Haiti’s police force remains weak despite receiving $300 million in U.S. plan are sparse, multiple sources told the Miami Herald and the McClatchy Washington Bureau that it would rely heavily on help from its partners and involve security training.įollowing a recent visit to Port-au-Prince, Todd Robinson, Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that they were looking at training a new SWAT team within the Haitian police to tackle the gang crisis. proposal on supporting Haitian law enforcement is still being reviewed by the French. Vice President Kamala Harris raised the prospect of an international coalition to support Haiti in her meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris last month, as well as her recent conversations with Prime Ministers Justin Trudeau of Canada and Boris Johnson of the United Kingdom, a White House official said.įrench officials familiar with the matter say that security was a focus in Harris’ conversation with Macron on Haiti, which was raised at the end of their meeting. “The reality is whatever investments we provide for the Haitian national police need to be accompanied by gains in governance, transparency and anti-corruption efforts,” he said. They expressed their shared willingness to explore greater police deployment in Haiti whether that was through mentoring, through training or through foreign police units,” Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Brian Nichols, who chaired the virtual meeting with 14 international aid organizations and foreign governments, told journalists afterward. “A number of the countries that participated in the discussions this morning had previously contributed to an international police support for Haiti through the United Nations, or through the. A virtual meeting held by the State Department and attended by French and Canadian diplomats on Friday included a discussion of the plan.
#CANADA SONG FOR HAITI SERIES#
The Biden administration is asking France and Canada to help lead an international effort to shore up security in Haiti, after a series of crises this year crippled the Caribbean nation and sent shock waves through the region.Ĭonversations began in the fall on an allied plan to bolster Haitian law enforcement, which has been plagued by corruption and increasingly outmatched by drug-fueled gangs operating throughout the country.