- cross-posted to:
- world@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- world@lemmy.world
In the coming weeks, hundreds of militants from the US, Europe, and El Salvador are expected to be deployed to Haiti to allegedly confront the country’s gangs as part of a mission overseen by Erik Prince, the controversial founder of Blackwater and a known supporter of US President Donald Trump.
According to Reuters, Erik Prince’s new security firm, Vectus Global, which has been operating in Haiti since March amid the country’s escalating gang violence, is gearing up to expand its operations in an alleged effort to assist local authorities in reclaiming critical roads and territories from heavily armed criminal groups that have long held control over them.
Prince, who stated that his company had secured a 10-year agreement with Haiti’s government, emphasized that a critical benchmark for success would be the ability to travel safely between Port-au-Prince and Cap-Haitien in an ordinary, unarmored vehicle without facing disruptions or threats from gang activity along the route. Under the agreement, Vectus will play a role in tax collection in Haiti.
According to Reuters, an insider with knowledge of Vectus’ activities in Haiti revealed that the company’s deployment would involve specialized personnel, such as snipers and intelligence experts, as well as equipment, including helicopters and boats.
Prince’s security firm, which operates under the slogan “we don’t just advise, we act,” has been active in Haiti since March and, according to Reuters, has been conducting drone operations in collaboration with a task force overseen by the prime minister.
“Private mercenary army” different than “gangs” in that they are white. Civil war is what it is.
I would love to know what’s actually going on down there. Maybe we will get a blowback season on it. The narrative of “fighting gangs” is so smooth brained and dramatically oversimplified. The CIA has got to be up to their necks in this. Like why the hell is el Salvador in the mix? Dusting off the old death squads?
Why do they call it “gang violence” and not a civil war? They don’t even want to dignify the groups as political actors.
There are multiple groups in the mix, and they don’t really have a political stance, they just want power and control. That’s why they’re called gangs.
This man is a poitical actor. Might not be explicitly communist but definitely left leaning.
Forgive me if I believe his actions over his words.
What are his actions, and what are your sources? There’s little to no information coming out of Haiti, intentionally so.
Generally speaking, I recommend treating everything that comes out of any media, US or otherwise, with an extremely healthy dose of skepticism. My experience has been that believing the opposite of what the state department via the New York Times tells me to believe is generally correct
Basically any article about him, from any source. For example: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/10/21/who-is-haitis-sanctioned-gang-leader-jimmy-barbecue-cherizier
He likes giving interviews and tours, so there’s plenty of information about him and the G9-controlled areas of Haiti.
He might have high aspirations, but I’ve seen no reason to believe he’d be any different from Papa Doc.
Who the hell knows. These are the same people that told us Saddam was throwing babies out of incubators, and that hospitals were actually secret Hamas bases, and that Osama bin laden lived in a hollowed out mountain fortress.
It might be two truths and a lie. Or just three lies. My point is we don’t know and have no way of knowing. We will find out later. My money is as always not on blackwater and Salvadorean death squads acting on behalf of justice