Excerpts below- read entirely at link above

With U.S. and Canadian forces already arriving in Haiti and history of prior failures looming, Haitians await Kenya-led MSS with suspicion

Even before the United Nations Security Council formally adopted Resolution 2699 in October 2023 to deploy the Kenya-led Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission to Haiti, the arrival of armed troops on Haitian soil was “imminent.” Eight months later, we can reasonably say the invasion is here, albeit in a different form than we’re used to seeing. 

Based on actual developments, the Haiti invasion is here — vle ou pa. Whether or not we want it. 

Clearly, the invasion is here even though Kenyans have not yet stepped foot in Haiti yet. And by all indications, this approach works for the international community in a balanced way and won’t change soon. So we can stop saying “imminent” and just say “it’s here.”

What makes this an invasion?

Officially/unofficially, this intervention is playing out. To prove it, let’s revisit some basic definitions.

A geopolitical invasion is the initial act of entering and taking control of a territory, usually with significant military engagement, according to WordReference Forums. The next phase is an occupation, where the invader establishes and maintains control, often involving administrative and governance responsibilities. Wikipedia tells us an invasion is a military offensive usually involving large numbers to either conquer or re-establish control over a territory, liberate previously lost territory, force partition, alter the established government, gain concession or access natural resources or strategic positions.

In the end, the most notable discovery is that Haitians are still not at the table. And, most Haitians believe the U.S. is always involved in Haiti’s affairs, even when the U.S. may not be.

Fueling suspicion are activities like last month’s joint press conference with U.S. President Joe Biden and Kenyan President William Ruto. The pair discussed deploying the non-UN multinational force for the MSS operations, estimated to cost $600 million annually.

Translation: We don’t want to be seen as an hegemonic imperial power and Haiti is not worth losing this election over if American soldiers start dying there. But, we’ll still lead the strategy and pay for it.

The US and Canada are indeed on the ground in Haiti- But you all knew that already!

Black Agenda Report

The US is behind the multinational military invasion and occupation of Haiti. How did we get here?

As all eyes are on the genocide in Gaza, Haiti is undergoing a full scale foreign military invasion. As of May 16th, thirty large transport planes have landed at Toussaint Louverture International Airport, unloading 835 tons of cargo and military equipment and bringing military personnel and contractors. At least one hundred more aircraft, some from the US Air Force, others leased by the US State Department, are expected to arrive in the coming days.

Sections of Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince are “now the outpost of an international military contingent.” The Pentagon is issuing lucrative contracts to US companies for the provision of materials and services to support the military occupation. The leader of the US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), in her typical patronizing and racist language, has already announced that its soldiers will take over Haiti’s ports. On twitter, journalist/US state department stenographer Jacqueline Charles posted a video of herself walking freely through the empty Toussaint Louverture airport with a contingent of US military and state department officials. It was as if Haiti was already theirs.

Foreign Invasion, Occupation, and the Making of a “Failed State”

As I have argued elsewhere, Haiti officially lost its nominal sovereignty in late February 2004 through a US/France/Canada-led coup d’état. The coup was then cleaned up by the United Nations which, under the leadership of the UN Security Council permanent members US and France, voted to dispatch a “peacekeeping” mission to Haiti under a “chapter 7” mandate which allowed foreign soldiers to use full force against the population. The UN occupation under MINUSTAH was marked by its brutality towards Haitian people. Civilians were attacked and assassinated. “Peacekeepers” committed countless sexual crimes. UN soldiers also dumped human feces into rivers used for drinking water, unleashing a cholera epidemic that killed between 10,000 and 40,000 people. The US and MINUSTAH also trained and militarized Haiti’s police and security forces, often rehabilitating and reintegrating rogue members. For Haitian people, occupation has only meant death, misery, environmental degradation, and an affront to our human dignity. The UN has never been held accountable for these crimes against Haitian people.

Please read the rest at the link provided.

90 Minutes in length- Very interesting

The Clinton’s are deeper involved in the plunder of Haiti than I’d understood.

Some insights into Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and the role it plays in the Haitian situation. As Haiti plays a role in keeping Cuba off kilter. I’d mentioned Guantanamo Bay previously. Haiti is one answer to the question- Why hasn’t the US closed Gitmo?

Kenan Malik

In December 1914, the USS Machias dropped anchor in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Eight US marines disembarked, sauntered to the Banque National de la République d’Haïti (BNRH), removed $500,000 worth of gold belonging to the Haitian government – $15m in today’s money – packed it in wooden crates to carry back to the ship and thence to New York, where it was deposited in the vaults of the investment bank, Hallgarten & Co.

The BNRH was Haiti’s central bank. It was also a foreign private corporation. Originally set up in 1880 through a concession granted to a French bank, pressure from America brought in US investors. By 1920, the BNRH was wholly owned by the American National City Bank. Haiti’s central bank it may have been but the Haitian government was charged for every transaction and the eye-popping profits spirited off to Paris or New York.

Political turmoil in Haiti in the 1910s led to Wall Street demanding action to protect its investments. Washington obliged, sending in the marines. A year later, the marines returned in force, remaining there for the next 19 years, in an often brutal occupation. “I helped make Haiti… a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues,” Maj Gen Smedley Butler, a leader of the American forces in Haiti, wrote in 1935.

The almost forgotten story of the bank robbery organised by the US state department is a small but illuminating moment in Haiti’s history. The forced resignation last week of prime minister Ariel Henry, the collapse of civil life and gang warfare on the streets have returned Haiti to international headlines. To make sense of the latest events, we need to understand not just where Haiti is today, but also how it got there.

The history of Haiti is one in which the nation’s governing classes have exhibited a contempt for the masses extraordinary even by the standards of the global south. It is also one in which foreign powers have never shrunk from repression and bloodshed, or straightforward theft, in pursuit of their aims, sometimes in alliance with local elites, sometimes in opposition to them. Haiti is now the poorest nation in the Americas and among the most unequal in the world.

The tragedy of Haiti is not just the devastation wrought on its people but also that, while today it may be a symbol of corruption and lawlessness, 200 years ago it symbolised, indeed was the living embodiment of, the opposite: the possibilities of human emancipation. Haiti was born in 1804 out of a 13-year revolution in which the enslaved people of the then French colony of Saint-Domingue dismantled their chains, defeated, in succession, the armies of France, Britain and Spain, and established a new nation.

While today Haiti may be a symbol of corruption and lawlessness, 200 years ago it symbolised the opposite

Their astonishing success turned the revolution into an inspiration for those resisting slavery and colonialism across the globe.

In the independent Haiti, though, the necessities of a class-driven world ensured that the new ruling class governed as would any elite, whether in Haiti, France or America. Its objectives were to maintain power, suppress dissent and enforce the exploitation of labour. A weak and divided ruling class ensured that Haitian political life was punctuated by a succession of coups and insurrections. The suppression of democratic movements became the constant thread of the nation’s history.

The ruling elites in Europe and America, meanwhile, fearful that the Haitian example might embolden others struggling for freedom, sought to isolate the new nation, refusing for decades even to recognise it.

In 1825, France demanded, as the price of recognition, reparations of 150m francs (the equivalent, according to different estimates, of between $4bn and $21bn today) to compensate for loss of property, including human chattel. Along with the demand, it sent 14 warships.

France was compelling enslaved people and their descendants to pay their former masters for having freed themselves from servitude. Though the figure was eventually reduced to 90m francs, it remained well beyond Haiti’s capacity to pay, forcing it to take out loans from French banks at exorbitant rates, adding to the burden. By 1914, 80% of the government budget went to repaying the debt. Year after year, money that might have been spent on schools or hospitals, industry or agriculture, in one of the world’s poorest countries (though, admittedly, much of it may also have gone into the pockets of Haitian oligarchs) was purloined instead to fill the treasury of one of the richest nations of the world.

The banking class plundered Haiti.

Western nations have not only impoverished Haiti, they have also constantly intervened, propping up politicians who enforce “stability”, undermining those whose democratic demands seem threatening. François Duvalier, or “Papa Doc”, came to power in 1957, a vicious dictator whose reign was built on ferocious violence. US leaders cavilled at Duvalier’s brutality, but saw him as an important asset against communism, especially Fidel Castro’s Cuba. And so the aid poured in.

Across the Windward Passage lies Cuba. Mentioned in yesterday’s post;

Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a leftwing priest, with mass support among Haiti’s working class and poor, elicited a different response. Twice, in 1990 and 2001, waves of public support propelled Aristide to the presidency. And twice, in 1991 and 2004, he was ousted in bloody coups.

After the first coup, Aristide returned to power with US support. Nevertheless, many of the coup leaders were on the CIA payroll and the agency did not hide its hostility. A decade later, opposition to Aristide’s economic and social policies led America to force him out of office (though Washington implausibly insists that it played no role in Aristide’s voluntary “resignation”).

Today, the Haitian state barely exists. Its functions, from policing to health, from education to social services, have been outsourced to what researcher Jake Johnston calls the “Aid State” – NGOs, UN bodies, development banks, private companies. Especially since the devastating earthquake of 2010, this “parallel state” has been the source of power in Haiti. Ariel Henry was not voted into office but appointed by the so-called “Core group”, a collection of foreign ambassadors who effectively run the country.

The result has been a complete rupture between those who govern and those who are governed; a rupture visible in everything from the gangs on the streets to the hunger that haunts its people.

“We have become the subjects of our own history,” Aristide claimed in 1987; “we refuse from now to be the objects of that history.” The tragedy is that the opposite has happened, that the people of Haiti remain excluded from the governance of their country. Until that changes, Haiti will not change.

This article was included in a post that was not limited to the assassination as you can see by the url, featured below– Take note the Windward Passage is mentioned.

https://pennyforyourthoughts2.blogspot.com/2021/07/haiti-and-cuba-drug-running-windward.html

I’ve included additional external links to additional pertinent information

Excerpts from the Village Sun

BY PAUL DeRIENZO | It was a day before the scheduled return of Haiti’s exiled president, Jean Bertrand-Aristide, and it was clear that the October 30, 1993 deadline for a return to democratic rule in the western hemisphere’s poorest nation could not occur. Aristide, a Roman Catholic priest who had been elected nearly three years before with 70 percent of the vote in Haiti’s first free election, was speaking to a packed session of the United Nations General Assembly.

In November 1989, Col. Paul was found dead after he consumed a traditional Haitian goodwill gift — a bowel of pumpkin soup. Haitian officials accused Paul’s wife of the murder, apparently because she had been cheated out of her share of a cocaine deal by associates of her husband, who were involved in smuggling through Miami.

The U.S. Senate also heard testimony in 1988 that Haiti’s then-interior minister, Gen. Williams Regala, and his D.E.A. liaison officer protected and supervised cocaine shipments. The testimony also charged the then-Haitian military commander Gen. Henry Namphy with accepting bribes from Colombian traffickers in return for landing rights in the mid-1980s.

It was in 1989 that yet another military coup brought Lt. Gen. Prosper Avril to power. Under U.S. pressure, Avril, the former finance chief under Haiti’s 30-year Duvalier family dictatorship, fired 140 officers suspected of drug trafficking. Avril, who is currently living in Miami, is being sued by six Haitians, including Port-au-Prince Mayor Evans Paul, who claim they were abducted and tortured by the Haitian military under Avril’s orders in November 1989.

According to a witness before Senator John Kerry’s subcommittee, Avril is in fact a major player in Haiti’s role as a transit point in the cocaine trade.

The latest news has…

The US flying people with valid passports out of Haiti?

The U.S. government said on Saturday that it is arranging a charter flight from Haiti to the U.S. for those with valid passports. 

DeSantis confirms flights into Haiti

“We don’t want to say anything too publicly about what exactly we’re doing until it happens,” DeSantis said. “It’s a very dicey situation. But we do feel an obligation to go in and help Florida citizens who were caught in the crossfire of a very difficult situation.”

Given the extreme exploitation of Haiti, I’m not assuming all of this is humanitarianism- I’d written numerous reports regarding missionaries kidnapping Haitian children and moving them through Dominican Republic and Clinton, inexplicably, intervening when the missionaries were arrested.

Cocaine Coup and the overthrow of Aristide

But the most disturbing allegations have been of the role played by the C.I.A. in keeping many of the coup leaders on the agency’s payroll, as part of an anti-drug intelligence unit set up by the U.S. in Haiti in 1986. Many of these same military men have had their U.S. assets frozen, and are prevented from entering this country because of their role in overthrowing Aristide, and subsequent human-rights violations, including torture and murders of political opponents, raising the question — was the U.S. involved in a cocaine coup that overthrew Aristide?

When thousands of U.S. soldiers went crashing into Panama to arrest Manuel Noriega on December 20, 1989, the administration of President George Bush justified the action as a major victory in the war on drugs. The cost of that victory was played down in the rush of propaganda hailing a rare victory, in a war where the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t often seen.

The gunfire had barely subsided in Panama, and General Noriega was hardly settled into his new digs in a federal prison, when another battle in the war on drugs seemed won. In Haiti, decades of brutal dictatorship seemed to be passing, with the election of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to lead the Caribbean nation of 6 million. It was a time when dreams of a better future by Haiti’s impoverished people seemed within reach.

But it wasn’t long before the dream was transformed into a nightmare. Less than a year after the election, on September 30, 1991, Haiti’s army launched a ruthless coup d’état that forced Aristide into exile. The coup ushered in yet another period of military repression in Haiti’s tortured history — a history marked by twenty years of U.S. military occupation, beginning with the 1915 crushing of a popular revolt by U.S. Marines.

The O.A.S. imposed an embargo that failed to topple the coup leaders, but forced negotiations, brokered by the U.N. at Governors Island in New York last July. The coup leader General Raoul Cedras agreed to allow Aristide to return in exchange for an end to the embargo.

Yet as the date for Aristide’s return grew near, the military began a campaign of terror against their opponents. The killings peaked in the days before the scheduled return of Aristide, with the brazen murder of Antoine Izmery, a businessman and key Aristide backer, who was abducted from a cathedral and gunned down on a busy city street. Later, Guy Malary, Aristide’s justice minister, was also killed, and his body left by a roadside.

President Bill Clinton publicly expressed his support for Aristide’s return to Haiti, and sent the transport U.S.S. Harlan County, with hundreds of troops, to insure the transition to democracy. But at the port where the ship was to dock, pro-military government thugs staged a demonstration, prompting the Harlan County to turn back

Meanwhile, the C.I.A. was openly running a full-scale disinformation campaign against Aristide. Ultra-conservative North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms, a leading opponent of Aristide, brought C.I.A. analyst Brian Latell to Capitol Hill in October, to brief selected senators and representatives on allegations that Aristide had been treated for mental illness. It turned out that the time during which the C.I.A. report alleges Aristide was treated at a Canadian hospital falls within the same period that Aristide was studying and teaching in Israel. Latell also said he “saw no evidence of oppressive rule” in Haiti.

While Helms was a longtime backer of the brutal dictatorship of Jean-Claude Duvalier, the Democrats have their own ties to the human-rights violators and drug dealers who rule Haiti.

Former Democratic Party head and current secretary of commerce Ron Brown headed a law firm that represented the Duvalier family for decades. Part of that representation was a public-relations campaign that stressed Duvalier’s opposition to communism in the Cold War. United States support for Duvalier was worth more than $400 million in aid to the country, before the man who called himself Haiti’s “President-for-Life” was forced from the country.

This is an extremely lengthy expose- and it’s highly recommended you read it all- But let’s get to the importance of the Windward Passage– Location, location, location (see my response to Mark)

By 1985 the cocaine cartels began to seek transit points for the booming cocaine industry. A natural candidate was Haiti, lying just south of the Bahamas — another favorite transit route.

Haiti is particularly attractive to the drug smugglers because the most direct route from the Colombian coast to Florida lies through the Windward Passage between northern Haiti and eastern Cuba. Port-au-Prince is about 500 nautical miles north of Colombia and 700 miles southeast of Miami.

Since then the role of Haiti in the drug trade has grown, and the profits to the Haitian officials involved have skyrocketed. This may explain the difficulty Aristide experienced, during his short rule, in trying to interdict drug shipments.

Columbia, Cocaine and the Cartels

On April 21, 1994, a convicted Colombian drug trafficker, Gabriel Taboada, who is in the fifth year of a 12-year sentence in a Miami federal prison, fingered Francois at a Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee

Taboada testified that Lt. Col. Francois collaborated in shipping tons of cocaine to the United States during then 1980s.

Taboada said he met Francois while he was in the Medellin, Colombia, office of drug king Pablo Escobar, in 1984. During a 30-minute conversation, Taboada told Francois he was a car importer. Francois, he said, asked “why wasn’t I in the drug business since the drug business made good money.”

Speaking through an interpreter, Taboada said: “I asked him what his business was and he said that at the time he was in Medellin arranging a cocaine deal.” Taboada said he later learned that Francois was chief of police in Haiti.

Taboada told the committee that the cartel “took planes out of Colombia and landed in Haiti, protected by the Haitian military. Michel Francois protected the drugs in Haiti, and then allowed the drugs to continue to the United States.”

Taboada also told the subcommittee that Haitian military figures often met Medellin cartel members in Colombia, including strongman Prosper Avril, who along with Francois, has long been linked to the drug trade in Haiti.

No doubt smuggling of all types continues to this day. This explains the abundance of and empowerment of gangs. The inability of any government to be effective. The degradation and exploitation of ordinary Haitians. All of this known to many in the US. Undoubtedly in Canada too. And worse still you have involvement of western intelligence agencies.-

Colonel Oliver North garners a mention in this older article-

Smuggling fuels wars. Wars fuel smuggling. It’s a vicious circle that ensnares so many innocent people. Haiti is a microcosm of the type of misery, corruption, that reigns globally.

In the early days, at my previous site, Haiti got a fair bit of coverage. For the simple reason that Canada always played a heavy hand in the ongoing misery in that impoverished nation.

ABC News

A proposal to install new leadership in Haiti appears to be crumbling as some political parties rejected the plan to create a presidential council that would manage the transition

Jean Charles Moïse, an ex-senator and presidential candidate who has teamed up with former rebel leader Guy Philippe, held a news conference Wednesday to announce his rejection of the proposed council backed by the international community.

Moïse insisted that a three-person presidential council he recently created with Philippe and a Haitian judge should be implemented.

“We are not going to negotiate it,” he said in a loud voice as he wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. “We have to make them understand."

His ally Philippe, who helped lead a successful revolt in 2004 against former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and was recently released from a U.S. prison after pleading guilty to money laundering, said no Haitian should accept any proposal from the international community.

In a video posted Tuesday on social media, Philippe accused the community of being complicit with Haiti’s elite and corrupt politicians and urged Haitians to take to the streets.

“The decision of Caricom is not our decision,” he said, referring to the regional trade bloc whose leaders presented the plan to create a transitional council. “Haitians will decide who will govern Haiti.”

Caricom and Canada– A Freshly launched strategic partnership

Other high-profile Haitian politicians declined to participate in the proposed transitional council. Among them were Himmler Rébu, former colonel of Haiti’s army and president of the Grand Rally for the Evolution of Haiti, a party that is part of a coalition awarded a spot on the transitional council.

Caribbean leaders who announced the plan for the transitional council did not respond to messages for comment.

The plan emerged late Monday following an urgent meeting involving Caribbean leaders, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and others who were searching for a solution to halt Haiti’s crisis of violence.

Hours after the meeting, Henry announced Tuesday that he would resign once the council was in place, saying that his government “cannot remain insensitive to this situation.”

Henry remains locked out of Haiti because gang attacks have shuttered the country’s airports. He is currently in Puerto Rico.

The gang attacks began Feb. 29, when Henry was in Kenya to push for the U.N.-backed deployment of a Kenyan police force. The deployment has been temporarily suspended.

This is a rather familiar scenario. I’ll explain in short order

Update begins- March 13/24 just before 6:00pm est

via the State Department

The below is attributable to Spokesperson Matthew Miller:

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken spoke with Kenyan President William Ruto today to discuss the expeditious deployment of the Multinational Security Support mission to provide security and stability to the Haitian people, including immediate next steps to facilitate deployment.

Notice the lack of concern for the Palestinian people in Gaza as Israel continues it’s ethnic cleansing, from Blinken and pals. Clearly different goals and agendas are at play!

Secretary Blinken and President Ruto underscored the United Nations Security Council’s stated expectation that the Multinational Security Support mission to Haiti deploy as soon as possible to provide support to the Haitian National Police.  Secretary Blinken updated President Ruto on commitments by the United States and other international partners to support the mission.

I’ve also added a link regarding Canada and CARICOM’s Strategic Partnership- Freshly launched in October 2023

In fact, I’d say what’s more likely is a planned for interference/intervention. That will come off as 'right place/right time, "necessity". And people smuggling, for humanitarian reasons of course (facetious)

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Canadian-Navy-Ships-to-Carry-Out-Intelligence-Mission-in-Haiti-20230217-0001.html?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=socialnetwork

During the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) meeting held in the Bahamas on Thursday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that his country will send two warships to Haiti to help fight urban gangs by gathering intelligence.

More specifically, these Canadian warships will have as their main mission to conduct “surveillance, gather intelligence, and maintain a maritime presence off the Haitian coast in the coming weeks,” as reported by AFP.

So their ‘main mission’ will be intelligence gathering. What will their secondary mission be?

It’s obvious that intelligence gathering is not the sole reason these ships are going to Haiti. Or the sentence would be written as follows- The Canadian warship will have, intelligence gathering as their sole and only mission while off the Haitian coast.

Lies of omission are still lies