Jake Johnston of CEPR (a HAWG member) recently published this piece on dynamic between Haiti, the U.S., and the Summit of the Americas.
“The United States is hosting the Summit of the Americas next month in Los Angeles. The gathering of heads of state has occurred roughly every three years since its first meeting, the last to be held in the US, in 1994. Much of the focus this time has been on who won’t be there. US officials have stated they do not intend to invite the leaders of Cuba, Nicaragua, or Venezuela. But there has been less attention to who will be attending — namely, the de facto leader of Haiti, a country that has been without a head of state since President Jovenel Moïse’s assassination last July.
“The decision to invite Dr. Ariel Henry, Haiti’s acting prime minister, reveals the hypocrisy at the core of US foreign policy in the region, and, on the other hand, Latin American and Caribbean governments’ massive blind spot for the deteriorating situation in Haiti, a situation in which the US and the entire region are complicit.
“‘I think the president has been very clear about the presence of countries that by their actions do not respect democracy — they will not receive invitations,’ the State Department’s top official for the Western Hemisphere said last month. The decision to invite Henry undercuts this message and makes clear that the exclusions are not about the defense of human rights or democracy. They are about hegemony.”