Stop pushing for elections in Haiti, President Biden. They will only make things worse | Editorial
Haiti is a mess. And the Biden administration finally acknowledged that in granting Temporary Protected Status to more than 100,000 Haitians in the United States. President Biden has kept part of his campaign promise and reversed his predecessor’s attempt to terminate TPS, humanitarian relief that has provided a safe haven for tens of thousands of Haitians and Central Americans living in this country.
For that, Biden, whose Department of Homeland Security issued a new 18-month TPS designation to Haitians living in the United States as of May 21, 2021, should be commended. It means that he and his officials have finally heard what immigration activists, clergy, members of the Haitian community in the United States and Haitians in Haiti have been saying for months: Haiti is too dangerous for its nationals to return.
But the administration’s work in that tortured nation is not done. If Haiti is so dangerous and so unstable that the administration has given its U.S.-based citizens a reprieve through TPS, then Haiti also is too dangerous and too unstable to hold credible and secure elections. But the Biden administration has been insisting on them. It should stop.
Not a cure-all
TPS is only a Band-aid solution. Now Congress and Biden must take the necessary next steps to give Haitians not just a permanent solution with a pathway to citizenship in order to remain in the United States, but also the choice to return home in confidence, not fear — because their homeland is safe.
This brings us to the Biden administration’s Haiti policy — or, rather, its lack of a clear policy committed to restoring democracy there.
For months, the administration has been following its predecessor’s mantra of “elections at all costs” by calling on Haitian President Jovenel Moïse to hold legislative and presidential elections this year. But in insisting that elections are the only way forward, the Biden administration has failed to address the stark realities that led to its decision to grant a new TPS designation. Conditions on the ground in Haiti make clear that Moïse cannot hold free, fair and credible elections: serious security concerns, social unrest, human-rights abuses, crippling poverty.
In other words, Moïse, Haiti’s wannabe autocrat, is not governing. He has failed to meet Haitian citizens’ most basic needs. Instead of tackling gang violence that has led to an alarming rash of kidnappings and human-rights violations, Moïse has used the past 16 months of one-man rule to take several unconstitutional actions. They include the creation of a problematic national intelligence agency; the introduction, in the words of Acting Assistant Secretary of State Julie Chung, “dubious definitions of terrorism”; a reduction in the role of key institutions such as the Superior Court of Auditors and Administrative Disputes, and the removal and replacement of three Supreme Court judges.
He has also pushed a controversial June 27 referendum on the constitution that almost every Haitian constitutional scholar and legal expert has said is illegal. But rather than listen to them, U.S. State Department officials have ignored them. Some in the State Department have reportedly told members of Congress in private that they do not think moving forward with the constitutional referendum is appropriate, they have refused to say so publicly. The administration’s mixed messaging is unhelpful and should stop.
Action, not rhetoric
In a recent address to members of the Haitian diaspora to commemorate the country’s May 18 Haitian Flag Day, Chung said the United States will “unapologetically denounce authoritarianism, impunity, human rights violations and corruption.” We are, right now, calling Chung and the Biden administration on it.
It’s time for Washington to end the rhetoric on Haiti and take real action. It’s time to stop equating democracy solely with elections,and it’s past time to promote and demand good governance. That means that the administration must stop supporting leaders with autocratic tendencies simply because it deems them “democratically elected.” They are just as guilty as their counterparts elsewhere in the hemisphere who trample human rights and promote policies that will keep them in power.
It’s time to support the Haitian people, not just by keeping needed remittances flowing into Haiti as the TPS designation will do, but by also giving Haitians in the United States the real choice to return home if they choose, and real hope that things will get better.
The Biden administration must ask itself: What does it want conditions in Haiti to look like at the end of its 18-month TPS designation? Does it want the number of Haitians coming to our border to have exponentially increased because the country has become even more unlivable following the controversial constitutional referendum? This not only will further derail the possibility of holding free, fair and credible elections, but it will fast track what the Catholic Church has described as Haiti’s “descent into hell.”
U.S. to blame, too
While Biden works to persuade members of Congress to support a pathway to citizenship with his legislation to overhaul immigration, he must also direct his State Department to take a harder look at Haiti and make some real changes. He must do so because the United States has long had a heavy hand in Haiti’s politics and is not immune from blame for what is currently taking place there. It’s also the right thing to do. After all, we once occupied the country for 19 years and, in that process, forced a new constitution to benefit our own desires.
It is time for the Biden administration to also listen to the cries of Haitian families, here and those on the island — who are increasingly becoming kidnap victims — and of the country’s young grassroots activists who have been screaming for a better and free Haiti.
Biden should acknowledge that the first step to a free Haiti is not through insisting on “elections at all costs” but by insisting on good governance. And it should start with the United States openly and unapologetically opposing the June 27 constitutional referendum that, despite whatever good intentions some in the international community may have, will not bring Haiti closer to democracy. Rather, it will pull the country deeper into chaos and authoritarianism.
