Blinken in Jamaica for talks on Haiti at 'critical moment'

By Daphne Psaledakis

KINGSTON, Jamaica (Reuters) -U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Monday he hoped to make progress on the security and humanitarian crisis gripping Haiti as he held talks with Caribbean leaders in Jamaica.

Blinken, who landed in Kingston on Monday afternoon on a trip organized at the last minute, said this was a “critical moment” for Haiti, where spiraling violence by armed groups threatens to bring down the government.

“We hope progress will be made on Haiti," he said ahead of a meeting with Jamaica’s Prime Minister Andrew Holness.

The State Department said in a statement that Blinken in Jamaica would "discuss a proposal developed by (the Caribbean Community) CARICOM and Haitian stakeholders to expedite a political transition in Haiti through the creation of a broad-based, independent presidential college," a reference to a proposed committee that would oversee Haiti ahead of elections.

The statement did not identify who the Haitian stakeholders were.

Blinken would also discuss a multinational security mission intended to restore security to Haiti, which is set to be led by Kenya, it said.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said Washington was looking to expedite the deployment of the mission, which Haiti's prime minister requested in 2022. It was authorized by the UN Security Council in October.

The United Nations estimates hundreds of thousands have been displaced and thousands killed in the overall conflict in Haiti, with widespread reports of rape, torture and ransom kidnappings since 2021.

Haiti entered a state of emergency on March 3 as clashes damaged communications and led to two prison breaks after Jimmy "Barbeque" Cherizier, a leader of an alliance of armed groups, said they would unite and overthrow Haiti's unelected Prime Minister Ariel Henry.

On Sunday, the U.S. military airlifted non-essential personnel and stepped up security at Washington's embassy in Port-au-Prince.

Henry, who came to power after the 2021 assassination of the country's last president, is currently stranded in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico. Blinken last week pressed him on the urgent need to accelerate a transition to a more inclusive government.

A senior State Department official said U.S. officials have been working with regional countries on establishing a transitional committee that would oversee the multinational force and pave the way to the first elections since 2016.

Countries have been slow to offer support for the multinational force, with some raising doubts over the legitimacy of Henry's unelected government amid widespread protests.

Many, both in Haitian communities and abroad, are wary of international interventions after previous U.N. missions left behind a devastating cholera epidemic and sex abuse scandals, for which reparations were never made.

(Reporting by Daphne Psaledakis; additional reporting by Simon Lewis in Washington and Brendan O'Brien in ChicagoEditing by Bernadette Baum, Chizu Nomiyama and Aurora Ellis)