President Ali needs to get his act together

Sep 16, 2023 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Kaieteur News – The President of Guyana was in Washington this past week. He had in tow, two of his main foreign policy advisers: the Foreign Minister and the Foreign Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.

Given the sort of technical support at his disposal, it was disappointing and embarrassing to read some of the nonsense that the President pedaled about Haiti and the United Nations Security Council.

The President was reported to have said that Guyana will use its non-permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to draw attention to and to support and end the prolonged crisis in Haiti. Appearing at the Atlantic Council Studios, the President is reported to have said that Guyana would be seeking a UN-backed resolution on Haiti.

For any President in the Caribbean to say such nonsense shows just how out-of-touch the President is with the UN Security Council Resolutions concerning the present situation in Haiti. The President of Guyana was quoted as saying that, “The effort to get to a UN Resolution is as critical as the issue we are faced with in Ukraine.”

The President obviously was not familiar with the actions which have been taken by the UN Security Council on Haiti. On July 14, 2023, for example, the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2692, extending the mandate of the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH) until July 15, 2024. Several key provisions and priorities were outlined in this resolution including extending BINUH’s mandate and ensuring its continued presence and operations in Haiti. The latter includes authorizing up to 70 civilian and seconded personnel who would serve as police and corrections advisers in order to support training and investigative capacities of the Haitian National Police.

The resolution also emphasized the need for BINUH to address sexual and gender-based violence, including the identification of women’s protection advisers, within its human rights unit. It further urged all Haitian stakeholders to facilitate free, fair, and credible legislative and presidential elections.

In that same resolution, the UN Security Council called for international cooperation to prevent illicit arms trafficking to Haiti and urged Member States to inspect cargo heading to Haiti. It demanded an immediate prohibition on supplying small arms, light weapons, and ammunition to non-State actors involved in gang violence, criminal activities, or human rights abuses in Haiti.

The Resolution mandated the UN Secretary-General to submit a written report within 30 days, in consultation with Haiti, outlining various support options the United Nations can provide to improve the security situation in Haiti. These options include combating illicit arms trafficking, providing additional training for the Haitian National Police, supporting a non-United Nations multinational force, or even considering a possible peacekeeping operation to support a political settlement in Haiti.

Last October, the UN Security Council passed a resolution imposing targeted sanctions assets freeze, travel bans and an arms embargo, on selected individuals in Haiti. The UN Security Council has therefore been engaged on the issue of Haiti and therefore it is difficult to understand how the President of Guyana hopes to have a Un Resolution on Haiti.

Guyana assumes non-permanent membership of the Security Council next January. So is the President hoping to wait until then to have another resolution passed when in fact there is activated a process for the UN Secretary General to suggest options to the Council for resolving the situation in Haiti?

The President of Guyana has to get his act together. He cannot go on the international stage and embarrass himself and the country by his uninformed comments.

He needs to state clearly Guyana’s position in relation to the request for a Stabilization Force in Haiti. He speaks about financing by named countries but does not indicate what this financing is for.

If he did not know he ought to be told that while the Haitian government had requested a Stabilization Force – whatever that means –   civil society actions in that country have rejected calls for foreign forces to be deployed in Haiti. As reported by this newspaper a month ago, Haitian civil society organizations vehemently oppose the introduction of foreign military forces. They reference past interventions that have left a bitter taste and harbour concerns that such foreign forces might inadvertently support the current unelected government, which they partly blame for the nation’s ongoing crises.

As this is being written, it is being reported that President Ali, addressing the Organization of American States has called for a transitional government. If true, this is a most bizarre call from the Guyanese Head-of-State especially conserving that a CARICOM eminent persons group found that there is little common ground between the Opposition and the government.

So what really does President Ali want? Does he want an interventionist force? Does he want a transitional government or does he want a process leading to free and fair elections? The latter two are not reconcilable.

President Ali therefore needs to get his thinking on Haiti straight. If he can!

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of this newspaper and its affiliates.)

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• advisers, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Peeping Tom, policy, President

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