Topic:
Country: Russian Federation
Delegate Name: Harry Cornell
UNSC
Situation in Haiti
Russian Federation
Harry Cornell
The situation in Haiti is one born out of a series of unfortunate events that have led to the nation being in the position it is currently in. Following the Haitian Revolution, in 1825, France agreed with Haiti to recognize it as an independent sovereign nation in exchange for approximately 100 million Francs annually until 1887. The debt that Haiti was entrenched in has made it seemingly impossible for Haiti to ever develop into the great nation that it could be. Multiple natural disasters have also wreaked havoc on the nation. Most notably, the Haiti earthquake of 2010. Moreover, the coup d’état in 2004 led to political unrest. The coup led to the creation of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) through resolution 1542 (2004). Beginning in 2017, the United Nations has begun to decrease its presence in Haiti. Currently, the UN has the UN Integrated Office of Haiti (BINUH) as mandated through resolution 2476 (2019) and extended and revised through resolution 2692 (2023). On 7 July 2021, President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated. In this vacuum, Acting President Ariel Henry’s regime appears to be in place, with the lack of any sense of a legislature.
It is in the Russian Federation’s best interests to restrain from any intervention into the governmental structure of Haiti as the United Nations does not have the authority to violate Haiti’s sovereignty and moreover there is no reasonable need to protect Russian assets. The Russian Federation does have a slight economic interest in Haiti due to the fact that it imported $22.1 million in goods from Russia. However, the Russian Federation must also recognize that there are significantly larger trading partners as Haiti only ranked 134th in Russian imports in 2021. The Russian Federation however does recognize the large need for humanitarian aid in Haiti if the basic human rights are to be held up and supported by this body. Notably, the Russian Federation recognizes the need to implement a rule of law in Haiti and to begin to dissipate gang violence. In the past, Russia has pledged humanitarian aid to Haiti utilizing the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry following the Haiti earthquake of 2010. The Russian Federation sent 138 officers and five aircraft, among other things, in order to aid the Haitian people. Those officers saved at least nine people from the aftermath of the earthquake.
It is the feeling of the Russian Federation that although MINUSTAH was well intentioned the concerns over police abuse and atrocities committed by MINUSTAH following its instatement in 2004 are of concern if the United Nations is to implement a peacekeeping mission. If there were to be involvement from foreign powers in Haiti the Russian Federation would be unable to provide any of its military forces or any amount of money for humanitarian aid due to its ongoing mission to denazify and demilitarize Ukraine as it seeks to free the Ukrainian people from their oppressive government, for the greater good of Ukraine and the world as a whole. The Russian Federation would also like to strongly encourage delegates to make sure that any action taken does not infringe upon the national sovereignty of Haiti as it is not the job of the Security Council to prop up governments run by figureheads. Moreover, the aforementioned is a clear violation of international law, and goes against the values of each member-state. The Russian Federation would applaud the Security Council for any action taken to provide food to Haiti as well. The cholera epidemic is also a concern for the Russian Federation as the world continues to recover from the SARS-CoV-2 – also known as COVID-19 – virus. The Russian Federation would like to summon the Director-General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to testify before the Security Council as to the best ways to mitigate the spread of cholera, seeing as he is an expert in the subject.
