The Latin American participants in UN Stabilisation Mission in Haiti (Minustah) have drawn up plans for a gradual withdrawal from Haiti. President Michel Martelly has prepared a blueprint for the creation of a Haitian armed force which should take over from Minustah in three year’s time. The secretiveness of his initiative has attracted criticism from both pro- and anti-army legislators (whose approval is essential). Protesters want Minustah out at the end of this year, and the launch of the plan envisaged by Martelly is already running more than a month late.
On 8 September in Montevideo, Uruguay, the nine Latin American countries that have personnel serving in Minustah agreed on a gradual reduction of that force from the current 12,200 to about 9,000 — in other words, to the level prevailing before the January 2010 earthquake. Mariano Fernández, the Chilean head of Minustah, said that the military and civilian personnel sent to deal with that emergency had virtually completed their task. Their plan to downscale Minustah ‘without compromising its effectiveness’ was submitted to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and to the UN Security Council for consideration before Minustah’s current mandate expires on 15 October.
Minustah currently comprises 7,803 military personnel from 19 countries, 2,136 police personnel from 41 countries and 464 civilians from 115 nationalities. It also employs 1,239 Haitian civilians and 207 UN volunteers. The two largest military contingents are those from Brazil (1,280) and Uruguay (1,136).
By the time of the Montevideo meeting, public opinion in Haiti was turning strongly against Minustah. Already incensed by the conviction that Minustah troops had been responsible for introducing the bacteria that triggered a cholera epidemic that claimed more than 6,200 lives, Haitians were incensed by the news that, in August, a group of four Uruguayan marines serving with Minustah had abused a young Haitian man. Police had their work cut out for them containing a string of angry demonstrations.
On 12 September Senator Youri Latortue, president of the justice & public safety committee, announced that two draft resolutions would be put before the senate, one limiting the immunity of Minustah personnel, the other proposing a gradual withdrawal of Minustah to be completed on 15 October 2014.
A group of university students, which had been spearheading the protests together with an association seeking compensation for the victims of the cholera epidemic, demanded the withdrawal of Minustah — described as an ‘occupation army’ and a ‘criminal force’ — by the end of this year.
On 20 September the Haitian senate approved a non-binding resolution calling for the complete withdrawal of Minustah by 15 October 2012. The senate’s president, Rodolph Joazile, a former army officer, said this resolution would be conveyed to ‘friendly countries’. Joazile leads a group of senators that has been pressing President Michel Martelly to set in motion the creation of a new Haitian military force. Senator Latortue, who is also a former army officer, flew to Brazil to start a lobbying some of these countries. Latortue is another outspoken advocate of the establishment of a new army.
Apparently, unbeknownst to the pro-army camp in the senate, Martelly had already begun to circulate among ‘friendly’ governments his blueprint for the creation of a new military force. Its existence was first revealed on 27 September in a leak to the Associated Press. By the following day, the full text of the 22-page document entitled Politique de défense et de sécurité nationale: Les Grands Axes, prepared by the presidential cabinet’s defence & national security council and dated August 2011, was made widely available.
Martelly’s plan
The plan is to create, over a period of three years, a 3,500-strong armed force. This reactivated military force appears in the document bearing several names: Nouvelle Force Publique, Nouvelle Force Armée de Défense and Nouvelle Force Armée. This is expected to cost the equivalent of US$95m, of which US$50m would go to the creation of the new armed force, US$30m to the establishment of the ‘mandatory mixed civic service’ envisaged in the constitution, and US$15m to compensating the members of the armed forces demobilised by Aristide in 1995. Funding is expected to come from international donors.
The first phase, in six weeks over September and October, should begin with Martelly issuing a decree rescinding the one by which President Jean-Bertrand Aristide disbanded the armed forces in January 1995. This phase envisages the establishment of a special commission formed by ‘remobilised’ members of the old armed forces: 150 officers and 500 NCOs to evaluate new recruits and choose headquarter sites for the first four military regions. This is to be followed by the recruitment of the first 500 soldiers, to be trained by a team of instructors (a third drawn from Minustah, the rest from among the Haitian officers and NCOs). This phase, which also includes the withdrawal of Minustah from the north-west and the handover of their functions to the new military, is expected to be completed by the end of July 2012.
A third phase should see the beginning of a gradual departure of Minustah personnel, the activation of new military regions across Haiti and the reactivation of the technical services and the military academy. A fourth phase should see the buildup of the new armed forces to its planned strength of 3,500 by the end of July 2013 and the departure of all remaining Minustah personnel the following year.
Regarding the police, the document only includes what seem to be chapter headings under the general title of ‘Reorientation of Missions’. The national police (PNH) currently has 8,500 officers, or one for every 1,176 inhabitants, a proportion widely considered to be far below requirements.
Reactions
The publication of the Martelly plan attracted strong criticism from across the board. Leaders of Inité, the party that has a majority in the senate and a plurality of 36 seats in the 99-seat chamber of deputies, reiterated their opposition to the very idea of reestablishing a military force. As put by Senator Moïse Jean-Charles, ‘Why would the international community finance an army, when we don’t have anyone to go to war with? What we need to do is to strengthen the national police.’
Senator Latortue, one of the leading advocates in congress for the reestablishment of an army, was indignant at the fact that Martelly had drawn up a plan and circulated it abroad without any consultation at home or prior debate in the legislature. Latortue had been proposing the creation of a new ‘public security force’ smaller than that envisaged by Martelly, with 1,000-2,000 personnel, and mandatory one-year military service for those in the 18-20 age bracket. More recently, he raised the proposed strength to 3,000, which he said was the highest Haiti’s finances could support.
