(ANSA) – RIO DE JANEIRO, 26 MAG – At the instigation of the Haiti delegation, the Organisation of American States (OAS) organised a conference on the dramatic security situation in the Caribbean country entitled ‘Finding Urgent Solutions to Haiti’s Security Crisis’. Speakers included Smith Augustin, current president of the Haitian Transitional Council, Haitian Minister of Public Security and Justice Patrick Pélissier, Defence Minister Jean Michel Moïse, US State Department Deputy Assistant Secretary for Caribbean Affairs and Haiti Barbara Feinstein, and outgoing OAS Secretary General Almagro.
The message was almost unequivocal: the country is on the verge of collapse and is suffering an ‘existential’ threat, which stems not only from endogenous causes but also from the work of ‘foreign actors’ dedicated, together with Haitian gangs, to all sorts of illicit trafficking (drugs, arms and ammunition, organs) and crime, from rapes to extra-judicial killings.
The OAS and its members – this is the reasoning shared by Almagro, the State Department and Haitian representatives – are, therefore, called upon to do more and to do it urgently. This was, after all, the same message that Secretary of State Rubio had given a few days earlier in the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee.
During the debate, Italian Permanent Observer Roberto Nocella stressed the dramatic impact the crisis is having on the Haitian people, with repercussions on the stability and security of the entire region. For this reason, Italy is working steadily in the main international fora to keep the issue of Haiti on the agenda.
In a context of profound uncertainty, Ambassador Nocella drew attention to the need, on the one hand, to support the current transitional institutions and, on the other hand, as Feinstein had previously pointed out, to fight corruption, an essential condition for legitimising the current, difficult path to new elections by February 2026.
In response to the Italian Ambassador, who had also asked about the constitutional reform process, Haiti’s Minister for Public Security and Justice Patrick Pélissier publicly announced that the draft of the new Constitution would soon be forwarded to the Transitional Presidential Council for examination. After a period of consultation, the new Constitution is expected to be submitted to a referendum in the summer of 2025, the Minister indicated.
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The message was almost unequivocal: the country is on the verge of collapse and is suffering an ‘existential’ threat, which stems not only from endogenous causes but also from the work of ‘foreign actors’ dedicated, together with Haitian gangs, to all sorts of illicit trafficking (drugs, arms and ammunition, organs) and crime, from rapes to extra-judicial killings.
The OAS and its members – this is the reasoning shared by Almagro, the State Department and Haitian representatives – are, therefore, called upon to do more and to do it urgently. This was, after all, the same message that Secretary of State Rubio had given a few days earlier in the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee.
During the debate, Italian Permanent Observer Roberto Nocella stressed the dramatic impact the crisis is having on the Haitian people, with repercussions on the stability and security of the entire region. For this reason, Italy is working steadily in the main international fora to keep the issue of Haiti on the agenda.
In a context of profound uncertainty, Ambassador Nocella drew attention to the need, on the one hand, to support the current transitional institutions and, on the other hand, as Feinstein had previously pointed out, to fight corruption, an essential condition for legitimising the current, difficult path to new elections by February 2026.
In response to the Italian Ambassador, who had also asked about the constitutional reform process, Haiti’s Minister for Public Security and Justice Patrick Pélissier publicly announced that the draft of the new Constitution would soon be forwarded to the Transitional Presidential Council for examination. After a period of consultation, the new Constitution is expected to be submitted to a referendum in the summer of 2025, the Minister indicated.
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