Heine Comments on US Role in Haiti Crisis
On August 19, 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, was quoted in the Miami Herald on the United States’ lack of action to resolve the crisis Haiti.
As Haiti’s current government is struggling to maintain authority amid rampant gang warfare and widespread poverty, the international community has discussed sending in missions to restore peace and control to the government. Kenya, rather than any neighboring country from the Western Hemisphere, has volunteered to send volunteers. Heine argues that this omission reveals the current condition of the Americas, calling it a “disgrace.”
In the case of Haiti, Heine wrote, “you have a very serious crisis and nothing is happening. The notion that you can simply forget about Haiti …is in my mind quite native. Haiti is becoming a failed state and failed states just don’t fail by themselves.”
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.