In Response to Antonio Guterres, Haitian Organizations Point to Responsibility of UN for the Gangsterization of Haiti

By AlterPresse – Sep 28, 2022

The United Nations is complicit in what is referred to as the “gangsterization” of Haiti. The existence of criminal gangs is the result of UN Core Group interference, yet these criminal gangs are now being used as the pretext for additional intervention.

Open letter to the secretary general of the United Nations (UN), Antonio Guterres, dated 22 September 2022, by a set of political and social organizations. Submitted to AlterPresse.

Mr. Secretary General of the United Nations (UN),

Dear Secretary General,

The struggling Haitian people were greatly surprised and stunned when they learned that you have broadcast, on channel France 24, with regard to their current just and legitimate protest movement, a set of false information that is prone to confusion, criminalization, to discredit their struggle for a sovereign, just, and livable Haiti. Contrary to your assertions, these popular protests are part of a struggle for a Haiti free from suffocating foreign interference, gangsterization, this extreme manufactured misery and an anti-national, illegitimate, criminal political regime established by the Core Group, of which the UN is a member. This puppet political regime, operating under the dictates of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), has just stabbed the people by its decision to increase, by more than one hundred percent (128%) the price of petroleum products, which have already undergone, in less than a year, a vertiginous increase, that has led to the doubling and tripling, in some cases, of the prices of basic necessities. Note that in July 2022, according to data from the Bank of the Republic of Haiti (Brh), the inflation rate already reached 30.5%[1]. It has been announced that it will reach more than 50% in November if this increase in the prices of petroleum products is maintained.

You will agree that to accept this new criminal increase in the prices of petroleum products is at the same time to accept the doubling of prices that had already greatly increased, thus multiplying the ordeal of the suffering Haitian people. This new decision, taken to the detriment of the interests of the people, has aroused its anger and also intensified a protest movement already initiated, whose objective is the recovery of our sovereignty, the recovery of Haiti’s destiny by Haitians, the establishment by Haitians of a legitimate government, capable of defending the interests of the people and meeting the various challenges of the moment.

Haiti’s Four Years of Nonstop Protests Against US Interference

This, among other things, is what motivates this general protest movement, which inflames the whole country and which puts crowds of rebellious citizens everywhere in the streets, outraged by the unacceptable actions of a corrupt criminal power, supported by the imperialist powers, the Core Group and the UN in particular.

Therefore, Mr. Secretary General, you have probably been misinformed.

Undoubtedly, this is the reason why, with great lightness, you said, on the French channel France 24, that what is currently happening in Haiti is a case of gangs having invaded the whole country, and that this gang movement was infiltrated by political sectors and businesspeople. You have thus totally distorted the reality on the ground and given an exactly opposite version of what is really happening. The truth is that the gangs in Haiti, which are the political appendages of the current de facto power, of the Core Group—which operate with impunity and under command—have tried to infiltrate the popular protest movement, under the orders of their bosses, to sow confusion, discredit it, and thus provide the international community, and you in particular, with a pretext to succeed in criminalizing it.

Contrary to what you have dared to allege without any evidence, it is the gangs—whose federation has been presented to you as a reducer of murder cases by Ms. Lalime, your current Special Representative—who have, on authorization and on “special” request, tried to infiltrate the popular mobilization to sow confusion and thus try to distort it. But fortunately, many astute observers had already understood the game and had invited the Haitian people to be cautious, therefore to take all the necessary precautions, in order to avoid this harmful infiltration and its perverse effects.

Mr. Secretary General, your unfounded statement challenges us and leads us to produce a set of pertinent questions, namely:

Has your Special Representative in Haiti, Ms. Helen M. Lalime, who is responsible for informing you, not informed you insufficiently or simply misinformed you about what is really happening in Haiti?

Moreover, do you have a clear awareness of the pernicious role that the UN has played and still plays in the criminal process of gangsterization of Haiti, calling into question respect for the fundamental rights of the Haitian people?

Moreover, a highly serious fact already pointed out in a statement by various Haitian organizations, the current representative of the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH) is considered the instigator of a federation of armed gangs with terrorist practices throughout the country. To be convinced, it is enough to refer to its report [2] dated September 25, 2020. Have you measured what the involvement of your special representative in the scandal of the federation of gangs, federated gangs in order to feed and reinforce insecurity to the point of chaos, represents in terms of public morality?

You also specified that “a plan to strengthen the Haitian National Police (PNH) and send a robust military force to fight gangs would be under consideration at the UN level.” Mr. Secretary General, the United Nations has been increasing its missions in Haiti since 1993 (UNMIH). Specifically, it is worth reminding you of the undeniable failure of various UN missions in Haiti over the past eighteen years (2004-2022). Far from helping to improve the situation, they have all contributed to making it worse. What we are calling for is not the dispatch of a military mission, but rather the establishment of an independent commission of inquiry to evaluate the concrete results of the various UN missions already sent to the field, and in particular the latest one, the BINUH, led by your representative with incomparable cynicism, Helen M. Lalime.

In addition, why consider sending a military force to thwart the criminal action of gangs, when we know that gangs are servants who operate on command, including at the behest of the power in place, the Core Group and your special representative?

You also stressed, confining yourself to the infernal logic of the IMF and the objective of supporting the criminal decision to increase the price of petroleum products once again, that “the Haitian State must not subsidize petroleum products, but preferentially subsidize families.” It is fundamental to remind you that it was always for the benefit of families that these products were subsidized and when the State, on the orders of the IMF, is forced not to subsidize them, it is unfortunately to the detriment of the interests of these same families, of which you speak, that this is done. These families, who have a fixed monthly income, will have to face, as a result of this irresponsible decision, a very complicated, highly precarious and worrying situation.

Under these conditions, how do you expect the families to sit idly by in the face of this malicious and unwelcome decision by the illegitimate Prime Minister, which penalizes them so terribly?

Do the families or the popular masses need, in this case, the gangs, supported by the UN, which massacre them, kidnap them daily to flank them in the streets?

Black Alliance for Peace Condemns Renewal of the UN Mission to Haiti (BINUH)

In conclusion, Mr. Secretary General, we want to assure you that the people, this time, will leave the streets only with the establishment of a transitional Government, chosen by Haitians with a road map, a comprehensive program in the direction of satisfying their legitimate demands. This necessarily involves the resignation of Ariel Henry, whom you and the other actors of the international anti-Haiti community intend at all costs to support, for the criminal work of destabilizing our country that he carries out to your satisfaction.

We, the signatory organizations, invite you to pull yourself together and show respect for the struggle of the Haitian people and to repair the enormous wrongs committed against them by your derogatory actions and remarks. We are also convinced, as already pointed out in correspondence last July, that the time has come for relations between Haiti and the United Nations system to be defined on a new basis, given the negative and disastrous results of the UN missions deployed in Haiti since the 1990s.

For organizations:

Inisyativ Patriyòt Maryen (Ipam) / Hugues Célestin
Alternative Socialiste (Aso) / Jean Hénold Buteau
Latibonit kanpe pou Ayiti (LAKAY) / Rigaud Velumat
Mouvman Revolisyonè pou Liberasyon Mas yo (Morelim) / Nelio Petit-Homme
Mouvement de Liberté, d’Égalité des Haïtiens pour la Fraternité (Moleghaf) / David Oxygène
TANBOU PALE / Alcereste Schneider
Nou se Dorval / Iswick Théophin
Union Nationale des Normaliens-nes d’Haïti (Unnoh) / Peguy Noel
Kolektif Solidarite, Idantite ak Libète (Ksil) / Rudy Prudent
Centrale Nationale des Ouvriers Haïtiens (Cnoha) / Dominique St Eloi
Antèn Ouvriye Ayiti / Lominy Edmond
Action Sociale pour le Progrès et le Changement de la Jeunesse Haïtienne / Luckner Chéry
Alternative Citoyenne Nippes (AC-NIP) / Moise Thomas
Rèl peyizan / Pierre Jean Riker
Konbit Ayisyen pou Lojman Altènatif (Kayla) / Francia Pierrette
Obsèvatwa pou Egalite (Ope) / Jean Claudy Aristil
Union Syndicale des Transporteurs Haïtiens / Venès Junior Many
Asosyasyon Viktim Masak Leta nan Katye Popilè yo (Avimekp) / Nevelson Jean-Baptiste
Initiative des Citoyens Organisés de Petit-Goâve (Icop) / José Fabiola Josera
Respect des Ouvriers Haïtiens de la Manufacture (Rohm) / Jacques Minephar Juste
Collectif des Planteurs Responsables pour l’avancement d’Haïti (Coprah) / Roberto Annelus
Rezo Òganizasyon Nòdwès / Kerby Joseph
Platfòm Rezistans Peyizan Latibonit (Prepla) / Nicolas Pierre-Louis
Plateforme des Nationalistes Révoltés et Engagés (Planare) / Victor Charidieu
COMIPOL / Ernso Ertilus
Mouvman Antant Popilè (Map) / Patrice Laporte
Vwa Fanm Angaje Nò (Vfan) / Chantal Alizé
Platfòm Oganizasyon pou Ideyal Bwawon Tonè / Hugues-Capè Mondésir
MOSSO/AVIMB / Gary Lindor
Kowòt Patriyotik / Francisco Alcide
Union for Social and Community Development ( Udesc-HAITI) / Eldin Jean
Cercle Grégory Saint-Hilaire / Cilien Luxenat
Armand Joseph Jules / Citizen Engaged
Cri Castro / Wismania Perrin
Armand Joseph Jules, Citizen Engaged
Fòs Dèlma 32 / Clerveaux Fritznel
Inisyativ Sitwayen Ayisyen / Gustave Augustin
Association of Committed and Supportive Women for Advancement and Progress (Afesap) / Mona Brutus
Fanm Vanyan pou sove Souverennte Ayiti / Francia Felix
Sèk Janil / Bedouby Nobert
MSTH-ROZO / Mario Maisonneuve
Kolektif Atis Angaje (Katan) / Kébert Bastien
Konbit Òganizasyon Sendikal, Politik ak Popilè / Josué Mérilien
Haitian Platform for Advocacy for Alternative Development (Papda) / Camille Chalmers
Mouvman Leve Kanpe pou yon Lòt Endepandans / Patrick Joseph