UN can't leave Haiti until rule of law is established
Any exit strategy for the UN presence in Haiti has to be built on the country doubling the size of its police, ending impunity in its courts, and forging the rule of law as a foundation for economic growth and political stability.
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Perhaps as important for the peacekeeping mission as more police is continued political leadership at the top. The political engagement of the Special Representative of the Secretary General (SRSG) in Haiti, former Chilean Foreign Minister Mariano Fernández, has been crucial during the past year in helping to partner with the new Haitian government on critical decisions. However, his term has already been extended once to December, and he either needs to be convinced to stay on or an equally engaged successor needs to be quickly found.
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Instead of two steps forward and one step back, Haitian politicians have been prone to move one step forward and two steps back. After finally putting a government in place, they now are embroiled in a battle to obtain the full nine members of a permanent electoral council and create an electoral calendar. Haiti is already months overdue in filling empty Senate seats, one-third of which remain vacant, and all of its city and town councils.
Similarly, just weeks after the superior judiciary council was formed, after five years of struggling to be born, two of its nine members have already resigned, and the vital baby of justice reform could once again be thrown out with the political bathwater. The SRSG and friends of Haiti – including the US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, and the Canadian, Latin American, and French foreign ministers – need to press for a national accord to preclude these self-destructive impulses. That accord must go beyond the positive but fragile coalition of parliamentarians that President Martelly just announced.
A new mandate must also give the SRSG the internal political clout to direct the work of the entire UN country team to focus on Haiti’s areas of greatest vulnerability, in support of the country’s development priorities.
By getting a MINUSTAH focused on justice and security and a country team focused on development to operate in harmony, the UN presence in Haiti can recapture its rightful place as the respected partner to Haitian progress. At the same time, Haiti must put basic governance building blocks in place to convince domestic and foreign investors to put their money into expanding jobs and opportunities across the country. If that happens, the moment for a peacekeeping exit will have finally come.
Mark Schneider is the senior vice president of the International Crisis Group and former head of the Peace Corps during the Clinton administration.
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