EDITORIAL | Haiti Is Not Bukele’s Battlefield: Foreign Power, UN Double Standards and Failed Haitian Leadership

EDITORIAL / OPINION

By Cherlie Joseph

Haiti is not a stage for Nayib Bukele’s political image, a permanent international security experiment, or a territory whose people can be treated as spectators in decisions about their own future.

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The Salvadoran president’s announcement of a military operation to recover four Salvadoran personnel held by armed groups deserves scrutiny beyond the language of rescue. Recovering missing personnel is a legitimate objective. It does not give any foreign leader an unlimited license to threaten escalating force on Haitian soil.

Haitian civilians are not bargaining chips. Their neighborhoods are not expendable terrain. Their lives must carry the same weight as the lives of foreign personnel.

BUKELE MUST ANSWER FOR THE CONSEQUENCES OF HIS WORDS

Bukele announced the rescue operation on October 21 and warned of a stronger response if the Salvadorans were not returned unharmed.

Such language raises an essential question: what safeguards accompany that threat?

Any government announcing military action in a populated area must explain how it will distinguish armed actors from residents, protect families and investigate possible civilian harm. A president’s confidence in his own methods cannot substitute for those obligations.

Our objection is to the assumption that military resolve, displayed publicly, is sufficient evidence of a responsible policy. Haiti does not owe Bukele an opportunity to demonstrate strength. He owes the Haitian population respect for its rights and accountability for the conduct of the forces under his authority.

THE UN’S CREDIBILITY DEPENDS ON WHAT IT DOES

The international security operation has a Security Council mandate. The United Nations Support Office in Haiti provides logistical and operational support to the Gang Suppression Force. These arrangements must be described accurately: authorization by the Council does not make every participating soldier a UN peacekeeper.

That distinction, however, does not absolve the United Nations of responsibility for the support it provides.

The mandate itself requires respect for Haitian sovereignty and applicable international law. Those commitments must function as enforceable limits, not ceremonial language surrounding an operation whose consequences residents cannot challenge.

An institution cannot credibly invoke human rights while treating scrutiny of supported forces as an inconvenience. If civilian protection is a principle, it must apply when allegations concern international partners as firmly as when they concern armed gangs.

The hypocrisy we reject is selective accountability: demanding standards from others while failing to demonstrate how those same standards constrain the policies one authorizes, supports or finances.

WASHINGTON MUST FACE THE ARMS QUESTION

The United States has a documented role in supporting the international security response. UN reporting also identifies illicit weapons routes connecting the United States to Haiti, directly and through other territories.

These are distinct facts. They do not establish that the American government deliberately supplies Haitian gangs. They do establish why Washington’s policy cannot be assessed only through its contributions to military operations.

A serious response must confront the supply networks that make sustained armed violence possible: buyers, exporters, intermediaries, shipping channels and financial facilitators.

Sending security assistance while failing to stop illicit weapons flows is an inadequate answer to the people living with the consequences.

Washington should be judged on more than deployment announcements. It should be judged on investigations, prosecutions, disrupted trafficking networks and transparent evidence of results.

THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC CANNOT ESCAPE REGIONAL SCRUTINY

UN reporting has identified the Dominican Republic as a transit route and a source of weapons circulating illegally before reaching Haiti. That finding warrants scrutiny of trafficking networks and the effectiveness of controls.

It does not, by itself, prove a Dominican government policy of arming Haitian gangs. Making that accusation without evidence would weaken the demand for accountability.

But refusing an unsupported accusation does not mean accepting official reassurance without examination. Dominican authorities should face clear questions about investigations, border controls, illicit ammunition movements and cooperation against traffickers.

The Dominican Republic also participates in arrangements supporting the international response. Its role deserves public examination rather than being treated as politically neutral or beyond criticism.

Regional responsibility means addressing how violence is sustained across borders. It cannot mean discussing Haiti only as a problem that neighboring countries must contain.

HAITIAN LEADERSHIP CANNOT OUTSOURCE ITS RESPONSIBILITY

The most direct political responsibility also rests with Haitian authorities.

A government’s request for foreign assistance is not evidence that every Haitian supports that decision. Legal authorization, popular consent and political legitimacy are different questions.

Haitian leaders who accept an international security operation must explain its objectives, its limits, its oversight and the conditions under which it will end. They must also explain how it will strengthen Haitian institutions rather than deepen dependence.

Leadership reduced to requesting foreign protection and endorsing external decisions is a failure of political responsibility.

Haiti needs authorities answerable to its people, capable of defending the public interest and willing to confront criminal financing and institutional weakness. Diplomatic recognition cannot replace that work.

SOVEREIGNTY MUST PROTECT THE PEOPLE

Rejecting foreign domination does not require endorsing armed gangs. Being Haitian does not give anyone the right to terrorize Haitian families. Wearing a foreign uniform does not give anyone the right to disregard those families either.

Reports alleging attacks on homes or civilian casualties require independent investigation. They should neither be dismissed automatically nor published as established facts without verification.

The standard must be consistent: protect civilians, establish responsibility and provide remedies where wrongdoing is proven.

Haiti’s future cannot belong to foreign presidents competing over displays of force, international institutions satisfied with renewing mandates, regional governments avoiding difficult questions, or Haitian leaders who confuse dependence with governance.

Bukele must answer for his forces and his threats. The United Nations must answer for the operations it supports. Washington must answer for its policies and its enforcement against illicit weapons flows. Dominican authorities must answer for their own controls and regional commitments. Haitian leaders must answer to Haitians.

Respect for Haiti begins when its people stop being treated as the background to everyone else’s strategy.