The highly respected Florida newspaper the Miami Herald made this information public in an article published on its website on Wednesday, February 15.
In this article signed by journalist Jacqueline Charles, the newspaper reveals that a group of U.S. senators, including Florida Republican Marco Rubio, is reintroducing a bill that would target criminal gangs in Haiti and those in the country’s political and private sectors who collude with them. The bill is called the “Haiti Criminal Collusion Transparency Act of 2022. It calls for severe penalties under the Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, annual reporting on the nature and extent of gang violence in Haiti, links between Haitian political and business elites and criminal gangs, and public access to this information, according to the newspaper.
The legislation was first introduced in the last House session by Florida Democrat Val Demings, who lost her bid to unseat Rubio in the state’s congressional race in November. While the bill builds on existing legislation, its goal is to force the U.S. to expand its efforts to go after Haiti’s criminal gangs and their sponsors, which have not kept pace with similar efforts by the Canadian government, a congressional staffer said.
It is also an opportunity for the newspaper to recall that since November 2022 the Canadian government has sanctioned 15 citizens among them former President Michel Martelly and former Prime Ministers Jean-Henry Céant and Laurent Lamothe, as well as several prominent businessmen for their alleged support to armed gangs in Haiti.
Marco Rubio puts pressure on Washington to do more
Florida’s U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, one of the initiators of the bill in the U.S. Congress, is urging the Biden administration to act. In a statement to the Florida newspaper, the congressman said that
“the Biden administration already has the executive authority to implement targeted sanctions to hold human rights violators accountable for their corrupt actions. However, the administration must go further.
Fearing the consequences of Haiti’s instability on the country itself, the stability of the region, and the stability of his home state of Florida, Marco Rubio laments that “the Haitian people have long suffered the hardships of gang violence, which continues to threaten their daily lives and support corrupt government officials. According to him ”the United States and the international community must hold these bad actors accountable as a first step to solving the island’s complex crisis.”
A proposal supported by Democrats
Marco Rubio, a leading Republican in his state, is not the only proponent of this legislation. Indeed the proposal is co-sponsored in the Senate by Bob Menendez, the New Jersey Democrat who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat, and Republican Ted Cruz of Texas, as well as New Jersey Democrat Cory Booker, writes Jacqueline Charles.
The bill doesn’t just call for sanctions. It also requires the State Department to investigate and provide Congress with annual reports on the nature of the relationship between criminal gangs and political and economic elites in Haiti, the Miami Herald paper said, arguing that “these reports would be publicly available on the State Department’s website.
Jacqueline Charles in her paper recalls that in 2022 U.S. President Joe Biden had in a law required reports for the State Department to inform congressional lawmakers about the ongoing crisis of governance in Haiti, individuals in acts of corruption and events surrounding the 2018 massacre in the La Saline neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, as well as the ongoing investigation into the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.
When the reports were finally released, critics noted that they were not very detailed recalling the article stating that the report on the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse was only a few pages long and the report on corruption was essentially a clip of media reports, with no sign of an independent investigation by U.S. authorities.
Between expectation and optimism
“As the situation in Haiti continues to spiral out of control, I am proud to reintroduce this bipartisan legislation to hold Haiti’s criminal gangs, their financiers and their political supporters accountable,” Menendez said in remarks quoted by the Florida newspaper
“While the Haitian people face a political, security and humanitarian crisis, criminal gangs – and those who support them – continue to perpetrate horrific abuses, including murdering civilians and committing heinous acts of sexual violence with impunity. While Haiti’s future is at stake, those responsible for these crimes must face the consequences, regardless of their status.” Kaine said the Biden administration’s sanctions against gangs last year were a necessary step. “This legislation will expose the links between these individuals who perpetrate unspeakable violence against the Haitian people and the powerful public figures who deploy these gangs for their own benefit,” he said. “It will provide an important tool for transparency, accountability and justice for the Haitian people.”
It must be said that this proposed legislation by U.S. senators of all stripes comes in a context of increasing acts of insecurity in Haiti. Several acts of kidnapping are recorded daily, national roads are no longer accessible with negative consequences on the soaring prices of basic necessities and the free movement of goods and people.
Pierre Philor Saint-Fleur