Trudeau announces $80 million for Haiti and calls on the country to find its own solutions – National
A lasting solution to the crisis in Haiti will have to come from within this country, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday.
Trudeau made the comments on his final day at the UN as he sat down with Ariel Henry, the embattled interim prime minister of Haiti.
Trudeau announced an additional $80 million in humanitarian and security a*sistance for the overwhelmed Haitian National Police.
Canada is also imposing new sanctions against three more members of Haiti’s corruption-ridden business community, bringing the total to 29 so far.
At a closing news conference Thursday, Trudeau did not directly answer a question about whether Canada would participate in a multinational mission to directly intervene in the country’s crisis.
“The only lasting solutions will come through collaboration with the Haitian people themselves, giving them the means to lead and take responsibility for the future,” he told reporters.
“That’s why I called today on Prime Minister Henry to do much more, to create political unity and consensus around international support and perhaps intervention.”
Trudeau acknowledged that in addition to development aid and humanitarian aid, it may take “security aid and perhaps military aid” to stabilize what he called the current “cataclysmic situation.”
But he did not want to specify what Canada’s role could be.
Trudeau and Bob Rae, Canada’s amba*sador to the U.N., also chaired an ad hoc advisory group of U.N. delegates trying to chart a path forward.
“In Haiti, there is no external solution to this situation,” Trudeau said earlier Thursday.
“We have a role to play from the outside, but we need more dialogue and consensus building within Haiti and around the Haitian people. »
Violent gangs have been rampant since the a*sa*sination of President Jovenel Moise in 2021, blocking fuel deliveries and terrorizing the local population, all amid a cholera epidemic.
Last fall, Henry called for military intervention to eliminate the gangs and allow humanitarian aid, intensifying pressure on Canada from the UN and its allies like the United States to take the fronts.
Kenya has since offered to fill the gap, and the United States is reportedly close to asking the UN Security Council to approve sending a multinational force to the country.
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