WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is considering calls for the creation of a humanitarian corridor in Haiti to break the blockade of fuel by armed gangs and protect the delivery of aid as the country faces one of its worst health, energy and security crises in a generation.
White House and State Department officials acknowledged Friday that a flurry of conversations had taken place over the past week over the deteriorating situation across Haiti. Confirmation of a deadly cholera outbreak amid widespread civil unrest and a months-long blockade by powerful of the country’s ports and main fuel terminal, Varreux, have prompted calls for international action.
On Thursday, the United Nations Integrated Office in Port-au-Prince issued a plea for the creation of a “humanitarian corridor,” and on Friday, interim Prime Minister Ariel Henry officially published a request seeking the help of the country’s international partners for “the immediate deployment of a specialized armed force” in the government’s official registry, Le Moniteur.
The Miami Herald reported that Henry’s Cabinet had agreed late Thursday night to make the request after the government was encouraged to do so by the head of the Organization of American States and others in the diplomatic community. The international community has been growing increasingly concerned about the lack of fuel, which is affecting the availability of potable water and has led to hospital closures just as cholera begins to be detected for the first time in more than three years.
On Friday, the State Department, citing the disruption to sanitation and the availability of medical supplies, potable water and food because of the fuel shortages, authorized the temporary departure of U.S. government employees and their family members from Haiti.
“Food and water insecurity is an increasing concern,” the U.S. government said, noting that 60 cases of cholera have been identified in the capital, and the embassy is “extremely limited in its ability to provide emergency services to U.S. citizens in Haiti, and is unable to provide shuttle or transportation services.”
While Haiti has been in crisis for some time, it has been reeling since the July 7, 2021, assassination of President Jovenel Moise. The brazen killing has left the country without a president, functioning parliament or supreme court, while emboldening kidnapping armed gangs who terrorize and pry on the population.
Despite that reality, Biden officials have been reluctant to intervene, especially after Moise’s killing reopened old wounds and criticism about U.S. policy toward the country and the Caribbean nation’s own troubled history with past foreign military intervention, whether by the United States or by the United Nations.
After Moise’s death, the acting prime minister, Claude Joseph, sent an urgent request for U.S. or U.N. troops to secure the country’s airport and seaports, fearing that Haiti would slip deeper into chaos. But Biden later said the idea of sending American forces to Haiti was not on the agenda. His special envoy to Haiti, Daniel Foote, resigned in September of that year in part over a dispute over whether to send U.S. troops to the country.
Foote, who since has been on a public campaign to have Henry removed and replaced with a coalition of civil society leaders known as the Montana Accord, took to Twitter Friday to voice his displeasure over the possibility of sending troops to Haiti.
“If an international military intervention takes place under the illegitimacy of DeFakto @drarielehenry, that force will not only be fighting the gangs. They’ll be fighting Haiti’s people on the streets,” he said in English and in Haitian-Creole.
Senior administration officials told McClatchy on Thursday that a feeling had set in that the status quo in Haiti was no longer sustainable, given the depths of the humanitarian crisis and the abilities of the country’s gangs, which have managed to block all roads leading to the ports.
State Department principal deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel told reporters Friday that the administration had received a request from the U.N. Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator Office in Haiti “for a humanitarian corridor to restore the distribution of fuel throughout Haiti.”
“We’re considering that request and are coordinating with Prime Minister Henry and other international partners to determine how best the United States can provide additional support to Haiti, and we strongly condemn those who continue to block the distribution of fuel and other necessities to Haitian businesses,” Patel said.
Any humanitarian corridor would require an armed force to secure it, given the inability of Haiti’s ill-equipped and outgunned police force to take back control from the gangs by themselves. In the decree published by Henry, the government doesn’t specify who should make up the force or how large it should be. It only calls for “a specialized armed force in a quantity sufficient enough to tackle the humanitarian crisis throughout the territory of Haiti.”
In recent months, as Haitians have taken to the streets in widespread protests over the rising costs of food and fuel and demanding Henry’s departure from office. The crowds have looted schools, charity and government food warehouses, as well as those belonging to U.N. humanitarian aid agencies such as the World Food Program and UNICEF. Hostile crowds and armed groups have also attacked supermarkets, banks and other businesses.
With fuel reserves continuing to dwindle and potable water increasingly scarce, the international community is worried about how it would be able to provide aid and administer cholera treatment, especially to those most vulnerable and cut off from the rest of the country behind gang strongholds.
But the issue of foreign troops is sensitive in Haiti, where Henry’s critics have been criticizing him on radio since he first appealed for foreign assistance Wednesday night in an address to the nation. The prime minister’s critics have accused him of using the fuel blockage as a pretext to call for foreign intervention to remain in power.
The U.N. Security Council has already authorized 10 special multinational missions to Haiti over the past decade.
Henry “is now the loneliest politician in the country,” said a foreign diplomat, asking for anonymity so that he could speak frankly. “His Cabinet supports him but only because they want to keep their job. Everyone else will throw the kitchen sink at him now. Even those who support intervention.”
U..S Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is attending the OAS annual summit in Lima, Peru, this week while also on a diplomatic tour of South America, had several conversations with his counterparts on the situation in Haiti and potential policy responses, one senior administration official said.
Two top U.S. diplomats are scheduled to visit Port-au-Prince next week.
