad actors in Haiti, barring them from visiting most countries and banning them from financial transactions with foreign entities. This slow UN process has only affected one person since last October.
In an interview in December, the French ambassador to Haiti, Fabrice Mauriès, criticized Canada’s actions and preferred those of the UN. And “if the sanctions remain Canadian, they will fail,” he told Radio France Internationale.
Military intervention?
Haiti’s unelected government has called for international military intervention to eliminate the gangs, but this scenario deeply divides Haitians.
The UN has previously found that foreign military personnel it supervises have sexually abused residents and caused a cholera outbreak in previous operations in Haiti.
Separately, Trudeau said Wednesday that Ottawa had helped Haiti in many ways since the end of the Duvalier dictatorship in 1986, but more permanent changes were needed.
“We’ve conducted military missions, we’ve built hospitals, we’ve trained police officers, we’ve provided prison guards — we’ve conducted an enormous amount of intervention and yet the problems persist,” he said while interviewing at a news conference in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Trudeau advocated a “new approach” that puts Haitians in the driver’s seat. “External intervention, as we have done in the past, has not helped bring long-term stability to Haiti. »
In any case, the Chief of Defense Staff doubts that Canada has the military “capacity” to carry out such an intervention in Haiti. “There are so many things to consider […] It would be difficult,” General Wayne Eyre admitted in an interview with Portal last week.