The Unit­ed States De­part­ment of State says Sec­re­tary of State Antony J. Blinken will be trav­el­ling to Haiti and the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic on Thurs­day and Fri­day.

Ac­cord­ing to State De­part­ment Spokesper­son Matthew Miller, Blinken will meet with Haiti Tran­si­tion­al Pres­i­den­tial Coun­cil Co­or­di­na­tor Edgard Leblanc Fils and Prime Min­is­ter Gar­ry Conille “to dis­cuss forth­com­ing steps in Haiti’s de­mo­c­ra­t­ic tran­si­tion and US sup­port to the Hait­ian peo­ple through hu­man­i­tar­i­an as­sis­tance and Hait­ian-led sta­bi­liza­tion ef­forts.”

Miller said Blinken will al­so meet with the lead­er­ship of the Multi­na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Sup­port (MSS) mis­sion, “em­pha­siz­ing US sup­port to reestab­lish se­cu­ri­ty in Haiti while al­so un­der­scor­ing the sig­nif­i­cance of pro­mot­ing re­spect for hu­man rights.”

Blinken will then con­tin­ue to the neigh­bor­ing Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic to meet with Pres­i­dent Luis Abi­nad­er.

In San­to Domin­go, the cap­i­tal of the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Blinken and Pres­i­dent Abi­nad­er will “re­in­force our close and long­stand­ing part­ner­ship, and dis­cuss col­lab­o­ra­tion to ad­vance in­clu­sive eco­nom­ic growth, cham­pi­on hu­man rights, and pro­mote good gov­er­nance, se­cu­ri­ty, and cli­mate re­silience in the re­gion, in­clud­ing through the US-Caribbean Part­ner­ship to Ad­dress the Cli­mate Cri­sis (PACC 2030) and Caribbean Basin Se­cu­ri­ty Ini­tia­tive (CB­SI).”

In a spe­cial brief­ing with re­porters on Wednes­day, US As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary for West­ern Hemi­sphere Af­fairs Bri­an A. Nichols said Blinken will “reaf­firm the Unit­ed States com­mit­ment to sup­port­ing the Hait­ian peo­ple and fos­ter­ing a se­cure and peace­ful Haiti.

“The Sec­re­tary, Prime Min­is­ter Conille and the Tran­si­tion­al Pres­i­den­tial Coun­cil will al­so dis­cuss Haiti’s re­turn to a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic path and the ur­gent need for elec­tions, so the Hait­ian peo­ple can de­ter­mine their own fu­ture,” he said. “We have seen Haiti take im­por­tant steps for­ward in the last few months.

“In ad­di­tion to the Tran­si­tion­al Pres­i­den­tial Coun­cil’s ap­point­ment of the prime min­is­ter and des­ig­na­tion of min­is­ters of his cab­i­net, we have seen tan­gi­ble signs of progress on the ground, in­clud­ing the open­ing of the air­port and re­sump­tion of com­mer­cial flights, in­creased eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty and move­ment in pock­ets of Port-au-Prince, and the de­ploy­ment of the UN-au­tho­rized, Kenyan-led Multi­na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Sup­port mis­sion, which is work­ing in close part­ner­ship with the Hait­ian Na­tion­al Po­lice,” Nichols added.

With in­creased in­ter­na­tion­al sup­port for both the MSS and the Hait­ian Na­tion­al Po­lice, he said the Unit­ed States is see­ing “a dra­mat­ic in­crease in pa­trols and op­er­a­tions de­signed to re­store se­cu­ri­ty and a sense of nor­mal­cy in Haiti.”

While in Haiti, Nichols said Sec­re­tary Blinken will meet with the head of the MSS and the Hait­ian Na­tion­al Po­lice, “and un­der­score the Unit­ed States con­tin­ued com­mit­ment to their suc­cess.

“We will al­so dis­cuss Haiti’s broad­er sta­bi­liza­tion, de­vel­op­ment and hu­man­i­tar­i­an needs,” Nichols said.

In meet­ing with the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic Pres­i­dent, he said Blinken will “reaf­firm our strong, mul­ti­di­men­sion­al part­ner­ship and dis­cuss three main pri­or­i­ties: strength­en­ing our eco­nom­ic ties, in­clud­ing through the Amer­i­c­as Part­ner­ship for Eco­nom­ic Pros­per­i­ty; ad­vanc­ing our shared val­ues of free­dom, democ­ra­cy, and re­spect for hu­man and la­bor rights; and pro­mot­ing in­creased se­cu­ri­ty in the re­gion, par­tic­u­lar­ly in Haiti.”

Nichols said Blinken and Pres­i­dent Abi­nad­er will al­so dis­cuss The 2025 Sum­mit of the Amer­i­c­as, which the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic will host.

“In Haiti, our goal is to rec­og­nize the pos­i­tive progress made to­wards im­prov­ing se­cu­ri­ty and en­cour­age ef­forts to ap­point the pro­vi­sion­al elec­toral coun­cil, so Haiti can move to­ward elec­tions,” Nichols said. “In the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, we will re­in­force our shared pri­or­i­ties, such as pro­mot­ing de­mo­c­ra­t­ic gov­er­nance, sup­port­ing free and fair elec­tions in the re­gion, and fight­ing cor­rup­tion.

“So, this is a cru­cial mo­ment in Haiti, and I think – when we had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to go to Haiti with Am­bas­sador Lin­da Thomas-Green­field to see sort of the be­gin­ning of the de­ploy­ment of the MSS, to see the equip­ment that’s on the ground, to see that base. and now that more than 30 MRAPs have been de­liv­ered, oth­er equip­ment, the in­creased rhythm of op­er­a­tions, we’re see­ing that for­ward move­ment on the se­cu­ri­ty side that we’ve long wait­ed for,” he added.

“But we al­so need to see progress on the po­lit­i­cal side, and en­gag­ing the Tran­si­tion­al Pres­i­den­tial Coun­cil, the prime min­is­ter and Haiti’s po­lit­i­cal par­ties is a pri­or­i­ty for the Sec­re­tary to make sure that progress to­wards elec­tions moves for­ward,” con­tin­ued Nichols, stat­ing that the Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion’s goal is to have a mis­sion in Haiti that is “ef­fec­tive, strong, able to de­liv­er the kind of se­cu­ri­ty progress that the Hait­ian peo­ple de­serve – and we’re work­ing with our in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners to do that – and set­ting up a struc­ture that en­sures a re­li­able source of fi­nanc­ing and staffing for that mis­sion is a pri­or­i­ty.”

Nichols dis­closed that the Unit­ed States has pro­vid­ed over – through the De­part­ment of De­fense – US$200 mil­lion for the con­struc­tion and op­er­a­tion of the lo­gis­tics sup­port area, the base where the MSS is lo­cat­ed.

He said the US has al­so, through the De­part­ment of State, pro­vid­ed over US$50 mil­lion in equip­ment and sup­port for the op­er­a­tions of the MSS “in dif­fer­ent ways on the ground.”

Nichols said that US aid to Haiti al­so in­cludes over US$60 mil­lion in “draw­down au­thor­i­ty” for sup­port to the MSS, ex­plain­ing that “draw­down au­thor­i­ty is the abil­i­ty to take things out of gov­ern­ment stocks and pro­vide them to the MSS, and we’ve pro­vid­ed all sorts of things – ra­dios, tents, com­put­ers, night vi­sion de­vices.”

The US As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary of State said the Unit­ed States, Cana­da and a few oth­er donors have made “im­por­tant con­tri­bu­tions to the MSS UN trust fund to sup­port these ef­forts.”

But he urged the rest of the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to “step for­ward with much more sig­nif­i­cant fi­nan­cial con­tri­bu­tions, so that the force can con­tin­ue to op­er­ate, and that ad­di­tion­al na­tions can de­ploy their units as part of the MSS.

“The prime min­is­ter is right­ly con­cerned about the fu­ture, but I think we have come quite a long way since the be­gin­ning of the year,” Nichols said.

Re­gard­ing cor­rup­tion al­le­ga­tions in­volv­ing mem­bers of the Tran­si­tion­al Pres­i­den­tial Coun­cil in Haiti, he said the Unit­ed States “cer­tain­ly be­lieves that Hait­ian au­thor­i­ties should in­ves­ti­gate those and de­ter­mine the sub­stance of what hap­pened, and take ap­pro­pri­ate ac­tions to hold any­one who’s re­spon­si­ble for cor­rupt acts ac­count­able.

“The Hait­ian peo­ple de­serve trans­paren­cy and good gov­er­nance, and the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty, which pro­vides so much as­sis­tance, al­so needs to see that to have the con­fi­dence that funds that flow through the Hait­ian Gov­ern­ment are used ap­pro­pri­ate­ly and trans­par­ent­ly,” Nichols stressed.

He not­ed that Blinken had pre­vi­ous­ly trav­eled to the Caribbean, vis­it­ing Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and To­ba­go; George­town, Guyana; and Kingston, Ja­maica.

“So, he’s made sev­er­al trips to the re­gion, and he’s met with Caribbean lead­ers in Wash­ing­ton, as well as on the mar­gins of the OAS (Or­ga­ni­za­tion of Amer­i­can States) Gen­er­al As­sem­bly in Pe­ru,” Nichols said.

“So, he’s had a num­ber of en­gage­ments with Caribbean lead­ers, as well as meet­ing lead­ers and for­eign min­is­ters here in Wash­ing­ton dur­ing their vis­its, and our re­la­tions with the Caribbean are a big pri­or­i­ty for the Sec­re­tary, as well as the rest of our gov­ern­ment from Pres­i­dent Biden on down,” he added.

WASH­ING­TON, Sep. 5, CMC