Statement by First Deputy Permanent Representative Dmitry Polyanskiy at UNSC briefing on the situation in Haiti
Mr.President,
At the outset, let me extend our heartfelt condolences to the delegation of Gabon over the demise of Minister for Foreign Affairs of Gabon, Mr. Michael Moussa Adamo. We are mourning together with our Gabonese friends.
We thank Helen La Lime for the briefing.
As we take it from the 2022 statistics that Secretary-General provided in his report, the situation in Haiti keeps deteriorating. Cases of homicide, abductions, sexual violence are on the rise, as well as the number of IDPs and refugees.
Recent reports about an increase in violence in the streets of Port-au-Prince do not leave any doubts that crime remains the major issue on the Haitian agenda this year. Humanitarian problems that are exacerbated by a cholera epidemic raise major concerns. According to UN OCHA, cholera incidence has grown by 57 % over the past month.
It is obvious that unless state institutions become fully functional again and political forces engage in an inclusive dialogue, there will be no opportunity to resolve the current crisis. We follow the developments at this track and noted the signing of an agreement on a “national consensus” dated 21 December 2022. Any steps that can help overcome the controversies and bring the situation in Haiti back to the constitutional track are very commendable. What is essential however is that all major opposition forces need to take part in the dialogue.
So far, we must state that there are no legitimate elected bodies of authority left in the country. Recently, the powers of the last third of senators who had been elected following the formalized statutory procedures expired.
We repeatedly stressed that crisis of legitimacy is one of the key impediments that prevent Haiti from breaking the vicious circle of lawlessness, violence, and socio-economic degradation. Haiti is also living through a crisis of statehood which was largely caused by external political engineering and neo-colonial policy. This does not let some of our colleagues on the Council to call things by their real names.
The international community needs to send a clear signal to Port-au-Prince about the need to form legitimate authorities that should rest upon international and regional treaties, such as the 2001 Inter-American Democratic Charter. We believe this issue needs to be reflected more prominently in Secretary-General’s country report on Haiti.
We support the call of the Secretary-General to investigate the assassination of J.Moise. Over the 18 months that passed since this tragedy, which had clear traces of external interference, there has been no progress with the investigation. The perpetrators and first of all those who ordered this murder must be held accountable and duly punished.
We were rather disappointed to see that in a document that had a signature of the UN Secretary-General on it, unilateral coercive measures were almost equaled to UNSC-imposed sanctions and that these two profoundly different tools are listed in the same paragraph of the report.
It is common knowledge that in other countries of the world, unilateral sanctions have already triggered direst economic and humanitarian consequences. In some cases, such sanctions may devaluate efforts of the international community that seek to render assistance to states. Speaking of Haiti, we perceive such sanctions as an attempt of the United States and Canada to influence the domestic processes in Haiti the way they need. These steps cannot be interpreted as the will of the international community, because such will can only be expressed through the decisions of Sanctions Committee 2653 that we established recently. We trust that the Sanctions Committee will start working in a more robust manner, i.a. to identify the true sources of financing of Haitian bands and the routes of illegal arms deliveries to the island.
Thank you.
