August 23, 2024
Foreign Policy’s (FP’s) Catherine Osborn talked to Jake Johnston about the news this week that the US is slapping sanctions on Haiti’s former president Michel Martelly for alleged drug trafficking. Martelly, who lives in Florida, was backed by the Obama administration during his presidency, and “Washington urged Haitian authorities to remove a rival candidate from the ballot in the 2010 vote that brought Martelly to power,” FP noted. (CEPR published multiple reports during the time of Haiti’s 2010/2011 elections showing how the Organization of American States, with US support, arbitrarily overturned the first-round election results so that Martelly, and not the candidate backed by outgoing president René Préval, would proceed to the runoff.)
Martelly “was someone the United States invested tremendous political capital in after the earthquake and during the reconstruction,” Johnston told FP, which added that Johnston’s “book Aid State looks at the opaque nature of U.S. funding earmarked for Haiti.”
FP added:
It is not clear why Washington decided to sanction Martelly now, but Johnston said that recent events in U.S.-Haiti relations offer some clues. The United States backs a transitional government in the country that was installed after the ouster of Moïse’s unelected successor, Ariel Henry, who served as acting prime minister. An ongoing international security mission aims to reduce gang violence in the country.
Johnston’s Aid State includes more details on how the US and OAS intervened in Haiti’s elections to help Martelly become president, Martelly’s reported connections to drug trafficking, a history of the Petrocaribe corruption scandal that led to a mass protest movement in the years after Martelly left office, and much more.
Learn more about the book here, watch videos of Johnston in discussion with other Haiti scholars, and listen to Johnston’s interviews about the book on shows such as CBS Sunday Morning, Democracy Now, Breaking Points, The John Fugelsang Podcast, and 1A.
