Sec. 2. Findings
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Congress finds the following: On January 12, 2010, a massive earthquake struck near the Haitian capital city of Port-au-Prince, leaving at least 220,000 people dead, including 103 United States citizens, 101 United Nations personnel, and nearly 18 percent of the civil service of Haiti, as well as approximately 300,000 injured, 115,000 homes destroyed, and 1,500,000 Haitians displaced. The international community, led by the United States and the United Nations, mounted an unprecedented humanitarian response to the earthquake in Haiti.
Through 2018, more than $8,000,000,000 was disbursed by donors. Since the 2010 earthquake, the United States Government has disbursed more than $4,000,000,000 in recovery and development funding. On October 4, 2016, Hurricane Matthew struck southwestern Haiti on the Tiburon Peninsula, causing widespread damage and flooding and leaving approximately 1,400,000 people in need of immediate assistance. Recovery efforts continue more than 4 years later. Before the 2010 earthquake and 2016 hurricane, Haiti registered among the lowest in socioeconomic indicators and had the second highest rate of income disparity in the world, conditions that have further complicated disaster recovery and resilience efforts.
As of November 2020, approximately 4,400,000 people are in need of humanitarian assistance in Haiti. With assistance from the United States, more than 30,000 jobs have been created since the 2010 earthquake, largely in the apparel industry at the Caracol Industrial Park (in partnership with the Inter-American Development Bank, the Government of Haiti, and the private sector) in northern Haiti. Since 2018, tens of thousands of Haitians have participated in popular demonstrations demanding accountability over government management of Petrocaribe resources.
In early 2019, the superior court of auditors in Haiti released a series of reports implicating high-level government officials in the misappropriation of funds. The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Human Rights Service jointly found a 333-percent increase in human rights violations and abuses against the rights of life and security in Haiti from July 2018 through December 2019. There were 131 violations in 2018 and 567 violations in 2019, including the shooting of at least 1 journalist covering the protests.
Leading members of civil society have faced attacks, including Monferrier Dorval, a constitutional law expert and president of the Port-au-Prince bar association who was killed on August 28, 2020. On November 13, 2018, according to the Haitian National Human Rights Defense Network, at least 71 people were shot and killed and 18 people were raped in the neighborhood of La Saline in Port-au-Prince. On December 10, 2020, the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the Department of the Treasury designated former Haitian National Police officer Jimmy Cherizier, former Director General of the Ministry of the Interior Fednel Monchery, and former Departmental Delegate Joseph Pierre Richard Duplan pursuant to Executive Order 13818 ( 50 U.S.C. 1701 note; relating to blocking the property of persons involved in serious human rights abuse or corruption) for being foreign persons responsible for or complicit in, or having directly or indirectly engaged in, serious human rights abuse for their connection to the massacre in La Saline.
Following the massacre in La Saline, similar attacks have occurred in other Port-au-Prince neighborhoods, including the November 2019 and August 2020 attacks in Bel Air, in which 24 people were killed and hundreds of families were displaced. Parliamentary elections scheduled for October 2019 did not take place, and since January 13, 2020, President Jovenel Moïse has ruled by decree. At least 5 decrees have been cited as increasingly authoritarian by Haitian civic and political leaders and the international community, including— the October 30, 2020, decision to constitute a 5-member group to draft a new constitution; the November 6, 2020, decision to reduce the control of anticorruption entities such as the Superior Court of Accounts and Administrative Litigation; the November 26, 2020, antiterrorism decree that establishes sanctions applicable to Haitian police officers not stopping demonstrations; the November 26, 2020, creation of the National Intelligence Agency; and the February 11, 2021, appointment of 3 new judges to the Supreme Court of Haiti outside of constitutional procedures.
Although there has been no parliament in place since January 2020, the Government of Haiti approved a budget on September 30, 2020, but the delay prevented the International Monetary Fund and other multilateral organizations from disbursing millions in international assistance. In September 2020, President Moïse bypassed the Supreme Court of Haiti to appoint a Provisional Electoral Council
(CEP)by executive decree. Several civil society groups that traditionally participate in the electoral councils of Haiti criticized the decision and have declined to be represented in the CEP. On February 7, 2021, President Moïse alleged that a coup had been attempted against him, leading to 23 subsequent arrests, including of Judge Yviquel Dabrésil of the Supreme Court of Haiti. The Department of State noted that the situation remains murky and we await the results of the police investigation . On February 9, 2021, President Moïse forced the retirement of 3 Supreme Court judges, who were named as possible transitional presidents by political opponents, and replaced them with individuals he unilaterally selected.
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