The National Palace of Haiti was once among the most recognizable and beautiful architectural landmarks of one of the world’s poorest countries.
Today, the site where it stood is empty. The building was demolished in 2012 after sustaining severe damage from the devastating January 2010 earthquake that claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. Plans to rebuild the palace have gone nowhere.
The destruction of the National Palace from natural causes and later by men is a rather apt metaphor for a nation that is in crisis as a criminal gang is on the brink of controlling the country while acting Prime Minister Ariel Henry is unable to return to the country due to the violence. Viral photos show the bodies of dead Haitians strewn over the street and gang-controlled barricades blocking roads throughout the capital city of Port-au-Prince. The leader of the gang, Jimmy Cherizier, goes by the nickname of “Barbecue” and claims he is on a mission to liberate the nation from corrupt government officials like Henry.
The crisis in Haiti is a humanitarian disaster that is on par with the 2010 earthquake. Thousands will be dead when this crisis is concluded, and in the meantime, the people of Haiti will continue to endure unimaginable suffering.
Despite the situation it now finds itself in, Haiti has benefited for decades from billions of dollars in foreign aid from the United States government, courtesy of the American taxpayer. Last year alone, the U.S. allocated $344 million in aid to Haiti, the most since 2016. Aid peaked at $1.3 billion in 2010 following the earthquake.
This cascade of funding has been largely spent on programs meant to address food shortages and healthcare infrastructure. But despite the millions spent, there has been no improvement in the quality of life of the people of Haiti.
But foreign aid to Haiti has also extended to government functions, even as the country ranks as one of the most corrupt in the world. And as evidenced by the recent violent gang rampage, it has proven to be entirely fruitless.
Prior to the gang coup, Haiti became subservient to the U.S. government’s endless money spigot. In turn, the U.S. government wielded its considerable influence to export an agenda of diversity, equity, and inclusion that endangered the lives of the Haitian people and provided no tangible improvement to their security and well-being.
On its website, the State Department claims it helped increase the number of people in the Haitian National Police from less than 10,000 to more than 14,000. But the department also openly brags it pushed the country to hire women as police officers to be more “gender inclusive.”
“The United States helped the HNP establish a community policing unit geared at gaining public trust and improving community relations,” the State Department’s U.S.-Haiti relations fact sheet says. “In addition, the role of women within the force has been amplified. This is reflected by the robust recruitment efforts to target more women to make the HNP more gender inclusive.”
The message sent clearly through U.S. foreign policy is to adopt the tenets of the DEI religion or risk losing millions of dollars in aid. It is an act of 21st-century imperialism that has been replicated time and again throughout the world. The goal is not stability for Haiti. It is the adoption of far-left ideology.
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Today, the people of Haiti are suffering the consequences of an imperial hegemon waging an ideological crusade that masquerades as a humanitarian mission. Instead of safety, the “gender inclusive” police force is all but destroyed, and the population lives in a destitute state of fear.
Perhaps the State Department can get a commitment from the gang leader who calls himself “Barbecue” that the new gang state of Haiti will be gender inclusive. Surely, that can be considered a foreign policy victory that will further the interests of the U.S.