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On March 30, it was announced that Canada would be training an estimated 330 “CARICOM troops” from the Bahamas, Jamaica, and Belize. Barbados has also confirmed that it will be supplying troop s to the mission. The training will take place at Canada’s “Operational Support Hub” (which is Canadian jargon for military base), which was established in Jamaica in 2016. Canada has also committed $80.5 millio n to the Kenyan-led mission, and the US has promised another $300 million . Yet out of this setup, we are supposed to believe that CARICOM is an independent partner?
Previous interventions in Haiti show us that there are political prizes for those who work on behalf of US and Western imperialism. For example, Brazil’s 2004 controversial role leading the United Nations Stabilization Force in Haiti (MINUSTAH) was connected with its national ambitions to secure a permanent seat on the UN Security Council . In this case, Mia Mottley, the darling of liberal circles, has her own UN aspirations. While she has repeatedly referred to the Caribbean as a “Zone of Peace” amidst conflicts in the Ukraine, Gaza, and the border dispute between Venezuela and Guyana, she has no problem sending troops to Haiti.
In September 2023, CNN reported that, when “Asked last week if she will run to become the United Nations’ next Secretary General, Prime Minister Mia Mottley of Barbados gave a thumbs up, smiled, and walked away. Unofficially, however, UN insiders say she’s a likely front-runner.“ As demonstrated by Keston K. Perry, Mottley is part of the Caribbean’s misleadership class, which uses what many see as refreshing, progressive rhetoric to push through what are ultimately regressive policies. She can now take credit for forcing an unpopular, even illegal, foreign intervention in Haiti.
In the case of Guyana’s Irfan Ali, he is being increasingly courted by the United States as an important nexus in the shifting geopolitical calculations of Latin America and the Caribbean. With traditional US ally Colombia seeing a leftward political shift from its far right stance under Álvaro Uribe, oil rich Guyana seems like a logical and strategic choice from which to extend its influence - as seen by December’s border dispute with Venezuela.
The supposed CARICOM-led initiative cannot be seen as separate from the long and damaging record of imperial intervention in Haiti. It is clearly a Trojan horse that Caribbean leaders are using to force through the CORE Group’s Kenyan-led multinational force into Haiti. We should remember how terrible the last invasion and occupation by MINUSTAH (2004-2017). This invasion was done with more than ten times the size of the Kenyan force, there were many reports of extrajudicial killings under the pretext of fighting gangs, a broad failure to protect civilians, a cholera outbreak that claimed the lives of thousands and widespread sexual violence. What MINUSTAH showed was that military intervention did not stabilize Haiti, it diverted billions of dollars away from the Haitian state (that could have gone to fund a domestic police force and vital infrastructure), legitimized and propped up the kleptocratic CORE Group puppets of Michel Martelly, Jovenel Moise, and Ariel Henry, and set Haiti on this current trajectory.
CARICOM and Caribbean leaders should know better, but they are instead willing accomplices of empire, selling out Haiti for crumbs.
Link:
CARICOM, Regional Arm of the Core Group, Sells Out Haiti Again. | Black Agenda Report
Don’t be fooled by the "progressive" rhetoric of the leaders of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). What they’re doing in Haiti is shamelessly serving the interest of US empire.
www.blackagendareport.com