Haiti Doesn't Need Another Foreign Intervention

by Daniel Larison, Responsible Statecraft

The unelected and widely despised Haitian authorities under acting prime minister Ariel Henry have appealed for outside forces to restore order, but the people of Haiti have made it as clear as they can that Henry and his allies do not speak for them and that their request has no legitimacy. The United States has meddled too often and caused too much harm to Haiti over the decades, and it is time that our government stop its habit of baleful interference and let the people of Haiti chart their own course.

The long history of failed and destructive outside interference in Haitian affairs shows that neither the United States nor the U.N. has the solution to Haiti’s political problems. Each time that outside forces have meddled in the name of helping Haiti, they have reliably made things worse. The current crisis is itself the product of ongoing interference on the part of the U.S. government, which backed former President Jovenel Moïse when he was alive and has been instrumental in keeping Henry in power despite his lack of democratic legitimacy and the broad coalition of Haitians opposed to his continued rule. That is a continuation of a destructive pattern of U.S. backing for abusive Haitian leaders that goes back to the Cold War and an even longer tradition of U.S. domination that goes back centuries.