U.S. Institute of Peace experts discuss the latest foreign policy issues from around the world in On Peace, a brief weekly collaboration with SiriusXM's POTUS Channel 124.

Transcript

Laura Coates: Joining us now is Georges Fauriol, a senior advisor with the Latin America program at USIP. Good morning to you. How are you?

Georges Fauriol: Good morning, Laura, good to be here.

Laura Coates: I'm glad that you're here today. I want to focus on what's been going on in Haiti, as undoubtedly, our audience has heard about commercial airliners who've been flying over, having found bullets in them, even having to reroute or cancel flights that are going on. So the immediate thought is, what has been happening? Give us the up to date on what has been a very tumultuous time, to say the least, in Haiti.

Georges Fauriol: Well, let's just take the story over the last two weeks, which is complicated enough in the sense that the presidential transition council, which had been put in place last spring, decided, sort of not entirely surprisingly, to fire the interim prime minister, a fellow named Garry Conille. His replacement, Didier Fils-Aimé, is now in office. That generated a fair amount of concern in three different ways. One is whether the timeline that had been established last spring towards elections and a democratic transition by the early part of 2026, could that timeline actually be met? Secondly, it created a further sense that the governance situation in Haiti is, to be charitable, unstable, and seem to encourage a higher level of violence, including the incidents that you mentioned. The international airport is, in fact, now closed for any flights coming in with American carriers. I might add that the major seaports in and around the capital city are also not free from gangs. And then finally, it also highlights, including the closure of and difficulty to get products in and out of Haiti, legal products I might add, adds to the uncertainty and growing concern over food insecurity and a sort of a humanitarian crisis which would trigger a further outflow of Haitians.

So that's kind of the negative side of the picture. The slightly more optimistic positive side is that despite all of the political breakdowns and crises, there remains a fairly active civil society. There is a semblance, at least the remnants, of a business community, which, although gets maligned, usually, is still relatively active. And there is potentially some transition, although that would be up to the next, including U.S. administration and other international actors, towards perhaps a more effective international security presence in Haiti to help that timeline towards a democratic transition in early 2026. But, if you will, the outlook doesn't look all that positive.

Laura Coates: Politically, I mean, the United States has been obviously involved in watching, as have other nations, and trying to assess what can be done. What is the United States' interest in ensuring the political stability in Haiti?

Georges Fauriol: Well, one could sort of identify three good reasons for U.S. engagement. One of them is, what happens in Haiti, to be blunt, doesn't stay in Haiti. And here I'm not so much referring to concerns over refugee and migrants and sort of border control terminology here in the United States, but that it would affect and further on provide instability in the Caribbean Basin region. And that is not a positive development. It affects the Bahamas, the Dominican Republic, other countries in the region. So there's therefore a built-in concern over what happens in Haiti. Secondly, there is for better or for worse, and some of it has been criticized by many observers over time, there's a long history of interaction between the United States and Haiti, going back, frankly, almost to the colonial era and particularly in the early part of the 20th century. And therefore, there is a, if you will, a built-in sense of concern, as well as a set of community interests for paying attention to what happens in Haiti. And I might add, thirdly, there is a fairly active Haitian diaspora in the United States and North America generally, which is increasingly active in trying to, if you will, encourage, motivate U.S. policy makers towards trying to pay some attention to the problems in Haiti.

Laura Coates: It's hard to, if not impossible, to predict what any incoming administration might do with respect to and prioritize different nations. But is there some thought within Haiti given towards who the American president will be? Are there elements of the transition council's to-do list that are impacted by who is in power here?

Georges Fauriol: I'm not quite sure I would phrase it that way. There is certainly a sense in Haiti, and I think among different international actors even beyond the United States, that the transition council has sort of a basic to-do list, is the way I would describe it, which includes, obviously, attention to security. And there is currently underway a series of discussions, particularly in the United Nations context, to transition from what is sort of currently now a fairly limited security apparatus led by Kenya, which really hasn't been as effective as hoped for, to transition that to a more conventional U.N. peacekeeping operation, where the advantage is that it kind of comes in with a built-in administrative apparatus and a budget, which is different from what is currently now which is sort of a voluntary process to support this initiative.

Secondly, there’s also a way to provide international assistance to the transition council in the context of a short sort of to-do list. And that to-do list includes reform of the constitution and some sort of a referendum to make it credible, elections themselves, which would have to be held in 2025, and by elections I mean not only electing a new president but a new parliament, as well as local elected officials, mayors and so forth. And then ultimately, also a package of assistance which re-energizes, if you will, the economy.

And there, to some degree, the United States has actually some built-in programs which are already built into the process, don't require, if you will, formal decisions on the part of the incoming U.S. administration. Specifically, there's something that's become known as HOPE/HELP trade preference legislations, which should be renewed, or has to be renewed, by next year and provides preferential treatment, if you will, to Haitian exports to the United States. And then there's a more ambitious initiative, which has already been passed by the United States Congress, would be administered by a combination of USAID and State Department and other federal agencies, known as the Global Fragility Act, the GFA. Its main virtue is that it's a 10-year program, and is designed to address issues of, quote, resiliency, which certainly Haiti needs, it needs it by all accounts, and would be designed to engage Haiti's robust, if, rather weakened, civil society community and, to some degree, the Haitian diaspora. So there, there are a few other built-in elements that exist that provide a potential, sort of, path forwards for not only United States, but more broadly, for the international community.

Laura Coates: Really important to have this conversation. Thank you so much for having it with us. We appreciate your time.