The Canadian government added more names Friday to its sanction list involving Haitian political figures and business people.
The sanctions were announced by Minister of Foreign Affairs Melanie Joly, and target two members of the Haitian elite: businessman Charles Saint-Remy and former lawmaker Arnel Belizaire.
The two will be barred from entering Canada or having any financial dealings in the country. Any assets they have in the country also will be frozen. They join 13 other Haitian figures, including former president Michel Martelly and prime ministers Laurent Lamothe and Jean-Henry Ceant, who have been sanctioned by Canada since November as part of a new foreign policy being waged by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government and the Biden administration.
The new designations bring the total number of Haitians sanctioned by Canada to 15. The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, meanwhile, has issued four sanctions since then including against the most recent president of the Haitian Senate, Joseph Lambert, and three other current and former lawmakers. Treasury said they had information that the politicians engage in international drug trafficking activities and corruption.
During a meeting this week between Trudeau and Biden at the North American Leaders Summit in Mexico City, the issue of Haiti sanctions was raised. Trudeau noted the stark difference between Ottawa and Washington in issuing the designations, and reportedly pressed the U.S. to do more.
Trudeau, in speaking with the media afterward, defended Canada putting sanctions on “the Haitian leadership that are responsible for so much of the misery people are going through.”
“This current situation is heart wrenching and we need to continue to be there for the people of Haiti,” he said. “That’s why Canada’s focus, as we stepped up over the past months, has been, first of all, in putting significant sanctions on the elites who are responsible for so much of the violence and political instability in Haiti.
“A handful of small, extraordinarily wealthy families in Haiti have been causing much of the strife because of political and pecuniary interests,” he said. “And that is why the sanctions that Canada has put forward are causing significant impacts on the ground.”
The Biden administration has requested that Canada lead a multinational security force in Haiti to help the country’s beleaguered national police force stem the violence that is hampering daily life, including the delivery of humanitarian aid.
Asked about whether Canada will take the lead, Trudeau did not say. He called the situation in Haiti “heartbreaking” and said Canada will continue to stand with the people of Haiti.
“But we need to make sure that the solutions are driven by the people of Haiti themselves,” he said, later adding Canada is “working with partners across the Caribbean and indeed, with the United States and Mexico to ensure that if the situation starts to deteriorate, we will have options.”
Canada’s new sanctions designations come two days after one of its military aircraft delivered two more armored vehicles, purchased by the Haitian government, to Port-au-Prince for the Haiti National Police to help them combat gang violence.
On Friday, the Ministry of Foreign affairs did not go into great details as to why it was sanctioning Saint-Remy and Belizaire, other than they join the ranks of those Ottawa believes are helping to sow instability in the country.
“Canada has reason to believe these individuals are using their status as high-profile elites in Haiti to protect and enable the illegal activities of armed criminal gangs, including through drug trafficking and other acts of corruption,” the statement said.
Saint-Remy, who is also known as “Kiko,” is the brother-in-law of Martelly. Saint-Remy has long been a controversial figure in Haiti linked to drug trafficking and corruption. He is also a patron of Bouclier, the original political party that former President Jovenel Moise joined as a senatorial candidate before he was plucked from obscurity and tapped by Martelly to run for president under his PHTK party platform.
Saint-Remy also is close to Dimitri Herard, the head of the palace security at the time of Moise’s death who is also under investigation by the U.S. for arms trafficking. Herard has been implicated in Moise’s July 7, 2021, assassination and is currently in prison in Port-au-Prince.
A U.S. citizen, Saint-Remy declined to comment.
Belizaire is a former member of the Lower Chamber of Deputies from 2011 to 2015 representing the Delmas district in metropolitan Port-au-Prince. His list of accusations includes alleged threats against the U.S. Embassy.
Last April, he was shot at least four times, according to The Haitian Times, while leading an anti-government demonstration in the Sanfils district of Port-au-Prince. The incident occurred not too long after the former lawmaker had been released from a Haitian prison in December 2021.
On Nov. 29, 2019, Belizaire was arrested along with others while carrying weapons and ammunition from Port-au-Prince to Jacmel. He was accused of plotting against the internal security of the state as a result of making alleged threats against the U.S. Embassy and Brasserie la Couronne, the bottler for Coca-Cola in Haiti.
Belizaire’s travel visa to the United States had previously been revoked by the U.S. Embassy.
Canada says the sanctions are intended to put pressure on those responsible for the ongoing instability and violence, including widespread sexual assaults.
“These people must stop providing funds and weapons to criminal gangs in Haiti,” Ottawa said in a statement. “Canada condemns the weaponization of sexual violence in Haiti that is devastating the lives of so many across the country.”
In response to the sanctions, some Haitians have taken to the internet to declare their innocence. Lamothe, the former prime minister under Martelly, has hired a lawyer to challenge his designation in a Canadian court. The Canadian sanctions are expected to be followed by similar United Nations designations that, if approved, would bar individuals from more than 150 countries. However, each member state will need to ratify the U.N. resolution establishing a sanctions regime on Haiti. So far, Canada, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and European parliament have all done so.
