NYT Reporter: “Horror on the Streets of Haiti”

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, HOST: Turning next to Haiti, a country deep in a humanitarian crisis due to cholera and hunger. Natalie Kitroeff of “The New York Times” joins Hari Sreenivasan to discuss the current dire situation there.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARI SREENIVASAN, CORRESPONDENT: Christiane, thanks. Natalie Kitroeff, thanks so much for joining us. You just reported from Haiti. Give us a sense of what is happening on the streets right now. How bad is it? From the reports we’re getting, it looks like there’s already a civil war?

NATALIE KITROEFF, NYT BUREAU CHIEF FOR MEXICO, CENTRAL AMERICA, AND THE CARIBBEAN: Yes, Hari, it is horror on the streets of Haiti. Right now. When I was there, there was a camp right near the airport, it was filled with thousands of people who had fled their homes because of gang violence. And you saw on the streets, children who were recovering from gunshot wounds, sleeping on cement and cardboard. You had mothers who had witnessed their husbands being killed in front of them. And these are folks that are still struggling to survive because the violence has not stopped. Gangs continue to take over ever growing swath of Haiti’s capital. And the result is a humanitarian disaster. There is a cholera outbreak that is spreading, in part, because the gangs have made it so difficult for aid workers to deliver basic care in the poorest areas of Port-au-Prince. And hunger has reached, for the first time ever in Haiti, catastrophic levels. Which has left thousands facing famine-like conditions. So, it was a level of despair that I think Haitians would tell you they have not seen in their lifetimes.

SREENIVASAN: Recently, the government took extraordinary step of asking for foreign intervention. Now, exactly who the government is, what authority they have, we will talk about that in a minute. But that’s pretty remarkable. Where is, I guess, the world in thinking about whether or not there should be external forces to try to decrease this unrest?

KITROEFF: Right, it was a remarkable request, of course, because Haiti has a long and sometimes brutal history of foreign intervention. Intervention from forces from abroad that have not ever brought long-term stability to Haiti. And where there’s deep resentment and bitter memories of recent attempts to come in from the outside and stabilize the country. You know, that history is on the minds of the International Community, as this request is being considered. It’s obviously also on the minds of Haitians. The United States government is looking at what’s happening in Haiti and many within the Biden administration have begun to fear that this crisis has become so acute that it will no longer for a long stay within Haiti’s borders. There’s a sense that what could be on the horizon is a mass migration from Haiti. And we are already starting to see those numbers climb. Numbers of Haitians who are getting on overcrowded boats and heading for the United States. These boats often capsize. And what experts tell you is that we could see a tragedy at sea soon. And so, the Biden administration wants to try to send a multinational force to Haiti, but the administration doesn’t want to send U.S. troops. And so, it’s been trying to convince other countries to lead such a mission. But so far, no one has been eager. There’s been a lot of reluctance.

SREENIVASAN: You know, just as a refresher, tell our audience who is fighting on the ground and why.

KITROEFF: So, gangs have existed for decades in Haiti. This is not a new phenomenon. But they became these armed groups much more brazen and powerful under the previous president, Jovenel Moise. And when Jovenel Moise was assassinated last year in 2021, in July, that left a power vacuum that the gangs really stepped into. And over the ensuing months, more than a year, they have gained power, they have gained territory, and they are fighting one another. These gangs don’t exist on their own. They are not actors that just have their own interests. Experts will tell you that they have long been supported by the political and economic elite with money and other kinds of support, which use these armed groups for their own ends, or to facilitate the free flow of goods throughout the country. And so, this is a mess that is really entangled into the political crisis that is also gripping Haiti. Which is part of the reason that the call for intervention has been seen skeptically by many critics of the government.

SREENIVASAN: So, if there were foreign troops on the ground, would that automatically tip the scales in the favor of the government right now where there’s a prime minister who — what — has not been sworn in?

KITROEFF: That is the fear. That is certainly the fear that if you send in foreign forces, this will only add legitimacy or perceived legitimacy to prime minister Ariel Henry, who, yes, has been in power for more than a year without being confirmed by parliament, and is seen by many Haitians as illegitimate. Now, there are also Haitians that I spoke to, especially the folks who are deeply in the grips of the violence, who recognize that sending foreign forces could strengthen Mr. Henry. It could do that. They also recognize that this won’t be a long-term solution. We but they are so desperate, some Haitians, for just the briefest respite from the torment of daily life, that they’re willing to accept security help from abroad, despite deep resentment and reluctance.

SREENIVASAN: If you can paint us a picture, how does the average Haitian get by right now? I mean, where are they getting food from? I mean, some of the images from that story, the trash has not been picked up and it’s just piled up on the sides.

KITROEFF: Yes, it’s a really difficult existence now. Haitians who are living in the country’s vast slums in the capital, there is fight for survival every day. I mean, even sometimes leaving your house can be risking your life in this scenario. And, you know, as we said, this is a hunger crisis as well. I talked to people who said they were boiling leaves to eat, boiling salted water to eat, drinking rainwater. You know, there is a lot of solidarity, I found, among regular Haitians who help each other out and give each other the little that they have. And so, I think that has kept a lot of people alive. I talked to one woman who had fled her home barefoot, running out of her home, who has never gone back, because her neighbors alerted her that gang members were coming to rape her. That is survival, you know. There are folks who are just relying on each other to survive right now, but it’s certainly a struggle. Obviously, you do have some wealthier Haitians in different strata of society that have different, you know, ways of surviving. The wealthy often travel in armored cars. Sometimes with security details. You can still drive right into violence. But there is a level of protection that is afforded when you’re, you know, in a different social strength.

SREENIVASAN: Partly because of Haiti’s history, there are a lot of NGOs, charities on the ground. Are they able to help in any way, or are they just as stifled by the lack of ability to move?

KITROEFF: There are a lot of organizations that are on the ground, it is true. And we, you know, we were in a Doctors Without Borders facility, you know, they’re doing a lot of work there. The World Food Programme is, you know, doing distributions. There’s a presence and there’s, you know, Haitians — there is a Haitian health organization called KESQ (ph) that is treating cholera really bravely. But I do think that Haiti has become less, I think, a center of attention. If you compare to the post-earthquake period, the aid workers told me, aid workers who had been there for a while, told me they felt this period was different. I think there is less attention on Haiti right now and less resources, they told me, being devoted to what is happening on the ground.

SREENIVASAN: I know the United States and Canada have tried to impose sanctions on some of the individuals they feel are connected to this violence in these gangs. Any of that worked?

KITROEFF: Yes, this has been a strategy pursued by the United States and Canada. And the idea is that, you know, while you’re not kind of having any presence on the ground or any kind of really significant presence on the ground, there is a way of affecting the conditions on the ground by imposing financial penalties on those who you believe are supporting the gangs. So, you choke off some of the assets to funding and some of the general support from those in power. And I think Canada and the United States believe that that is working, to a certain extent. I think there are some Haitians, when I was there, who will tell you that when the first sanctions were announced mid-October, there was a sense that things kind of maybe calmed a little bit for a moment. You know, I think it remains to be seen the extent to which that alone will work.

SREENIVASAN: Do you think that there’s a tipping point where outside intervention will become inevitable?

KITROEFF: I think we are in a different era, right, than maybe a decade ago when intervention from abroad, and especially from the United States, was seen as this universal good. If you go into countries and you are trying to, sort of, save people, that that will work. There’s a lot more skepticism about that now. But I will say that if we begin to see ever growing numbers of Haitians fleeing the country on boats that are unsafe, in scenarios that produce really tragic consequences for those migrants, we may start to see the pressure ramp up on the Biden administration.

SREENIVASAN: Give us an idea — I mean, the perspective of just — I guess, give us a scale, if you can, of how many more Haitians are leaving on boats now than, say, three or four years ago. What is — what might be considered normal?

KITROEFF: Right, so in last — the last fiscal year, which ended in September, so you saw about 7,000, a little more than 7,000 Haitians intercepted at sea by the Coast Guard. That’s a four-fold increase from the previous 12-month period. That is huge. That is a big jump. And the numbers in October are continuing to go up. So, it may sound — you know, that is a fraction of the total Haitians that arrived in the United States. A lot arrived by land, right? I mean, a lot are not only coming from Haiti, they’re coming from other countries that they’ve migrated to. But when we’re talking about people leaving on boats, thousands every year starts to be a lot. And the reason for that is that it’s really dangerous to make that journey. And it can cause the kind of tragedy that, you know, is very difficult, I think, to witness. Where the United States government and the U.S. public might be more used to seeing people crossing by land, you know. Might be more used to these images. Those images of people coming by sea in boats that are way overcrowded, I think that all — do think that it’s a shocking thing to witness.

SREENIVASAN: One of the parts of your story in the past few weeks that has been really disturbing is the rise of cholera. What do the hospitals there have to work with? And how are people being treated if they can get to those hospitals?

KITROEFF: Well, hospitals in Haiti have been in a really tough situation for months. So, you know, gangs had shut down the main fuel terminal, the main port in the country for two months. Everything on Haiti runs in fuel because there’s really no functional electrical grid. So, you know, diesel generators power hospitals and hospitals couldn’t get fuel. And so, that caused a really big hole in the medical system for months. Fuel is now flowing in the country, but there is still this problem of violence that prevents, that makes it extremely difficult and often prevents doctors from even entering certain neighborhoods. Cholera is eminently treatable. It is a disease that kills you because it dehydrates you. The treatment is rehydration. Sometimes intravenously, but rehydration. And so, what you need is to be able to get close to people so that you can immediately rehydrate them. But if you cannot get close to people, and for them to get to you is — risks their lives, you’re facing a scenario in which people are left to die at home. And so, I would say there is a know-how in Haiti to combat cholera because cholera came to the country, scientists say, with U.N. Peacekeepers who brought it in 2010. You know, caused around 10,000 deaths over time. This country knows actually how to beat back cholera. It’s just that when you don’t have the ability to even provide the care, you can’t save lives.

SREENIVASAN: When you were traveling inside, there were images from basically inside what looked like an armored vehicle. What is the national police doing? Did — I mean, were the out of the streets patrolling? Did they stay in the car, so to speak?

KITROEFF: Well, we traveled with the Haitian national police to the area of the support that had been taken by the gangs. We traveled there right after the gangs had been dislodged from the port. And the port is open. You can go to the port. The police can, you know, patrol the port. But the port is surrounded by the biggest slum in Haiti, which is called Cite Soleil. Has about 300,000 people who live there. And that area is completely controlled by two different gangs. And so, when — in the armored vehicle, we traveled just a few, you know, minutes outside of the port to the shantytown that is surrounding it. The police would not leave the armored vehicle. It was too dangerous to get outside. In fact, they put their AR-15s outside the hatches in the armored vehicle when we stopped, because they were looking for hidden gunman. So, the police are trying, but, you know, they are — they have — their arms are less powerful. You know, they are outmanned, outgunned by these gangs. And they are underpaid as well. So, it’s hard to imagine this force. I talked to the police chief. He told me, I can use all the support I can get. These officers are trying often, but it’s very difficult to confront these groups. They are armed, essentially like militias.

SREENIVASAN: It seems like when you’re talking with some of the folks, they want to figure this out without outside help. And some of the people were just so fed up that they are like, anybody, help us.

KITROEFF: That’s right. It’s a really contentious moment. And the request for foreign intervention comes from a government that many believe has left them in this position, has brought them into this situation. And so, to then ask for help from the outside, obviously, it’s viewed under those conditions by the people who are living in the scenario that they believe the government has contributed to. So, you talk to Haitians who have not been able to go out and sell anything, who have lost family members, whose children are recovering from gunshot wounds, and they will tell you, we need help and we need it right now. And you talk to those who are, you know, looking at the political crisis and its relationship to what is going on, and they say, how could foreign troops solve this problem? When it is so deeply ingrained into the system that is governing us right now?

SREENIVASAN: Natalie Kitroeff of “The New York Times”, thanks so much for joining us.

KITROEFF: Thank you, Hari.