Renata de Melo Rosa *

Brazil took over the presidency of the United Nations Security Council last Monday, October 2. On the first working day of his mandate, Resolution 2699 (2023) was approved, and Russia and China abstained. This resolution authorizes the deployment of a Kenyan military contingent to support the Haitian National Police in the fight against armed gangs that have controlled neighborhoods of the capital Port-au-Prince for at least two years. The attacks intensified in late 2021 and became politicized with the democratic deficit generated by the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse on July 7 of that year.

It is regrettable that on the first day of the presidency of the Security Council, Brazilian diplomacy put to a vote a resolution that was questionably implemented at the instigation of the Dominican Republic. This country is building a wall to stop the flow of migrants from a neighboring country and prevent Haitians from accessing the waters of the Massacre River, on the border between Dajabón and Ouanaminthe, once the scene of the largest genocide in the history of the Caribbean in 1937, when more than 30,000 Haitians were brutally executed by the dictator and the racist governments of Trujillo.

The international relations literature is ignorant of Kenya’s interest in Haiti. Suddenly this interest was sanctioned in the Security Council with the support of Jamaica and Guyana, which are all former or still colonies (in the case of Jamaica, which is part of the Commonwealth and recognizes the authority of the British monarchy) of England. We do not understand the guidelines of Brazilian foreign policy: why support, vote and vote for a Resolution based on Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which allows the use of force on foreign territory? Where are the obligations to protect the countries of the Afrodiaspora from armed intervention? Why not be prudent and vote for an observation mission based on Chapter VI. UN Charter? How will sending a military contingent from Kenya help the Haitian National Police, which already has cooperation with the Mexican police? Is this really the maximum effort that Brazil can make at the head of the Security Council? Is repeating the same mistakes of the past, as when Brazilian diplomacy pushed for the authorization of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), which remained in the country for 14 years and exacerbated its fragility, really a diplomatic effort? South-South cooperation?

We regret this position and hope for a course correction in the bilateral politics of Brazil and Haiti. Instead of hasty actions in the Security Council, Brazil could implement various bilateral actions to reduce the level of violence in Port-au-Prince, it could provide anti-racist assistance to Haitian migrants who want to go to Brazil and strengthen justice in Haiti, given that the United Nations Mission for Justice Support in Haiti (MINUJUSTH), whose mandate lasted two years (from October 2017 to October 2019) and which succeeded MINUSTAH, was not sufficiently committed to building community bases in favor of peace in the country.

Building on the technical cooperation in the field of intelligence work and the prevention of the proliferation of gang activity through drones that already exists between the Haitian National Police and the Mexican police, Brazil could offer cooperation with the intelligence and investigative service of its civilian police, in its powers provided for in Article 144. of the Federal Constitution of 1988, in the procedural areas related to police investigations and their referral to the judiciary, with procedural deadlines guaranteeing access to the appropriate legal process for the investigation of crimes against life, related to the strengthening of the prison system in Port-au-Prince.

The Brazilian government could also propose to the Security Council a multilateral investment in the construction of more prisons in accordance with the technical specifications of accessibility, soil permeability, bioclimatic comfort and environmental impact, following the Brazilian Basic Guidelines for Penal Architecture, given that the prison conditions in Haiti violate the most basic principles of human rights. Brazil could also build a policy of dialogue on the ultimate fate of criminal gangs: try them, amnesty them or resettle them.

Brazil could discuss resettlement strategies in the Council, taking into account that if Port-au-Prince gang criminals are tried outside of Haiti, given the tendency of the Bwa Kale movement to take justice into their own hands, they will not leave the country alive in post-conflict period. It could also help in the following actions: a) ask the TSE for technical cooperation with the CEP – Provisional Electoral Council of Haiti in order to hold clean and fair elections in the country as soon as possible; b) propose to the government of the Dominican Republic the creation of housing for Haitian immigrants, with funds from the international community; c) Facilitate the entry of Haitian immigrants into the territory of Brazil, exempting them from visa requirements; d) restart the CAPES Pro-Haiti program, aimed at the exchange of Haitian students to Brazilian public universities, which was lost amid the collapse of the Brazilian government in 2016; f) Strengthen the increase in the number of places for Haitian students in the PEC-G and PEC-PG programs and request from the Brazilian Embassy in Haiti a marketing plan for the adequate distribution of this program among interested Haitian students; g) propose the creation of a version of PROUNI-Haiti in order for private universities to accept students from Haiti; h) Dialogue with the Brazilian Agency for Cooperation in order to present a new South-South cooperation program between Brazil and Haiti, based on the demands of Haitian organized civil society. (OR)

Doctor of Anthropology of Latin America and the Caribbean from the University of Brasilia. Director of the Maria Quitéria Institute and co-founder of the Brazil-Haiti Initiative. He completed his postdoctoral studies at the National Institute for Administration, Management and International Studies of the State University of Haiti.