Push for U.S. sanctions against supporters of Haitian gang violence grows in Congress

As support for tough sanctions against Haitian gangs and those financing them grows in U.S. political circles, two Democratic lawmakers want to require the U.S. government to carry out investigations into Haitian political and economic figures and organizations suspected of supporting gang activities in Haiti.

The proposed Haiti Criminal Collusion Transparency Act of 2022 is focused on Haiti’s powerful street gangs and would require “a new federal investigation and report into political and economic individuals and organizations supporting criminal gang activity in Haiti.”

Rep. Val Demings, a Democrat running for U.S. Senate in Florida who currently represents the state’s 10th Congressional District, is planning to introduce the legislation this week in the House of Representatives. Fellow Democrat Sen. Bob Menéndez of New Jersey is sponsoring the Senate version.

The push comes as support for sanctions grows in U.S. congressional and international circles amid an ongoing fuel blockade by one of Haiti’s most powerful gang federations, and the crumbling of a power-sharing deal between interim Prime Minister Ariel Henry and Fritz Alphonse Jean, a U.S.-educated economist and former central bank governor.

Foreign diplomats had hoped a deal between the two would help create a pathway for tackling Haiti’s deepening political paralysis through elections and tamp down the violent protests that have led to looting, barricaded streets and calls for Henry’s resignation.

“This new legislation will help us identify bad actors behind Haiti’s lawlessness and hold them accountable,” said Demings, who is seeking to unseat Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio. “After the brazen assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, killings and kidnappings have soared, with the backing of Haitian political and economic elites. The United States must take concrete steps to hold these criminals accountable and help the Haitian people achieve stability, freedom, human rights, and democracy.”

The Biden administration last month pushed for a resolution at the United Nations Security Council to establish a new framework for international sanctions on Haitian gang leaders and those who provide them with weapons and financial support. The proposed language was shared Tuesday by the U.S. with members of the Security Council in New York, who will ultimately need to approve it.

READ MORE: Biden administration pushing for tough U.N. sanctions against Haiti gang leaders

Last week, during a hearing on Haiti before the House Foreign Relations Committee, both Reps. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., and Michael McCaul, R-Texas, voiced support for a measure to punish those controlling the Haitian gangs. They did not, however, name specific individuals, including gang members, or say how such sanctions would work.

“I remain deeply troubled by the deteriorating security conditions and growing levels of crime and violence. Corrupt oligarchs and political elites use gangs as power brokers to advance their personal interest,” McCaul, the top Republican on the committee, said during opening statements. “I would very much be in favor of the measure, to punish. We call them oligarchs, they’re really warlords, controlling the gangs, and, depriving any sense of governance in Haiti.”

Meeks said until the United States goes after gang leaders, those financing them and those who are sending the weapons from the U.S., there will be no solution to Haiti’s unprecedented gang violence.

“I listened to the testimony brought by civil society leaders and it is clear we can do more. The people of Haiti have endured too much. We must stand with the people of Haiti,” Meeks, who is chairman of the committee, later told the Miami Herald.

Meeks noted that the U.S. already has a law, the Global Magnitsky Act, to impose targeted sanctions against Haitian nationals for supporting illicit and violent behavior. “Using this existing tool the administration has the ability to freeze assets and cancel the visas of those who support and finance the gangs in cities across Haiti including prominent political and business leaders,” he said.

In a separate effort, Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, D-Fla., is circulating a letter among both Democrats and Republicans addressed to President Joe Biden and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen urging the administration “to impose sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Act on known perpetrators and entities from the private and public sectors responsible for financing the insecurity in the country.”

“We must cancel their visas and freeze assets. These acts ... pose significant national security threats to the United States and the entire region,” the letter states. There are as many as 200 gangs in Haiti and they control 60% of Port-au-Prince, along with key ports and roads, according to a study commissioned by the U.S. Agency for International Development, the letter adds.

Uncovering the funders of gang violence

Supporters of the Demings bill said the legislation will determine through investigations by federal agencies the ties between Haiti’s gang violence and its financial backers to uncover the funders of the gangs. Also unlike the new law on U.S. Haiti policy that was signed earlier this year by President Biden and calls for an investigation of “significant acts of corruption,” Demings’ legislation goes after organized crime and would require a multi-year effort.

“This means that if gang backers are held accountable and replaced by other, newer players, these new individuals can also be targeted and held accountable,” said Daniel Gleick, Demings’ communications director.

At the very least, the legislation would make Haiti sanctions more of a priority for the U.S. government.

On the same day that the House Foreign Relations Committee heard testimony last Thursday, the deteriorating situation in Haiti came up in discussions between Menéndez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and visiting Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly.

Joly is expected to raise the sanctions issue at a side event on Haiti during this week’s Organization of American States’ General Assembly in Lima, Peru.

“Chairman Menéndez shared with Foreign Minister Joly his views about the need to hold accountable criminal actors in Haiti that are responsible for the current wave of widespread violence and human rights abuses, as well as any individuals that may be aiding them politically or financially,” a source with knowledge of the conversation told the Herald. “Chairman Menéndez also shared his views with Minister Joly about additional steps that the international community can take to address violence and instability in Haiti.”

The fuel blockade, now entering its fourth week, is creating an increasingly dire situation in the country and has brought the entire economy to a halt while deepening a humanitarian crisis.

On Sunday, both U.N. and Haitian authorities confirmed a deadly cholera outbreak. That same day, a leading water producer announced it was halting its production of drinking water because the company had run out of diesel. With the lack of fuel exacerbating an already worsening crisis, Canada’s ambassador to Haiti, Sébastien Carrière, took to Twitter late Tuesday night to issue an urgent plea for a truce.

Speaking on behalf of more than a dozen foreign ambassadors and representatives assigned to Haiti, Carrière, called for “an immediate humanitarian truce to allow the release of fuel.”

The tweet came just hours after the prospective power-sharing deal between Henry, the interim prime minister, and Jean fell apart.

Under negotiations for weeks, the deal would have had Jean, the designated president in the civil society-backed coalition known as the Montana Accord, help Henry govern the country. Though it had the support of the international community, which has been calling for a Haitian-led solution to the country’s deepening crisis, it was vehemently opposed by the very coalition that Jean represented. The Montana coalition wants Henry out.