Eric Stromayer, charge d'affaires at the American Embassy in Port-au-Prince, delivered a message on the multinational security support mission in Haiti, in which he provided several clarifications in order to avoid misinterpretations and circulation of rumors or misinformation

"[...] The role of the multinational mission to support security is to support the Haitian people while working with the Haitian National Police (PNH)

The mission will improve the capacity of the PNH to deal with widespread acts of gang violence, such as assassinations, sexual assaults on women and girls, recruitment of minors and other human rights violations.

[...] This deployment is being done at the request of the Haitian authorities, a large part of the business sector in Haiti, civil society, the religious sector with local and international non-governmental organizations.

There are few people living in Haiti today who can say that this support is not necessary.

This mission does not aim to support any political leader, or any political party.

We will continue to prioritize a political solution that Haitians have found themselves, and which is based on consensus to restore democratic order in Haiti.

The United States renews its appeal to all stakeholders to ask them to broaden the political agreement and restore democratic order in the country.

We are learning lessons from what has already happened in the best practices that we have found in the experiences with the United Nations and the United States on the issue of international missions.

The United States has included in the UN Security Council resolution a series of strong provisions for those who commit human rights violations to take responsibility.

The resolution clearly calls for the creation of a series of mechanisms that control and monitor, in order to be able to prevent, investigate, combat and publicly report any violation or abuse of human rights, such as sexual exploitation and other types of abuse.

It contains all the provisions for monitoring mission personnel and training before and during mission deployment.

It gives great importance to the creation of a mechanism so that people can file complaints, and adopt a response that focuses on the people who suffer dishonest acts, carry out rapid investigations into all accusations of dishonest acts, and refer in their country people are guilty when there is evidence that they have engaged in dishonest behavior.

As Secretary Blinken declared on September 22, we intend to work with our Congress to provide $100 million to support the mission. Our defense department will provide support in logistics, equipment and service, with specialized training to ensure that the Multinational Mission to Support Security is a success.

The Haitian people deserve to feel safe enough to leave their homes, resume their commercial activities and vote in elections to democratically choose a Government that represents their interests [...]"

HL/ HaitiLibre