Canada sends armoured vehicles to Haiti as Haitian activists call for foreign military interventions to stop
CBC reports: “Global Affairs Canada confirmed Saturday evening that, in a joint operation, U.S. and Canadian air forces helped deliver three Mine-Resistant, Ambush-Protected (MRAP) vehicles and three commercial pattern armoured vehicles. The vehicles were purchased by the Haitian government from a Canadian company.”
For more, this is the Global Affairs Canada media release: Canada and United States coordinate delivery of Haitian National Police equipment.
CTV notes: “While Canada has pledged financial aid in recent months for Haiti, experts and activists that have been closely following the events in the country over the last two decades say Haiti needs to be left alone.”
Former Canadian ambassador to Haiti Gilles Rivard says: “We keep saying what we’ve been saying for a long time, let Haiti decide its own destiny. …There’s a lot that has to be done but that first part has to come from Haiti in my view.”
And Haitian-Canadian activist Jean Saint-Vil says: “Get out. Haitians have been telling Canada, the United States, Europe to get out.”
He adds: “The imperialists are pretending to be putting to put out fires, we are telling them that we know you are the arsonists.”
Democracy Now has also reported: “Mass protests in Haiti are condemning rising fuel prices and demanding the resignation of the U.S.-backed Prime Minister Ariel Henry. For nearly two months, street protests likened to a civil war have rocked the island nation’s capital Port-au-Prince after the government announced it would raise heavily subsidized fuel prices.”
Haitian activist Vélina Élysée Charlier told them: “The gangs that we are seeing, they are very close to the power. The government uses the gangs to control the population, to terrorize the population and try to kill any will that the population would have to protest against what’s happening. They also use the gangs so that they can change the narrative.”
Montreal-based author Yves Engler has also highlighted in Canadian Dimension magazine: “In the last two decades alone Canada helped destabilize Haiti’s elected government, planned a coup, and participated in an invasion to topple a president. Ottawa also trained and financed a highly repressive police force, enabling a litany of politically motivated arrests and killings. Canada also backed the exclusion of Haiti’s most popular party from participating in multiple elections and helped fix an election.”
In 1993, in response to increasing military violence in Haiti after the 1991 coup, Peace Brigades International participated in the Cry for Justice coalition with dozens of other organizations including Christian Peacemaker Teams.
Cry for Justice sent 75 volunteers to Haiti in late 1993 to provide a short-term peaceful presence in six different towns suffering from high levels of violence.
After the return of Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1995, PBI fielded a long-term team that offered training programs in nonviolent conflict resolution.
The aim was to establish a network of Haitian trainers to continue the work in a country devastated by years of tyranny and military rule.
Aristide’s government was overthrown in February 2004.
The film Haiti Betrayed documents how Canada worked with the United States and France to topple the Aristide government.
We continue to follow this situation.
Image: PBI in Haiti.
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