Uruguay Urges OAS to Prioritize Crisis in Haiti

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Uruguay officially requested Friday that the Organization of American States (OAS) prioritize an investigation of the political, social and economic crisis that Haiti is undergoing.

In a letter, posted on Twitter, the Uruguay government stressed the “need to know the all the facts in order to offer the brother country cooperation in its search for a solution with the participation of all involved actors, before things aggravate”.

This petition comes as critics have questioned the OAS sole prioritization of the political situation in Venezuela and not the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the Caribbean island. “Those dead [in Haiti] do not seem to matter to Luis Almagro, the OAS and so on. Imagine the reaction from outside, if those were  Venezuelans,” the Dominican journalist German Marte said in a recent article for a local newspaper El Dia.

The situation in the Caribbean nation took a drastic turn on Feb. 7 when opposition anti-government protests were called against current President Jovenel Moise. The angry citizens rallied to demand the judicial system take action against embezzlement of Petrocaribe funds, which rose to approximately US$2 billion between 2008 and 2018, according to a partial report of the National Audit Office.

As a result, on Feb. 15  Moise broke his silence calling for dialogue and a few days later the country’s Prime Minister, Jean-Henry Céant informed that a series of privileges were to be reduced, which include a 30 percent reduction of the Office of the Prime Minister’s budget, as well as the withdrawal of privileges to the State’s top officials.

Comunicado del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores en relación a la situación en Haití. pic.twitter.com/Vyo7TBblXI

— CANCILLERÍA URUGUAY (@MRREE_Uruguay) March 8, 2019

“Uruguay appreciates the efforts being made by the government of Haiti in the search for a negotiated solution, in particular, the recent installation of the Inter-Haitian Dialogue Committee and hopes that this will help Haitians themselves to find the negotiation paths that allow an exit to the current crisis,” added the statement.

However, this has not appeased the population especially as inflation and a shortage of basic services in the country have affected the population, in recent months. As the protests and riots reach their first ongoing month, unofficial reports indicate that at least eight people have died in the demonstrations, while the opposition raises the figure to 50.