Heine Offers Insight on Haiti Crisis
On August 16, 2023, Ambassador Jorge Heine, Research Professor at Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies and Interim Director of the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, published a column in The Conversation discussing the international community’s response to the crisis in Haiti.
Following Kenya’s offer to lead a mission to restore peace to Haiti, which is stricken by crime and poverty, Heine criticized the international community’s failure to intervene despite crisis after crisis. He attributed some of this reluctance to the perceived failure of previous international interventions, but argued that perception of failure is tainting the missions as whole, negating any possible good they may have accomplished.
An excerpt from the piece:
There is no doubt that some previous interventions left much to be desired, and that any new initiative would have to be conducted in close cooperation with Haitian civil society to avoid such pitfalls.
But I believe the notion that Haiti, in its current state, would be able to lift itself up without the help of the international community is wishful thinking. The nation has moved too far down the direction of gang control, and what remains of the Haitian state lacks the capacity to change that trajectory.
Read the full article here.
Ambassador Jorge Heine is a Research Professor at the Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University. He has served as ambassador of Chile to China (2014-2017), to India (2003-2007), and to South Africa (1994-1999), and as a Cabinet Minister in the Chilean Government. Read more about Ambassador Heine on his Pardee School faculty profile.