Remarks at a UN Security Council Briefing on Haiti

Ambassador Mike Waltz
U.S. Representative to the United Nations
New York, New York

AS DELIVERED

Thank you, Madam President. Good to see you, and welcome. And thank you very much to our briefers who have traveled here today—many I was able to meet with and sit with in Haiti just a few weeks ago when I had the opportunity to visit Port-au-Prince and Santo Domingo.

During my trip down, I was able to see the officials from both the United Nations, the Haitian government, the Dominican government, and a number of other brave and interested parties like UNICEF, the NGO Save the Children, and others who are working the incredibly heartbreaking issue of reintegration of children.

In one case, sadly, we sat with an eight-year-old boy who had been groomed by the gangs to kill by teaching him to kill dogs, and fortunately, that young child has been rescued. But there’s so many more to go.

Colleagues, if you haven’t been down to see the new Gang Suppression Force and to see the fight that’s before us in Haiti, I highly, highly recommend you do so, and certainly try to do so before our mandate renewal this fall. I think many of you will find it incredibly enlightening.

As you know, Haiti is just a few hundred miles from Florida, and in that regard, it is a critical interest to the United States, in addition to the Council, as these gangs move guns and drugs and terror throughout the Caribbean and onward to West Africa, Europe, and the United States.

And as we’ve heard from the briefers today, they have literally turned entire neighborhoods, an entire city, the capital of Port-au-Prince, into a kill zone. They’ve taken over roads, ports, the main port, hospitals, prisons, and they are exporting their crime far beyond Port-au-Prince.

What was incredibly disturbing, amongst many things, is that they are valorizing it. They’re celebrating it on social media sites like TikTok and Facebook and Instagram, portraying themselves as revolutionaries as they recruit children to their cause; often terrorize the Haitian people by their executions and other forms of torture. And the most disturbing thing is they’re making money off these social media sites. And that is something that we will be working to address in the very near future to shut that down.

As the briefers have stated, these thugs stay in business by tolling primarily innocent civilians. They also conduct a sad number of kidnapping for ransom, where they force these impoverished families to literally sell whatever few belongings they still have in order to rescue their family members.

And that’s why the GSF’s first priority, their top priority in their campaign plan that they briefed me on and they’ve laid out, is to take back the streets and take back the lines of communication and commerce from the ports into the interior.

But I do want to share this with you, colleagues, from the Mongolian commander on down, these men and women are the real deal. I was—and I’ve seen these kinds of forces all over the world, all over the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa, and I know a well-led unit when I see one, and I thought a number of these officers, planners, from the civilians in charge of UNSOH to the Gang Suppression Force, the political operation are dedicated, experienced, and have a good integrated plan laid out that now needs to be implemented.

I saw Salvadorian aviation units, Jamaican special operations trainers, Chadian troops, and more coming in from around the world. In fact, 300 troops landed from Sri Lanka just while we were there.

The soldiers and the police that I met were well trained. They’re well-armed and relatively well equipped. The UN has had to step in in some cases. They are empowered with an offensive mandate, thanks to the work of this Council. They are empowered with an offensive mandate to take on the Barbecues of Haiti,

these gang leaders, and bring them to justice, frankly, and arrest Haiti back from these wannabe dictators who treated streets like a violent playground.

The U.S. is deeply grateful to the Standing Group of Partners, to the troop- and police-contributing countries that are contributing to the GSF. I can tell you firsthand the mission would not be possible without their commitment and sacrifice. And we’re particularly grateful to the Dominican Republic, who sees this rightly as an existential threat to its security, and has been incredibly, I think, as accommodating as it can be and should be into facilitating the GSF into getting into position in Haiti, so to speak.

I also want to take this opportunity to thank ASG Daniela Kroslak and the UN Support Office team. They’ve worked quite diligently alongside the Standing Group of Partners to ensure that the troop contingents are deployed as expeditiously as possible.

Frankly, colleagues, I think over the past 10 months, the GSF has shown what the UN can do when it gets back to basics, and it’s just the beginning. As the Special Representative stated, the GSF’s progress will be measured—and that’s so important that it’ll actually be measured against the objectives and benchmarks that Special Representative Christofides has outlined. And that is in line with this Council’s mandate. And I appreciate the coming forward with those measurements and those benchmarks, so that the Council can then evaluate progress.

And again, this is how the UN was intended to work: nations come together, stop the chaos before it spreads, and shoulder the burden collectively.

To that end, we look forward to working with our co-pen Panama as the Council seeks to renew the GSF mandate in September.

And between now and then, I would call on—I’ve spoken to a number of the country representatives—but I would call on everyone with any type of airlift capacity to help deploy the troops and equipment, particularly help our colleagues in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh and Cote d’Ivoire to accelerate their deployment with airlift capacity. Obviously, the troops and equipment will get on the ground to help the Haitian people much faster if they come by air versus much slower sea lift. So again, I just can’t emphasize that enough for all of our colleagues with any kind, commercial or military capacity, to help in that regard.

So, here’s what victory looks like. Success looks like gangs no longer control half of Haiti. It means Haitian families can leave their homes without paying gang tolls, or in many cases, often having to sell their children to the gangs, or even provide their children at gunpoint to the gangs. And, you know, victory means like bringing these gang leaders to justice, either arrested or neutralized. The GSF can win each of these battles, and the first clearing operation, I think, was a step absolutely in the right direction.

But importantly—the Haitian government knows, I was able to meet with both the Foreign Minister, who’s here today, and the Prime Minister. They know that the long-term answer must be Haitian security forces that can hold ground, enforce the law, and defend their own people.

And colleagues, I just want you to appreciate what a brutal fight this is ahead of the Haitian security forces. I was able to meet with some police officers, and they told me the story of just two weeks prior, a police patrol, one of the armored vehicles, got stuck in a ditch. The gang surrounded it, lit a fire underneath it, so that the Haitian police officers inside faced a brutal choice: either be burned alive, or leave the safety of their armored vehicle. Obviously, they chose the latter. They were flayed alive in the streets, pinned to the side of their burning armored vehicle to send a message.

So, I don’t mean to be too graphic here, but I want everyone to understand the fight that is ahead of the Haitian government and the brave men and women who step into these security forces.

In another instance, the gangs often literally blockade the roads for their checkpoints. So, there’s a real need for engineering equipment, heavy bulldozers, and the like to clear these roads and clear these checkpoints.

In another instance, one of the operators who was brave enough to work with us to work with the Gang Suppression Force to clear these obstacles, the gang kidnapped the young man’s family and held them hostage until literally he came and traded his life. They executed him in the streets to again send a message. He traded his life for that of his family.

So, I just tell you those, just a few of so many painful anecdotes that we cannot, I just cannot underemphasize the brutality that these gangs are imparting upon their own people.

But despite the difficult road ahead, the HNP, the Haitian National Police, and the Haitian Armed Forces are stepping up in a significant way. The U.S.

supports wholeheartedly the HNP’s “P4000” surge recruitment program, with the objective of adding 4,000 new police officers to Haiti by early 2027. Already, this program has graduated 2,000 new officers that are deploying to secure more territory across Haiti.

And the U.S. is also pleased that Haitian authorities are fulfilling their pledge to the Haitian people to return the country to democratic governance. We commend, in particular, the Provisional Electoral Council for its concrete steps, both budgetary and otherwise, towards organizing elections for the first time in a decade.

Colleagues, the Haitian people deserve streets free of gangs, institutions free of intimidation, and a government chosen by them, by the people. Haiti’s collapse could never just stay inside of Haiti. Gang violence, drug trafficking, arms smuggling, illegal migration, do not know borders. A safer Haiti supports the interests of this entire region and of every nation that wants the Caribbean to be free of criminal control.

So, just let me be clear, in case I haven’t been, the United States stands with you. We stand with Haiti. We will continue to work with the Haitians, with the GSF, and with other international partners to restore security, share the burden, and help the Haitian people take its country back.

Thank you, Madam President.

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