Haiti| UN: twenty organizations say "No to the renewal of BINUH!"

Rezo Nodwes

22 Jun 2022

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Haitians protest against illegal presidency of Jovenel Moise in 2021 (Photo ANDRES MARTINEZ CASARES / REU)

The Security Council must say no to continuing interference in Haiti's affairs through the United Nations Integrated office in Haiti (BINUH). BINUH is just the latest iteration of colonial control which has brought Haiti to its current state of crisis. Sovereignty for the Haitian people is essential and is antithetical to the involvement of the UN in the country.

This article originally appeared in Rezo Nodwes.

9066th Session of the Security Council on Haiti: Towards a resolution of shame? No to the renewal of BINUH.

"The current representative of the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti is the instigator of a federation of armed gangs with terrorist practices across the country where kidnapping has become a daily occurrence and reflects another sign of failure of UN missions."

The 9066th meeting of the Security Council held on June 16, 2022 on Haiti calls for various questions including the following: Will China and Russia, permanent member states of the Security Council with the right of veto, be complicit to the end?

The trend observed at the June 16, 2022 session among the representatives of the other three permanent member states of the Council (France, United States of America, United Kingdom), is the enthusiasm to renew a new illegal and unconstitutional UN mission in Haiti with the supposed aim of stabilizing the country dominated by gangs yet federated by them, in order to feed and reinforce insecurity to the point of chaos.

It is since 2004 that the Security Council has been engaged in this so-called stabilization task that has never been accomplished to date, in other words for 18 years. Indeed, through Resolution 1542, the Council decided to establish foreign troops in Haiti, grouped in a mission known as the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH).

In accordance with the requirements of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (Art. 14), the presence of MINUSTAH was illegal from the outset; struck on the one hand by the vice of non-consent by the Haitian legislature (Art.98-3 and 276 Const), and on the other hand, by the non-qualification of one of the signatory parties (Art.139).

It should be noted that at various sessions preceding the renewals of the various UN missions in Haiti, Chinese and Russian representatives in the Security Council have raised many questions about the relevance of these missions. The most recent illustration refers to the session held in 2021 shortly before the adoption of Resolution 2600 extending the mandate of BINUH by nine (9) months, until 15 July 2022.

During the exchanges around this session, the Chinese Ambassador to the UN, Zhang Jung, had to declare: "Haiti cannot achieve stability without its autonomy" and again "the UN has done nothing in Haiti".

In fact, the United Nations failed in Haiti and it is indeed one of the permanent member states of the Security Council, namely the United States of America who made the observation by announcing through the declaration of the American head of state in office in 2019 that: "HAITI IS A SHITHOLE". How to explain that the United Nations has been accompanying Haiti since 2004 with a view to its stabilization and that the same country that had already had fifteen years in 2019 "continuous accompaniment" of the UN, is presented, in public opinion by a member state of the Security Council participating in this accompaniment as a SHITHOLE?

With this demeaning assertion, the US Executive has therefore admitted the failure of the United Nations and its own. But, despite everything, Washington has not used its veto power to block the renewal of useless UN missions to this shithole. Worse, Washington has continued the waltz of its diplomats, men and women, swayed without any form of embarrassment from 2019 to the present day in this 'shithole'.

Moreover, no official note from the United Nations to denounce this fact and defend the honor of Haiti, a founding member state of the UN for more than half a century and associated with the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948.

In a highly serious matter, the current representative of the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti is the instigator of a federation of armed gangs with terrorist practices throughout the country where kidnapping has become a daily occurrence and reflects another sign of failure of UN missions. Haiti is thus considered the country with the highest index of kidnappings per capita in the world. Is it simply conceivable that the country thus indexed has been under the supervision of the United Nations Security Council for eighteen years?

However, it is without any decency that the representative of BINUH, Helen M. La Lime, assumed promoter of the federation of gangs, declares at the 9066th meeting of the Security Council: "Haiti is a country in a state of terror and in political deadlock" thus denying its own responsibility, that of the CORE GROUP and the United States in particular in this state of affairs.

In June 2022, it is significant that the France, the United Kingdom and the United States of America, with a colonial, slave and imperial past in Haiti find themselves the first at the helm to scream for the renewal of illegal, unconstitutional, destabilizing UN missions.

A brief look at these destabilizing countries of Haiti:

1-The French Republic

French ruling elites have worked hard for more than two centuries to kidnap countless children, men and women in Africa and bend them into the hell of slavery in Haiti. Rebellious slaves drove out the colonial army of Napoleon Bonaparte, the latter considered in France a national hero. A historical fact, a source of resentment never surpassed. In this same dynamic, it has always been difficult for most French leaders to associate Haiti, even in a dream, with the notion of sovereignty, which explains their constant adherence to the renewal of these useless and destabilizing UN missions.

2-The United Kingdom of Great Britain

The United Kingdom also carries a colonial past in Haiti. Thus, at the end of the eighteenth century, in September 1793, English troops landed on the territory, in the south of the country. Today, in the twenty-first century, the United Kingdom encourages its governorate of Canada, officially defined as a constitutional, parliamentary, federal monarchy, to participate in foreign interference in Haiti. In the same dynamic, in March 2016, Canada expressed its intention to send two thousand (2000) troops to Haiti with the aim of strengthening and leading MINUSTAH. It is known that tens of thousands of Haitian-Haitian women perished following the introduction of cholera by UN soldiers in 2010. Twelve years later, Haiti is still waiting for redress. Britain and Canada remain silent.

3- The U.S. government

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the government of the United States of America placed Haiti under occupation from 1915 to 1934, leaving in the Haitian collective memory painful memories of practices reminiscent of slavery. Against opponents of the occupation, U.S. Marines engaged in torture such as hanging by the genitals, forced absorption of fluid, vines, pressure on the shins with two rifles; in addition, they carried out summary executions, burned houses after locking up entire families. Thus, years before the establishment of the Nazi regime, the U.S. government had experimented and erected in the north of Haiti, a concentration camp called "Camp Chabert" where about fifteen thousand (15,000) Haitians were executed.

As mentioned earlier, these three permanent member states of the Security Council, the France, the United States and Great Britain, have each, in the distant or recent past, donned a costume of subhumanity in Haiti through their colonial, slave, imperial and criminal practices. It does not matter to them that armed gangs kill, destroy, rape, burn, loot, torture, push to the forced exodus of citizen-citizens in Haiti since this bloody costume is also their favorite outfit in the Haitian space.

Since 2004 to date, the United Nations has not been able to show once in its reports a ratification document of the Haitian Parliament, the absence of which is qualified as a defect of non-consent by the Vienna Convention. The failure of the various illegal, destabilizing missions already sent to Haiti is indisputable. Suffice it to mention MINUJUSTH, a United Nations Mission in Support of Justice. Everything has been useless and without the slightest positive impact, because currently in 2022, the hunted Haitian judicial authorities are forced to flee the Palace of Justice, vandalized and occupied until now by bandits federated by the same UN body established in Haiti.

Voting for a resolution for the renewal of BINUH or for yet another UN mission is tantamount to a new slap in the face to the country's sovereignty? It is time to stop the criminal planning of Haiti's descent into hell. The BINUH, which has helped federate the armed gangs that destabilize the country, kidnap daily, violent, kill as they see fit the sons and daughters of the people, must be the last in this series.

Who, then, of the Republic of China or the Russian Federation will refuse to be complicit, will use its right of veto and will position itself closer to the founding ideals of the United Nations and against this degradation of the right to self-determination and life? Inflexible history will judge. And the Haitian people will remember it.

Following signatures

Camille CHALMERS / PAPDA

Rudy PRUDENT / KASIL

Saico JMS TOUSSAINT / Platfom Ayiti Vet (PAV)

Peguy NOEL / UNNOH

Regent FONTAINE / Fowom Sitwayen nan Sid (FOSID)

Lainé LOUIS / Rezo Oganizasyon Peyizan Marigo

Francia Felix DESIR / FANM VANYAN

Marc ANDRE / Fos Rezistans Delma

David OXYGENE / MOLEGHAF

Fritznel CLERVEAUX / Fos Delma 32

Dominique SAINT ELOI / CNOHA