Unit­ed Na­tions Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al, An­to­nio Guter­res, said on Mon­day that Haiti con­tin­ues to ex­pe­ri­ence “mas­sive hu­man rights vi­o­la­tions”, even as ef­forts con­tin­ue to bring about peace and sta­bil­i­ty in the French-speak­ing Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM) coun­try.

Ad­dress­ing the Hu­man Rights Coun­cil, Guter­res said that more than a mil­lion peo­ple have been dis­placed, and chil­dren con­tin­ue to face “a hor­rif­ic in­crease in sex­u­al vi­o­lence and re­cruit­ment in­to gangs.

“In the com­ing days, I will put for­ward pro­pos­als to the Unit­ed Na­tions Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil for greater sta­bil­i­ty and se­cu­ri­ty for the peo­ple of Haiti, name­ly through an ef­fec­tive UN as­sis­tance mech­a­nism to sup­port the Mul­ti­lat­er­al Se­cu­ri­ty Sup­port mis­sion, the na­tion­al po­lice and Hait­ian au­thor­i­ties”.

ast week as he ad­dressed CARI­COM lead­ers at their sum­mit in Bar­ba­dos, Guter­res said that the ini­tia­tive would be sim­i­lar to one be­ing used by the glob­al or­ga­ni­za­tion in So­ma­lia.

“It is my in­ten­tion to present to the Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil a pro­pos­al that is very sim­i­lar to the one that we have pre­sent­ed for So­ma­lia, in which the UN as­sumes the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the struc­tur­al and lo­gis­ti­cal ex­pen­di­tures that are nec­es­sary to put the force in place, and the salaries of the force are paid through the trust fund that al­ready ex­ists.

“And if the Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil will ac­cept this pro­pos­al, we will have the con­di­tions to fi­nal­ly have an ef­fec­tive force to de­feat the gangs in Haiti and cre­ate the con­di­tions for democ­ra­cy,” Guter­res said, adding “and I urge you to con­tin­ue your work and ad­vo­ca­cy to tack­le the weapons and drug traf­fick­ing that is fu­elling vi­o­lence across the re­gion, in­clud­ing through pre­ven­tion”.

Haiti is fac­ing a cri­sis fol­low­ing the as­sas­si­na­tion in Ju­ly 2021 of the then pres­i­dent Jovenel Moi­se. Crim­i­nal gangs have are seek­ing to take com­plete con­trol of the cap­i­tal Port au Prince, and have launched sev­er­al at­tacks, killing women and chil­dren among oth­ers.

The UN Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil in 2023 passed a res­o­lu­tion for a Kenya-based Multi­na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Sup­port Mis­sion, aimed at com­bat­ing gang vi­o­lence and restor­ing sta­bil­i­ty in the French-speak­ing CARI­COM coun­try.

The mis­sion was ini­tial­ly slat­ed to be com­posed of 2,500 of­fi­cers and sol­diers, with Kenyan po­lice of­fi­cers form­ing the core of the force de­ployed to as­sist the Hait­ian po­lice in re­gain­ing con­trol of key ar­eas and pro­tect­ing civil­ians.

In his ad­dress to the UN Hu­man Rights Coun­cil, Guter­res said “a durable so­lu­tion re­quires a po­lit­i­cal process, led and owned by the Hait­ian peo­ple that re­stores de­mo­c­ra­t­ic in­sti­tu­tions through elec­tions”.

There are plans to stage the elec­tions on No­vem­ber 15 this year.

UN High Com­mis­sion­er for Hu­man Rights Volk­er Türk, said at the open­ing of the Hu­man Rights Coun­cil meet­ing, said be­yond Ukraine and Gaza, con­flicts and crises are tear­ing com­mu­ni­ties and so­ci­eties apart, from Su­dan to the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Re­pub­lic of the Con­go, Haiti, Myan­mar and Afghanistan.

High­light­ing mul­ti­ple chal­lenges, the High Com­mis­sion­er called for an all-out ef­fort by every­one to make sure that hu­man rights and the rule of law re­main cen­tral to com­mu­ni­ties, so­ci­eties and in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions.

“The glob­al con­sen­sus on hu­man rights is crum­bling un­der the weight of au­thor­i­tar­i­ans, strong­men and oli­garchs,” Türk warned.

“Every­where, we see at­tempts to ig­nore, un­der­mine, and re­de­fine hu­man rights; and to cre­ate a false bi­na­ry that pits one right against an­oth­er in a ze­ro-sum game. There are con­cert­ed ef­forts to chip away at gen­der equal­i­ty, and the rights of mi­grants, refugees, peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties, and mi­nori­ties of all kinds,” the High Com­mis­sion­er said.

“But hu­man rights, from the right to food and ad­e­quate hous­ing, to the rights to health, ed­u­ca­tion, and free­dom of speech, are for every­one.”

In his ad­dress, which co­in­cides with the third an­niver­sary of Rus­sia’s in­va­sion of Ukraine, in vi­o­la­tion of the UN char­ter, Guter­res said that more than 12,600 civil­ians have been killed, with many more in­jured.

“En­tire com­mu­ni­ties re­duced to rub­ble. Hos­pi­tals and schools de­stroyed. We must spare no ef­fort to bring an end to this con­flict, and to achieve a just and last­ing peace in line with the UN Char­ter, in­ter­na­tion­al law and Gen­er­al As­sem­bly res­o­lu­tions.”

e said con­flicts like the war in Ukraine ex­act a heavy toll on peo­ple, on fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples like ter­ri­to­r­i­al in­tegri­ty, sov­er­eign­ty and the rule of law as well as a toll on the vi­tal busi­ness of the Coun­cil.

“With­out re­spect for hu­man rights, civ­il, cul­tur­al, eco­nom­ic, po­lit­i­cal and so­cial, sus­tain­able peace is a pipedream. And like this Coun­cil, hu­man rights shine a light in the dark­est places.

“Through your work, and the work of the High Com­mis­sion­er’s Of­fice around the world, you’re sup­port­ing brave hu­man rights de­fend­ers risk­ing per­se­cu­tion, de­ten­tion and even death.

You’re work­ing with gov­ern­ments, civ­il so­ci­ety and oth­ers to strength­en ac­tion on hu­man rights. And you’re sup­port­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions and ac­count­abil­i­ty.”

The UN Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al re­called that five years ago, the UN launched the Call to Ac­tion for Hu­man Rights, em­bed­ding hu­man rights across the work of the Unit­ed Na­tions around the world in close co­op­er­a­tion with our part­ners.

“I will con­tin­ue sup­port­ing this im­por­tant work, and the High Com­mis­sion­er’s Of­fice, as we fight for hu­man rights every­where,” he said, adding “we have our work cut out for us.

“Hu­man rights are the oxy­gen of hu­man­i­ty. But one by one, hu­man rights are be­ing suf­fo­cat­ed. By au­to­crats, crush­ing op­po­si­tion be­cause they fear what a tru­ly em­pow­ered peo­ple would do. By a pa­tri­archy that keeps girls out of school, and women at arm’s length from ba­sic rights.

“By wars and vi­o­lence that strip pop­u­la­tions of their right to food, wa­ter and ed­u­ca­tion. By war­mon­gers who thumb their nose at in­ter­na­tion­al law, in­ter­na­tion­al hu­man­i­tar­i­an law and the UN Char­ter.”

Guter­res said hu­man rights are be­ing suf­fo­cat­ed by the cli­mate cri­sis and by a moral­ly bank­rupt glob­al fi­nan­cial sys­tem that too of­ten ob­structs the path to greater equal­i­ty and sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment.

“By run­away tech­nolo­gies like Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence that hold great promise, but al­so the abil­i­ty to vi­o­late hu­man rights at the touch of a but­ton. By grow­ing in­tol­er­ance against en­tire groups, from In­dige­nous peo­ples, to mi­grants and refugees, to the LGBTQI+ com­mu­ni­ty, to per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties, and by voic­es of di­vi­sion and anger who view hu­man rights not as a boon to hu­man­i­ty, but as a bar­ri­er to the pow­er, prof­it and con­trol they seek.

“In short, hu­man rights are on the ropes and be­ing pum­meled hard. This rep­re­sents a di­rect threat to all of the hard-won mech­a­nisms and sys­tems es­tab­lished over the last 80 years to pro­tect and ad­vance hu­man rights. ”

He said the re­cent­ly adopt­ed Pact for the Fu­ture re­minds all that hu­man rights are, in fact, a source of so­lu­tions.

“The Pact pro­vides a play­book on how we can win the fight for hu­man rights on sev­er­al fronts. First, hu­man rights through peace and peace through hu­man rights,” he said, adding “con­flicts in­flict hu­man rights vi­o­la­tions on a mas­sive scale”. —UNIT­ED NA­TIONS (CMC)