Up until recently there were gangs causing violence in Haiti. However, now, the country’s police force has devolved into a gang-like entity. Do you know that this force is funded and managed by Canada? While Canada has offered development assistance to Haiti, including support for security sector reform and police capacity building, the impact of these programs on the Haitian police has become a matter of contention.
The majority of aid given to the Haitian Police is being misused against the very people it is supposed to protect. The police have now become a source of fear and terror for the people of Haiti. This raises the question of the effectiveness of the aid and its consequences on the country. So, today we question Canada’s buttressing of the Haitian Police Force.
Orphaned Haiti
The Haitians today are not able to sleep peacefully because now they are on their own. The Police of Haiti have given up on protecting people from the gang debacle. The story does not end here. As, the police themselves are wreaking havoc in Port-Au Prince. Who do you think is responsible for this mishap? Who do you think militarized the Police so much that they have literally become the monster they were supposed to fight. The answer is Canada.
Contrary to prime minister Justin Trudeau’s smug platitude that it supports free speech, Canada actively supports oppressive policing in the nation. Recently, the last 10 senators in Haiti’s parliament officially resigned, leaving the nation without a single democratically elected official. At the very same time, the Haitian national police or HNP received armored vehicles from a Canadian military aircraft.
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Reportedly, in 2022, Ottawa invested $42 million in the HNP. The first batch of Canadian-made armored personnel vehicles was delivered to the Haitian police by US and Canadian warplanes in October of last year, and Ottawa has worked to increase UN support for the HNP.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s deputy commissioner, Mike Duheme, also signed a memorandum of understanding last week in Port-au-Prince “to facilitate cooperation between our two countries and to strengthen the capacity of the HNP.”
A long past
But this is nothing new. Canada has been doing this for decades in Haiti. Canada has increased the size of the Haitian National Police (HNP) from 5,000 in 2004 to 14,000 through several training projects. Donors from outside Haiti have contributed up to 50% of the HNP‘s funding.
But, this time, their police ammunition has boomeranged badly. Even during the Lavalas era, Canada helped the coup regime’s repression of political opposition by supporting the post-Lavalas HNP.
Numerous police officers were fired and some were killed on suspicion of being loyal to the deposed Lavalas government. Hundreds of former soldiers from the military, which Aristide disbanded in 1995 due to violations of human rights, were incorporated into the HNP at the same time.
Only one of the top 12 police commanders in the Port-au-Prince area does not have a military background, and the majority of regional police chiefs are also former soldiers, according to a Reuters report from a year after the coup. The Canadian-led UN police force’s goal was to “professionalize” the HNP, but instead, it contributed to its militarization and enabled its abuses.
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Canada-backed HNP also worked to entrench an illegitimate foreign-imposed government, which is an obstacle to overcoming root causes of Haiti’s problems, that is, the absence of democracy and sovereignty. Clearly the recent unfortunate turn of events in Haiti has Canada’s role in it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plQE_e8fFZg