U.S. Says Proposed Force For Haiti Would Be Much More 'Lethal' Than Current One

The U.S.'s chargé d'affaires in Haiti said the force the Trump administration is proposing for the country would be much more lethal than the current one that is led by Kenya.

The mission would be military oriented, compared to the current one which seeks to strengthen the country's police force. "To be clear, the mission is colored overwhelmingly as military due to the urban combat nature of it," said Henry Wooster. "But also happy to take police."

Wooster went on to say that the force would initially seek to secure "places such as the airport, the seaports, key road junctures, power plants, etc, and so forth, all the things where a state, any state needs to assert its authority to establish the fact that it is, in fact, a sovereign enterprise."

The official said the approach resembles the need to save a dying patient: "I liken it to an emergency room that gets a patient who comes in, who's been very severely injured, and while you know they've got contusions, maybe a concussion, and they've got a broken leg and lacerations, you've got to stop the bleeding immediately. You can't let them bleed out."

"It's impossible to attend to the other aspects of the problem if you have not achieved security. So that is our objective. That's why getting the UN Security Council resolution passed now is so crucial, and that's why the focus in that resolution is stability and security," he added.

Wooster then said the force would have more "freedom of maneuver" than the current one. "Exactly what is at stake here is a fight for the survival of a sovereign entity, the Haitian state," he warned.

Haiti's presidential council is pleading for the resources to beat the gangs controlling most of the capital, saying the country's "at war."

"Every minute lost means human lives sacrificed and an erosion of democracy," said Laurent Saint-Cyr at the United Nations' General Assembly in New York City last week.

The official went on to describe the country's situation as a "human tragedy at the doors of America... experiencing a war, a war between criminals that want to impose violence as their social order, and a population, an unarmed population, that is fighting for human dignity and freedom." "Haiti wants peace. Haiti expects peace. Haiti has the right to peace," he added.

The Trump administration has warned that funding for UN-backed forces in Haiti can't be guaranteed if the Security Council doesn't approve its plan to expand the mission.

The U.S., along with Panama, proposed in August creating a "gang-suppression force" comprised of up to 5,500 uniformed personnel to face criminal organizations in the beleaguered Caribbean country.