The US first occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934. Nearly 60 years later, the U.N. launched a “peacekeeping” mission in 1993, followed by the arrival of US troops in 1994. Another intervention by the USA occurred in 2004. The first of those was to restore President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power.
Since 2011 it was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who arranged for Martelly to be a presidential candidate. Then, Moïse in 2017 was elected with 600,000 voters out of 6 million eligible citizens. As of now, there have been no presidential elections for six years, no elected mayors or legislators in office for over a year, and no scheduled elections ahead.
Haitians have been in the streets protesting intermittently since August. Banks and stores are closed. Students are demonstrating. Labor unions have been on strike.
This time around, the USA is intervening to support unelected Prime Minister Ariel Henry and “restore order”.
While the Biden administration makes no official statement of an invasion and the mainstream media carefully chooses their wording as a “peacekeeping” operation, most local independent journalists report military activity alongside political meddling in the country.
The Haitian people want to get rid of unelected PM Henry and sort their domestic political problems in-house, however difficult this may be. They certainly do not want foreign troops invading their country again as no good has come for them during past interventions.
Unfortunately, the power of geopolitics has set foot on Haiti and the historical precedent of foreign interventions has come back to haunt them.
God bless the people of Haiti!