Haiti: UN Evacuates Non-Essential Personnel From Port-au-Prince
The Facts
- Non-essential UN personnel have been evacuated from Port-au-Prince this week as gang violence has further escalated in the capital of Haiti over the past few days.
- They were transported by helicopter — 14 people at a time — to the northern city of Cap-Haïtien, where some personnel assigned to the UN Integrated Office in Haiti took humanitarian flights to Panama on Tuesday and Wednesday.
- A UN spokesperson said on Tuesday that essential personnel would stay in Port-au-Prince and that humanitarian assistance would continue to be delivered outside the capital. As of Monday, 1,527 out of 1,725 UN staff reportedly remained in the Caribbean nation.
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The Spin
Pro-establishment narrative
Haiti is at a crossroads. Time is running out for the international community to avoid a complete collapse of security and state authority in Haiti by either making good on its commitments to help the multinational security force operating in the country or transforming it into a UN peacekeeping mission. Otherwise, the country will head to a civil war.
Establishment-critical narrative
None of the US-sponsored neocolonial interventions in Haiti have been particularly successful, including the Multinational Security and Support mission currently on the ground. Neither this occupation nor a potential UN peacekeeping mission will address the plight of the people — only Haitians can achieve that.
Metaculus Prediction
There's a 60% chance that Haiti will experience a civil war before 2036, according to the Metaculus prediction community.