Bangladesh agrees to join non-UN international force in Haiti

United Nations: Bangladesh has agreed to join an international force that will operate independently of the U.N. to help restore order in Haiti, which a U.N. spokesman said has descended into gang-fueled chaos.

Bangladesh is one of six countries that have written to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres saying they will contribute personnel to the Multinational Security Support Mission in Haiti (MSSM), spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Monday.

Invoking the provisions of the UN Charter for the maintenance of peace, the Security Council authorized the establishment of the MSSM mission to help improve the situation in Haiti by aiding national political power.

After being burned by previous forays into the Caribbean country, the UN is taking a hands-off approach this time, authorizing a force that will operate independently and not as a UN peacekeeping mission.

The other countries in the Kenya-led force are the Bahamas, Barbados, Benin, Chad and Jamaica.

Bangladesh is taking a bold step to join the mission after the catastrophic end of the previous UN mission involving military peacekeepers ended in 2017, amid allegations that Nepalese forces introduced a cholera variant from South Asia that the World Health Organization has killed 9,792 Haitians. and more than 810,000 sick.

The mission, known as MINUSTAH after its French initials, was ineffective in bringing peace to the country and contributed to its demise.

A smaller mission without the military component that followed ended in 2019.

Armed gangs control several parts of the country, including the capital Port-au-Prince, and several thousand have been killed in the violence that has destabilized the country.

According to the UN, more than 362,000 Haitians have been displaced by gang activity, 1.4 of the 11.5 million people are threatened by famine, and four million people face “acute food insecurity.”

There were few candidates due to Haiti’s history of ill-fated international interventions.

Kenya eventually offered to lead the mission, but had to overcome legal challenges in the country before it could take charge.

The latest twist in Haiti’s tragic saga is that Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who fled the country in February, resigned last week while in exile in the US.

A National Transitional Council was immediately established with representatives from political parties and civil society groups, with Finance Minister Michel Patrick Boisvert as interim Prime Minister to find a more sustainable solution.

The 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise was one of the milestones in the chaos of Haiti, which suffered for decades under the brutal dictatorship of the Duvalier family and faced a military coup and violence after its overthrow in 1986 that interrupted feeble attempts. in democracy.

The UN has set up an ambitious $400 million trust fund to help victims of the cholera epidemic blamed on Nepali peacekeepers, but has collected only about five percent of that amount.

(IANS)