Haiti 2026: Security and Foreign Assistance Priorities

The hearing will come to order. Um, I am setting in for uh Senator or Chairman Graham. And uh, and so my remarks, I'll be talking about myself, I'm kidding, I'll But it does say at the beginning of it, thank you Senator Mullen for suggesting the hearing. So I'll skip that part. But I do wanna say thank you for everybody being here and for those that are participating. Uh, welcome uh Ambassador Wooster. uh with the u. s. embassy of haiti and then my good friend uh austin holmes who has a tremendous amount of knowledge about haiti uh someone i have known for fifteen sixteen years and just almost exclusively been connected to to haiti uh today's hearing will examine the security and foreign assistance priorities of the united states and haiti a country that is only some seven hundred miles from florida haiti is a currently under siege by armed gangs and port-au-prince that daily threaten the viability and legitimacy of the state. Security is a top priority for the country and is being provided by Haitian National Police long supported by the US. The new gang supervision force approved by the UNSC uh and private security contractors hired by the government of Haiti, including Eric Prince. The FY twenty-six uh bill also provides five million to bring Haitian armed forces into light. Humanitarian and development assistants remain paramount. Six million people uh are estimated to be in need of assistance. Sixty-three percent of the state-run um inpatient health care facilities in Port-au-le-Prince are closed destroyed or operating at partial capacity uh miners make up half of all the gang members in Haiti and uh nearly one point four million people have been Uh, the Achilles heel in Haiti remains the actions and orientation of the political elite in in in Haiti. Rampant corruption and a need for scheduled and hold national elections, a challenging task for Haiti under any circumstances, even more so during uh what could be called an insurgency. Thank you again to the Ambassador and to Mister Holmes for participating today. Um We'll have uh and I wanna thank ranking member Schatz for who is also a very good friend of mine for being here. Uh we will uh allow um ranking member to have open remarks and then we'll allow all members to have five minutes rounds of questioning and answers and if we need to go, a second round we will.

Thank you, Senator Mullen, and thanks to our witnesses for being here today. This is our first hearing since we passed the FY twenty-six SFOP's The bill and this hearing are proof that there remains bipartisan support for working together to deploy foreign assistance and strengthen United States foreign policy. This committee has long supported assistance to Haiti. We do so not as an act of charity but because it is in our own interest. The FY twenty-six appropriations bill directs funding for security and development assistance to Haiti. It also includes support for the UN's work in Haiti. It also, because while it's easy for some people to trash the UN, when it comes to managing complex challenges like Haiti or Gaza, and making sure that the United States doesn't foot the entire bill, it is a critical partner for burden sharing. And I think the administration is starting to recognize that. Now while it's true that US assistance has saved many lives in Haiti, there have also been major challenges in its effectiveness. And that's true across multiple administrations. We can and should discuss the relative effectiveness of past programs, but it's clear that serp simply terminating most of those programs is not the right solution either. It also doesn't make sense to spend money to terminate those programs, instead of figuring out a better way to use those funds and save lives and advance our interests. One final point. The political and security situation in Haiti continues to deteriorate. And there remains a risk of complete government collapse. And so it is disturbing and counter-productive that it took a court order to pause the termination of TPS for Haitians. I look forward to the hearing and learning how the subcommittee can support the United States' effort to stabilize Haiti, save lives and protect our interests.

Sure, you're recognized for five minutes for opening statement.

Thank you, Senator. Senator Mullins. Ranking Member Shats, distinguished members of the subcommittee, I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today about, of course, Haiti. The US objective in Haiti is, one word, stability. We define that as A, no collapse of the state, and B, no mass illegal migration onto US shores. Everything we do to implement the president's Haiti policy is anchored to that singular objective, stability. Today, I'll share three updates from the field. First, I will explain how we are countering Haiti's major destabilizers. Second, I will detail US efforts to support the deployment of a new UN authorized international force. Lastly, I will report on US government investments, as well as emerging opportunities to advance US interests. and those of Haiti's neighbors in the region. First, let's establish a common operating picture. Haiti is a nettlesome foreign policy problem. Chronic political, economic, and governance dysfunction hinder stability. Yet, setting security conditions that can put Haiti on a path toward baseline stability is an achievable foreign policy objective. The immediate threat to Haiti's state survival is a coalition of some twenty armed hostile organizations, misleadingly called gangs, that, as the Secretary of State mentioned in his twenty-eight January testimony to Senate foreign relations, threaten systemic collapse. In twenty twenty five, the United States designated two of these gangs, Vive Ensemble and Grand Grief. as foreign terrorist organizations more commonly known to everybody as FTOs, and they are now operating as proto-insurgent movements. The size of the gang population is around twelve thousand, of which approximately three thousand pose the greatest threat. By contrast, the Haitian National Police, or HNP, have approximately six thousand personnel on the books, of whom maximally, and I'll say this one more time cuz it's important to note it, maximally four hundred do most of the fighting. Good governance, we all know, is essential for stability. It's been a decade since Haiti's last elections and five years since President Jovenel Moise's assassination. Successive unelected transitional authorities have failed to deliver elections. The latest experiment, a nine-member transitional presidential council or TPC, concluded only seventy-two hours ago, when their mandate expired. Laurent Saint-Cyr, the final chairman of the TPC, and Prime Minister Alex Didier-Fils-Aimé have been indispensable partners in advancing our shared interests to prevent state collapse. Under Saint-Cyr's leadership, The council approved a decree setting elections for twenty twenty six. Our policy objective of stability will set conditions to help Haiti have an elected government. Haiti's gangs thrive on necessity, not ideology. With seven consecutive years of economic contraction, and more than one point four million people displaced, many younger generations view gangs as the only reliable source of income. According to the US Department of Labor, over thirty-four percent of Haitian children age five to fourteen are forced to work, including for gangs. Haiti must create job opportunities to out-compete gangs for the long term. Congress's reauthorization of Hope Help trade preference programs is vital for ensuring continuity of Haiti's textile and apparel industry. Last September, US diplomacy led to the adoption of the UN Security Council Resolution two seven nine three. It authorizes five thousand five hundred uniformed military and police personnel to conduct intelligence-led targeted counter-gang operations. The United States coordinates generation of the GS F as chair of the standing group of partners. Fifteen countries pledged over eleven thousand personnel for the GSF, the gang suppression force. And last week, the standing group of partners approved the slate of five thousand and five hundred personnel culled from that eleven thousand number. The first units deploy in April, clearing operations commence in May. The gang suppression force will work from day one to put itself out of business as Haiti builds its own security and the state reasserts authority. Thanks to funds appropriated by Congress, States Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement, better known as INL, is transforming Haiti's capacity to fend for itself. INL's P four thousand initiative is boosting the HMP by four thousand officers in sixteen months. We also appreciate Congress's authorization of non-lethal support for Haiti's military. The FAD. A trained, equipped and modernized FAD is vital for Haiti's sustained security and reconstruction. Security gains will be fleeting without improved economic conditions to sustain Haitian society. And economic and security progress will be sustainable only when Haiti has a government that is chosen by and beholden to its people. Haiti's problems are grave. But progress is achievable, as we counter the destabilizers, deploy a military coalition through the UN, and invest strategically to enable Haiti to regain capacity, to secure its own homeland and people, benefiting US interests and the region. Thank you.

Recognized for five minutes.

Senator Mullen, ranking member Schatz, and distinguished members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I returned from Haiti just last week. The country is central to my life and has been for the best better part of two decades. I lived in Haiti with my family, led Haitian teams of nearly nine hundred staff, and coordinated humanitarian and disaster operations with U U S government following every major crisis since twenty ten. In recent years, my work has expanded in to leading kidnapping recovery operations and emergency extractions under the harshest conditions. One individual, Jeff Fraser, who we successfully recovered, is seated in the gallery today. The results we have achieved in Haiti are driven by an approach that many international efforts have struggled to sustain. Deep cultural fluency, long-term presence, and operational leadership rooted in local context. Our teams are largely Haitian and Haitian-American, with in-country experience, language capability, and local relationships that inform every decision that we make. These competencies have allowed us to continue operating, even as conditions have deteriorated. However, the scale and trajectory of Haiti's current crisis have exceeded what any nongovernmental coalition, no matter how capable, can mitigate without durable support from the US Congress. Haiti is experiencing systemic collapse, as stated. One of the co- of the country's eleven million people, roughly five point nine million are facing acute food insecurity. Armed groups now exert influence over an estimated ninety percent of Port-au-Prince with violence spreading into additional regions throughout the country. Between January and September of twenty twenty-five alone, criminal groups murdered more than sixty-seven hundred people, carried out four hundred ninety-one kidnappings, and committed twelve hundred and seventy incidents of sexual and gender-based violence. Internal displacement doubled last year to one point four million people, including more than half a million children. These are reported figures, and the true scale we know is mu- likely much higher. At the center of this crisis is one fundamental obstacle. security. Aid cannot move, food cannot reach children, clinics cannot function, schools cannot operate, without freedom of movement, humanitarian response cannot succeed. All of this is unfolding, stated less than seven hundred miles from the Florida coast. In the absence of effective governance, transnational criminal networks have established increasingly sophisticated pipelines for trafficking narcotics, illicit finance. weapons and ammunition into and out of Haiti. The continued collapse of the Haitian state represents not only a humanitarian catastrophe, but a direct and growing threat to US national security and regional stability. Since the early nineteen ninety, nineteen nineties, Haiti has been the subject of repeated international security interventions, involving tens of thousands of foreign troops and billions of US dollars. This includes a twenty-five thousand person US uh led US force in nineteen ninety-four, a ten thousand person UN stabilization mission from two thousand four to two thousand seventeen, and the most more recent MSS Kenyan-led mission of fourteen hundred personnel. Despite this scale, duration and cost, Haiti today faces its most dire security and humanitarian collapse in decades. The lesson is not that engagement is futile, but that security and humanitarian response cannot be treated as separate problems. Stabilization must create the conditions for aid to move, services to function, and institutions to recover. Civil society will continue to act where it can, but today insecurity is the binding constrait constraint. Even when humanitarian supplies exist, armed groups block roads, seize shipments, and extort convoys. Without secure access, aid cannot reach the people it's intended to serve. Security is the number one humanitarian issue. My partners and I work alongside a coalition of more than five hundred local organizations. Over the past decade, we have built the infrastructure necessary to establish secure humanitarian corridors as the first steps toward stabilization. That infrastructure supports a four phrase framework that scales with conditions on the ground. First, securing humanitarian corridors for safe aid delivery. Second, activating emergency food, water, and medical distribution through those corridors. Third, restoring essential services. and supporting local economic recovery, and fourth, transitioning operations to Haitian leaders, Haitian institutions, Haitian organizations. This approach deploys initially from areas of relative stabil- stability and advances towards Port-au-Prince, as conditions permit, reinforcing and expanding Haitian-led security and service capacity rather than displacing it. Working together, I believe we can develop a human- a humanitarian corridor that mitigates crisis

Thank you uh so much for your testimony. Does either one of you guys have to leave early? If you do, I can Okay, then let's go ahead and just go through this. Thank you once again for both you guys, the testimony. I I just wanna start with a with a question for both. How do we fix it?

So, as um you heard so eloquently and forcefully, and I can only agree with it, from Austin, security is the paramount issue. Everything is gonna proceed from that first principle. That's, if you will, the prime mover. And in fact, let me be very blunt. If we don't have security, the other issues that we might be able to talk about today are material, they're materially relevant only in the sense that they are academic concerns. Because if we don't have the security, if that's not established, nothing else can flow in the rest of the country. That is, to put a finer point on it, the keystone in the arch. And that is what US policy is aimed at. That is the paramount, that is the sine qua non of what we are doing, security and stability. Over.

As diske

As discussed with the gang suppression force, there are two fundamental obstacles I think that must be addressed. Corruption and a stabilizing function on the other side that looks like a Haitian institutional security solution. Outside of those two things, the endemic corruption and a long and endure- enduring and durable Haitian security solution uh we risk making the same mistakes that we've seen for the last forty years. What we're proposing today, and what I'm asking for the subcommittee's support on, is to take the humanitarian and security initiatives and pair them together to the creation of these humanitarian corridors. We believe that the stabilizing function that can come with that um is significant and absolutely critical to meeting the basic needs that you're seeing. As w- as shared, there are five hundred thousand children that are displaced right now. And so we believe that pairing the humanitarian and the security together brings a significant and enduring uh stabilization function to the people of Haiti.

I- if the gain suppression force is fully intact, what's, you know, what's different from the f- from the previous force that's been put in place? Uh, what makes us convinced that this is going to work? If the if in the past they haven't met us to provide security for themselves.

The humanitarian corridor model allows us to partner with Haitian forces, but through the use of PMC's to inject security.

Partner with with private forces or with U.

Haitian National Police and the FON,

H. H. H. H. National Police and the FON, as the ambassador mentioned.

as the ambassador mentioned.

Who said that? It was Ambassador, that's right. So if you have four hundred versus, you know, twelve thousand, roughly three thousand providing the risk, um, how are, how could they possibly secure the corridor without outside assistance?

Senator, I think I might be able to address uh that, or at least in part. So the gang suppression force, uh, the first units are supposed to arrive and they will arrive on um one April.

Arrive from where?

They're arriving from various places, in some cases from Chad, in other cases from Sri Lanka. These are infantry battalions. That is separate from the UN civil servants who will be running the

And they're and they're pairing with who? With UN forces? They're pairing who are they with? Eric Prince? Are they with

No, they are an organic asset operating under a UN chapter seven resolution.

OK.

So they are they are an they are their own entity.

OK.

So when this when this force arrives and begins its operations, which again are on one April, that is the turnkey moment when they must be in accordance with the resolution, they must be on the ground. When they begin doing that, they have a three set mission approach. Number one is neutralize, isolate, and this is by the way enshrined in the uh memorialized in the security council resolution number one neutralize, isolate, and deter the gangs. Number two secure critical infrastructure. This we can come back to in a second because it does include the roadways that would enable the passage of commerce of human beings of humanitarian aid and number three, enhance the capabilities of the security forces of Haiti. So establishing the security of major routes, that is an objective, a key objective of the GSF, of the gang suppression force. Not humanitarian corridors per se, but just so it They are functionally one and the same, but again the mission set is not humanitarian corridors, it's these lines of communication, the major highways.

A- and who is holding the shoe and force accountable? Who's overseeing them?

They are being overseen by a standing group of partners. So it's six nations, including us. We chair it. There are six nations that are in effect. Think of a board of directors, because that's who they report to. They report a military commander, reports up through a civilian special representative. And it's crucial here to underscore that SR, that special representative, is not a special representative to the secretary general. This is not a peacekeeping operation. They report to that board of directors.

Austin.

Yes, sir. I believe the the risk that we're discussing with the gang suppression force is most most of the gang activity that we're discussing is around the greater Port-au-Prince area. They've also expanded into four of the other ten departments of Haiti in total. So we're talking about a fifty five five hundred man force, augmenting a six thousand man force with the police as Ambassador Wooster's shared. Comparable uh illustrations are New York City and the Dominican Republic, both of roughly equivalent population sizes with thirty-six to fifty thousand force uh armies and police. So to think that fifty five hundred, plussing up to six thousand is going to solve a country wide issue, that's thirty six times the size of New York City, I believe is unrealistic. And so we're we're proposing today is additional security augmenting humanitarian corridors to stabilize these other regions so that we don't have the instability of port-au-prince spreading to the outlying regions. And so, you know, when we look at the UN forces that were there from two thousand four to two thousand seventeen the legacy for most Haitians is not positive. It's one of cholera outbreaks and sexual abuse. It was viewed as a foreign invasion. I think what's important here for all of us is that Haitians are seen leading their security initiative. If we are left here without a thirty-five to fifty thousand man force in country, I don't believe there's any any hope of sustained security in Haiti. We have the last forty years that point to that. And so what we're proposing is a dual framework in addition to the gang suppression force to augment train and to lead behind Haitian trai- uh, Haitian security forces that can sustain in a durable manner.

Thank you. Reimiter, Reiki member, Schatz.

Um, thank you, Chair Mullen. Thank you to both of you for your testimony. So on the GSF, the what's the end state in terms of the number uh in the force? Six thousand? Or six or six thousand plus six thousand?

Uh, you mean the number of troops in the force,

Yeah, the number of troops.

five thousand and five hundred troops?

Five.

And then a civilian representative with a civilian staff of five zero fifty. So troops, five thousand five hundred.

OK, and and where are we now on that number?

We have pla- we have the numbers from eleven countries and over eleven thousand people were pledged eleven thousand troops, excuse me. We culled that list down to get the fifty five hundred that we want. The first units will deploy on one April.

And d- d- I assume on a rolling basis until you get to your fifty five hundred and what is that months or years?

Yeah, it's months.

Okay.

So you're gonna need to reach initial operating capability one April, and then you're gonna go to full operational capability by September.

Okay, and Mister Holmes your sort of vision which which has a logic to it is, you know, Haiti's gonna have to govern itself and a and a bunch of foreign country troops may help to stabilize the situation um but is not a long-term solution so I'm assuming as you Imagine this dual track, that this can work, and then in the meantime you're providing resources and doing training, and best practices and all the rea because you can't get a force of in the tens of thousands that actually does take years does it not? Okay, so my basic question is this is already hard, right? Then what? Because I I accept the premise that development assistance, humanitarian assistance, you know, global health, all the good things that the United States tries to accomplish, uh, that are in our interests. None of it can work if you have everybody absconding with the stuff and all the rest of it. But a bunch of those programs were turned off abruptly. And I'm trying to figure out, in your mind's eye, we're eighteen months from now and things are starting to look more stable and like we can distribute aid and what is it, Ambassador, that we would need to turn back on over what period of time, which programs were effective, which should be thrown in the trash can. Give us a vision from the more narrow um view of this committee. What should we be funding if the security system permits us to distribute the kind of aid that has has been shown to be effective elsewhere?

Senator, on the matter of aid, it's important for all of us to bear in mind that notwithstanding cuts that have been made in aid programs worldwide without exception and here by orders of magnitude the United States remains the number one without any competitor without any peer, we remain the number one donor and assistance provider to Haiti. That's a crucial thing to bear in mind. In terms of the end state, Stability is the end state, but guns and the police or any of these other folks won't win it at the end of the day. When they go quiet, we must have an economy in place, there must be at least subsistence, and people will have to believe that they can in fact put shoes on the babies' feet and food on the table and something over their head. If they don't believe that that is attainable and possible, we're back to square one. whether people decide to get in boats or go to gangs.

So, I love what you said. It's something like what I would say. But let me be a little technocratic. Programmatically, what does that look like?

Programmatically, it looks less like you and more like the private sector. It looks less like you and more like public and private partnerships.

I'm not trying to have a adversarial back and forth, I'm asking which lines of funding, which programs that exist under our SFOPs bill, we should be looking to plus up or emphasize or encourage the administration to turn back on over time.

Yes, Senator, I I see us aligned here in an agreement. I'm sorry if I've misunderstood you. INCL would probably be one of the ones that I would dwell on a bit, um, because we're going to need to sustain the organizations and the entities and the variables that can provide that security. Right now in the current context, that is exactly what you have been doing, HNP INCEL, INL funding, and also what you did with or rather in lifting the prohibitions for FOD.

Thank you. Senator Bozeman.

Um. Thank you all for being here very, very much. This is so important. Um. I just wanna follow up. As chair of the Ag Committee, the uh Food for Peace is being pushed over to the Department of Agriculture now. Uh, and they have teamed up with the World Food Program to purchase two hundred and eleven thousand metric tons of commodities from US farmers. This will be sent to seven countries, including Haiti Haiti. And uh, uh, Senator Schatz really asked the question I was gonna ask about um, about food insecurity, you know, how that plays out, and then also its relationship to to gangs. You know, if you're if you're hungry, if you can't take care of your family, everything else is pretty unimportant. And then bad people step in to give you somewhat hope. Uh, this is gonna be done through the World Food Programme, uh, teaming up with them. So, um, can you all, can you add anything else to that? regards to, you know, again, it's so difficult without security to make that happen, uh, which, you know, is the number one priority to

Thank you, Senator Bussman, for that question. Um, with respect to the World Food Programme, I think uh a frequent oversight when looking at Haiti um at at two levels. Number one, um, that there are many Haitian capabilities in place that are not brought within the purview nor utilized. What exists today with the organization, so we've we've formed a coalition and appropriate framing would be a public private partnership model that I'm proposing to you today with these humanitarian corridors brings actors who have been working in privately funded throughout the last seven years an example of that would be Mission of Hope who's feeding a hundred and thirty thousand children every single day right now and has expanded and added thirty thousand to that and that's through six hundred and thirty program centers across the country of Haiti.

Right.

In the middle of these circumstances, additional groups like Food for the Poor, Samaritan's Purse, Feed My Starving Children have outstanding reputations globally for their work. And we're representing that coalition, I'm representing that coalition here today with a public-private partnership model that frankly can be far more cost-effective in its response and its capability because it has far deeper cultural understanding of Haiti it's far more adaptable and it should absolutely be held accountable to defined outcomes And I will willingly submit to any and all oversight and reporting standards that this committee uh were to request. But I believe that there's a model, sir, that's far more effective than we've currently been using, and I think we have the opportunity to deploy that and to scale it. It's already working. I'm not asking to create anything that doesn't exist already. I'm inviting you all to expand it.

Yeah, yeah. Well, I assume World Food Programme will work through some of those organizations. And one of the one of the mandates is is to reduce these countries' long-term reliance on international assistance, so provide s- provide food, but also again, um, uh, working through the organizations that you, you know, you talked about who do a tremendous job, uh, with so little resources.

Yes, thank you, Senator. You know, an- another example of that that we'd like to work on with you is, and we saw more than forty percent of the meals that were in that distribution network of a hundred thousand in twenty nineteen were procured and packaged in country. They're on a path to sustainability. Haitians would prefer to grow their own stuff and this is a great opportunity to to build domestic food security that's in the interest of the US as well as Haiti. And so I just don't wanna see us move backwards on that more than we already have. And I wanna make sure that this committee is aware of those mechanisms, because they can be used now.

Very good. I just wanna echo uh Senator Mullen's concern about the peacekeeping force. In the past uh, you know, we We give money to these countries and and they pocket a bunch of it and give a little bit to the soldiers that are there. And they wind up forging for themselves, you know, to to make it. And whatever we do, we need to make sure that those people are, uh, behave, you know, and adequately resourced. And I don't know how you do that through a committee, but but we do have to, that is imperative. The last thing we wanna do is be a part of a group, and and this has happened so many times where essentially the peacekeeping force is preying on the population. And uh that's something that's really important. So can you talk a little bit, can you expound on on the committee how they're gonna do that?

Yes gladly, Senator. Thanks thanks for that question. Um fundamentally through two mechanisms, so pathways are screening and pathways are vetting. On the screening sense in terms of the forces who are coming to be part of the GGSF, or those that are we are bringing together, we have self-screening, that's required in accordance with, mind you, another important thing to note here is, I need to step back a second, this is not a peacekeeping operation. Just, just important to note that doctrinal difference, uh certainly when we talk about any of these forces and, particularly in the UN context. We have self-screening that these organi- that these countries must perform before they can declare that their troops are ready to deploy and they have to follow, although this is not a PKO, a PKO standard for pre-deployment, pre-deployment training, PDT. Um, additionally, when they arrive in country they're gonna go through a two plus week induction. This is just a uh a bloated word that simply says they'll spend a couple They'll spend two weeks once they hit the ground getting refresher training, reviewing all the things, all the standards they had to meet before they deployed. The idea here is this is real. Vetting. We will conduct human rights due diligence. That is conducted by UN standards. That applies to organizations. Uh, say a battalion from a given country is deploying and it has or it had been noted to have been involved in one or another atrocity or gross violation of human rights. it cannot deploy. And then you have US Leahy vetting. Everybody in this conversation is familiar with it, but this takes us away from units and down to individuals, and provided the United States government has any record whatsoever, classified or unclassified, about a person and their participation or an allegation of their participation in an activity like this. So again, two pathways, vetting and screening.

Thank you, Mr.

Thank you, Senator Bozeman. Uh, Senator Shaheen.

Um, thank you both for being here. Mister Holmes, you talked about, and I think you may have referenced this to Ambassador, in your remarks, the um gender violence against women and girls. Uh, the majority of internally displaced people in Haiti are women and girls. Can you speak to the humanitarian efforts that are focused on women and girls?

Senator Sheen, thanks for your attention in this matter. Um So I think an understated consequence is being paid by women and ch- uh women and females throughout the country. More recently you know we've we've seen gangs using something uh called community rapes where, in an effort to terrorize entire communities, they'll systematically rape every female in that community. Um in October we saw forty-two murdered as a part of that, many former staff members from my team. And so women play such a critical part in not just the protection mechanisms here but in the leadership coming out on the other side of it. Um and so what we are proposing in the humanitarian piece is that should be a measurable and defined metric that we're reporting on, consistently throughout it. If we aren't measuring it and reporting on it, we shouldn't expect it to be managed accordingly.

Well, thank you, I I appreciate that because we do have a a law um that Congress passed during the first Trump administration called Women, Peace and Security, that um mandates that in conflict zones like this, that women should be at the table in leadership roles. Can you, Ambassador, speak to um what we're doing to ensure that women are included in um decision-making with respect to what happens in Haiti?

Senator, uh let me make a first point if I might about the importance that you just heard stressed from austin um the fact is that yes uh what we see is this heinous activity it's been well chronicled well reported and i would stress once again this is precisely why the paramount concern of our policy is attaining security and stability in terms of women in um various roles in government um we work with the prime minister and his cabinet before we had another configuration until seventy two hours ago We are continuing our conversations with this Prime Minister and his cabinet. Uh, the achievement that they are looking for is they want to bring Haiti into an era, where it can be in fact representative of its people. I don't want to overstate this and put it this into glowing Jeffersonian terms. That is not what is going to be happening in the immediate future. But I do want to say that these conversations, all of us, they and we are eyes wide open to how they look will matter and who brings what skills to bear in terms of dealing with a society that is not exclusively male.

Well, put that in terms that my constituents can understand, that is not diplomatic speak. Um, because I I would point out, and I know you both know this, that societies that empower women tend to be more stable. Um, they tend to women contribute more to their communities, to their countries generally than men do in terms of um monetary contributions as well as um volunteer. So say that again in um language that is uh street speak, that people will understand.

Senator, women already run a lot of Haitian society. They run a lot of the commerce and they run a lot of the institutions. I don't mean merely in the household behind closed doors. That's already taking place. That's a longer conversation about sociology and who are Haitian people.

Right.

But that's already built into the warp and woof of a lot, with exception to the armed forces. I don't think we can say that that's true there right now, and not in the Haitian National Police, that's not true there right now.

A- and so what are we doing to encourage um inclusion of women in the decision making? You talked about um the current state of governance affairs based on the resignation of the council, um just seventy-two hours ago. So, how do we see that playing out? What what is um what are we doing to try and ensure that there is a s a stable governance piece along with the security piece.

One of the key problems in Haiti, and not unique to Haiti by the way, has been the fact that they have a government that's out of touch with they have had a government that was out of touch with its people and out of touch with a lot of other things uh I would like to think that the fact that the the points you're observing the issues of women in society all the variables that you've noted um I know for a fact that prime minister is awake to that i'm citing him because he is the head of government now we

mmm

don't have a separate head of state um i i can't walk you through the particulars of his cabinet yet that is in the process of changing but i can assure you that the us embassy on the ground we are in regular conversation with them multiple times a day about any number of issues they are like all governments i've dealt with throughout my career enormously sensitive to how they are perceived in Washington and emphatically so right here inside the US Congress. It matters to them enormously. They are watching this testimony. They will be parsing every word of it. And so your questions have communicated volumes already.

Thank you. Thank you, Mister Chairman.

Thank you. Uh, Senator Murphy.

Uh, thank you very much, Mister Chairman. Thank you both for being here. Ambassador, good to see you again. Um, I noted in either your testimony or your early answers, uh the you know relatively small number uh within the HMP that are really doing the day-to-day work um which makes the recent disclosure that there are several hundred private military contractor personnel from a company called Vectis owned by a uh Trump affiliate, a Trump ally, Eric Prince uh apparently in the country today. Um You know, we have been pretty careful uh about having American private military contractors in conflict zones American mercenaries. Um I just wanna ask you, what do you understand right now is the role of this particular company, Vectis? What are these two hundred personnel doing? What level of coordination do you have with uh with them and are there other companies on the ground other than vectus private military companies um that are being contracted by the police force or by the haitian government

senator it's important in the case of the pmc the private military contractor is on the ground uh that we all understand the same framework and that is that that contract is between the haitian government and between them and the private military contractor the monies the revenue is being used to pay for it our Haitian revenues. The point is, this is a decision the Haitian government made, this is not a US contract. I just wanna make that crystal clear at the outset. Uh, in terms of what they do, um, they have been, uh, I think everyone is aware because there's been a lot of coverage of it, of the so-called kamikaze drones, the point being drones with ordnance. Um, they have been also providing a lot of comparative advantages in this fight. um primarily the ability to fight at night and also bringing in experienced fighters who have done this either anti-gang in other countries or um special operations personnel from allied countries, the point being they're experienced military personnel. And that's where we need to understand that what's going on in the ground is not analogous to what we saw say with Mayor Giuliani in New York in the late eighties where there was a a gang problem and the idea was let's fix

So let me let me ask you this. The reports are that Vectis drone strikes, again, this is an American company, um, operating drone strikes inside of Haiti, has killed five hundred and fifty-nine people and eleven children. This is an American company. We've been very careful about introducing American forces into Haiti because of the blowback that it has had against America's reputation and our interest in the region. But this is an American company that is killing hundreds of people. Um. Under the Arms Export Control Act, the State Department is required to license the export of defense articles or military services. So did the State Department issue a license to Vectis Global to export defense services to Haiti?

The State Department has issued licenses for anyone who meets the law, in terms of the regulatory and statutory policies that apply for the export.

Well, but but but then but just as just to answer my I respect you, but answer my question,

Yes.

you know, the State Department the State Department has issued a license.

Yes.

Um, so did the can you were you involved in the issuance of that license?

No.

Um, can you speak to the consideration given for the indictments brought against the prior companies run by mister Prince for violating arms exports for the massacre that happened um under his leadership in Iraq um this obviously should have relevance to whether this company is allowed to operate in Haiti and whether there will potentially be blowback against the United States as there was with respect to mister Prince's other private military companies operating in other conflict areas.

Senator, y you will respect that I cannot use this opportunity to indict Eric Prince or any of his various companies. Also, any licensing that's done, I'm gonna have to refer you to the Political, Military Bureau at State Department, because that's their area of expertise and responsibility doesn't happen through the US Embassy. However, uh, I will offer you a counterfactual. Can you imagine how the situation with regard to security and stability would be different if we didn't have people with experience contributing to this fight on behalf of the Haitian government. I can assure you that if we didn't have people who brought the expertise to it, uh, to be able to fight at night and to be able to introduce other variables into this equation the whole situation and one mentioned by several of your colleagues here, state collapse, we would be much closer to that nasty precipice than we are at the moment. So Let me be clear, I don't carry a torch for this outfit, but I have to pr- offer you my best professional counsel, which is precisely that, which is that we would be in a situation that is, that is much worse than we're in at the moment.