Haiti: 'We need to know the truth, but so far, it’s totally dark'

Well, for more, geographer Jean-Marie Theoda joins me now in the studio. He's the director of the geography department at the Sorbonne University here in Paris. Thank you very much for joining us today, Jean-Marie. So can you just start by telling us perhaps more about the Salvadoran troop deployment and this particular operation that we saw allegedly result in the destruction of a gang leader's home? You know, it's always a pity to have to cast soldiers from abroad Regarding our natural and national sense of dignity, but in a storm, any port, and we have long awaited a gesture from our. ...neighbors to help us to put an end to the gang's violence. But this gesture never came from the biggest nations, those who really had the means to do so. It came from a country that is scarcely less poor than our own, and we're very grateful of what President Bukele is just doing now in Haiti. All of this was allegedly in response to the kidnapping and the alleged killing of four El Salvadorans. Four Salvadorans, excuse me. Is this mission that followed really all this is about? I think that deploying 2,000 troops in Haiti, this is not something you... Decide just like this, you know. This has been prepared, I think, from a long time, but they needed a reason to do so, and they found it when those four soldiers have been ambushed in Port-au-Prince and gave them a reason to do it. So, I mean, you say they needed a reason. Why not just say that they are going in, perhaps at the request of the Haitian government to help tackle the gang violence? Why the need for a pretext to do so? I mean, the UN has decided a year ago to launch a new expedition, the Force de Repression de Gang in Haiti. Normally, there had to be 5,000 of them in Haiti. And still now, there is not half of it. And so I think that in the midst of this time, while we were waiting for these 500 members to come to Haiti, a lot of people have been killed in Port-au-Prince, more than 5,000 last year. So people are really very grateful. For this gesture from San Salvador now in Haiti. You mentioned the UN-backed gang suppression force, which is, of course, still present in Haiti as well. How what is the coordination like and to your knowledge between these three forces, Haitian troops, UN-backed troops and Salvadoran troops? I mean, it sounds like. Three missions that maybe have the same objective, but I imagine function quite differently. Are they collaborating together? Could there be conflicts between the three of them? How is that playing out on the ground? Currently, there are five different commanders in Haiti. We have the police. We have the Force Armée d'Haïti. We have also the Eric Price services that have been engaged in Haiti for one year now. We have the... the human troops and now the Salvadorans. So, in Haiti we say, The goat that has several masters will die of thirst while being in the field. And this is why we have some concerns about the coordination of all these operations in Haiti and we need to know the truth. But so far, it's totally dark. You said on a couple of occasions earlier that Haitians are grateful for this deployment, that they are happy about it. It does, however, and maybe the word imperial is obviously outdated for many reasons, but it does reek of some of the potential catastrophes that can come with a foreign contingent of troops getting involved to help solve what is ultimately a domestic crisis. Haitians might be happy about it, but is there the risk that this could spiral out of control in the midterm? As I said, in a storm, any port. So far, there have been so much casualties from the gang activities in Haiti that we don't look at the hand that provides some helps now in Haiti. But we still have a lot of concern because the Bukele regime is quite repressive. But at the At the same time, we know that he enjoys the support of more than... 80% of his population, and in Haiti, there are a lot of people that have been demonstrating in support of this action. So I really think that the Haitian people now, and many of us in the diaspora, we need a relief from all of the suffering we've been, all that we've suffered from the gang activity for more than 10 years now. At the risk of sounding naive, I mean, how did we get here? Why has it been so difficult for the Haitian government to be more efficient, effective, and stamping out gang violence in its own borders? I mean, from the last 10 years, Haiti has collapsed in a kind of a black hole. I mean, there is no president, no elections, no chambers of deputy, no senators. I mean, this is what happens when the state has... lost control over the territory, and Haiti is what we call a failed state, and that means there was also a lot of, I mean, meeting, I mean, joint activities between so-called authorities and the gang, and some of the chief members of the Haitian, let's say, And elite are also gangsters. That's why we call in Creole gangsavat and gangsapat. Those who have a cravat, those who have a tie, and those who have just a flip-flop. But they're all the same. Given what you've said there, I would imagine that it would be very essential for these different forces to establish very clear objectives that they hope to achieve, which would then allow perhaps for their withdrawal from the country and for Haiti to move closer to a political solution. If you were in charge of setting those objectives, at what point do you think it would be appropriate for these foreign forces to withdraw from Haiti? I think that the foreign forces first have to establish the conditions for us Haitians to decide of our own, to organize our elections that are programmed for next July, July 27. And this is our own, this is the Haitian task now to see what is going, what we're going to do after. The day after, this is our own to decide it, but so far there is, I don't think, any one of these five heads that are in charge of security in Haiti who are capable of drawing a path to the future. They cannot decide for us who is going to take this in charge in Haiti. I don't see anyone, anyone of those who are now candidates to be president that really have a clear plan to take us out of this storm. As a final question for you, Jean-Marie, rights groups have obviously raised concerns about the legality of these operations. I want to know how much do you think the Trump administration has influenced what we see Nayib Bukele doing in Haiti? Did the White House set what could be in the long term a dangerous precedent for interventions of this nature in the region when it began striking alleged drug smuggling boats. I mean, is there any space? For accountability in these different operations in Haiti. I think that Nayib Bukele would have been able to do what he's doing in Haiti without a green light from Trump, from Washington. But the American president has had so hard words when he was talking about Haiti that we cannot really trust him. And that also makes us very skeptical about his meeting with Nayib Bukele just before. The Salvadoran troops came to Haiti, and that's also a lot of concern. We don't really know what is cooking behind. But the only thing that we know is that this gesture from Salvador has brought a lot of relief that we can see now in the street of Port-au-Prince. And really, when you're dying, you don't look at the hand that brings some help. And in Port-au-Prince, More than 5,000 people died last year. This is more than in Kiev, which is the capital of a country in war, with an aggression from abroad. These are these victims, these casualties, these are people that have been killed by our own citizens, and this is a shame. Perhaps just one last question to piggyback off of what you just said there. Do you think that there is enough attention then from the international community about the gravity of the situation in Haiti? And would more international attention change anything in your view? I don't think that international opinion really imagine what is cooking in Haiti. This is something that is bilateral between Haiti and San Salvador, between the Bouquet and Mr. Alex Fils-Aimé. This is a cooperation between two countries and I think that no one would have really cared about Haiti because they have so much, so many problems out of Haiti that they don't really care about us. Jean-Marie Théoda, geographer at Sorbonne University, head of the geography department. Thank you very much for joining us on France 24 today. It was my pleasure.