“Official request for international mediation and the establishment of a dialogue to promote peace and stability in Haiti,” is the subject of the two-page letter to UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
The letter is signed by Joseph Wilson, also known as Lanmò San Jou. Wilson leads the criminal gang "400 Mawozo" - known for organized and collective kidnappings, murder, extortion, truck robberies and weapons and people smuggling.
The U.S. government has put a bounty of up to $1 million on Wilson's head. He is accused of being involved in the kidnapping of 17 Christian missionaries in October 2021.
Mail from the gang leader is not an everyday occurrence
The letterhead features a dove of peace with a laurel branch in its beak, and the footer contains a WhatsApp number and a Gmail address. It is certainly not everyday that a gang leader approaches the Secretary General in this way.
When asked by a journalist whether the UN would respond to the letter, spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said that acknowledgment of receipt did not mean recognition of the gang leader or approval of the contents of the letter. There is also no obligation on the part of the Secretary General to respond.
Wilson demands that the UN send a delegation to Haiti. This should enable a dialogue and mediation process between the armed gangs and the international security forces, expressly with the participation of the troops from El Salvador.
Kidnapped military personnel dead?
The background is the kidnapping of four Salvadoran military personnel on October 18th. Their vehicle was attacked near the capital Port-au-Prince. The four have been missing since then. Now Wilson claims they are dead. There is no independent confirmation of this yet.
In an exclusive interview with the AP news agency, he particularly criticized the security forces' drone strikes that kill civilians, including children and the elderly.
Bukele sends 2,000 emergency services to Haiti
Wilson's letter follows a threat from Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele: If the four missing people are not released, there will be a military response. He has now sent around 2,000 additional emergency services to Haiti.
His message to the gangs is: "We eradicated the gangs in El Salvador, and we can do the same to you. This is a warning: Our mission is not to eradicate the gangs in Haiti. Rather, our mission is to free our four members. If they do not hand them over voluntarily, we will free them by force."
Bukele is known for his tough policy. The right-wing, authoritarian president has imprisoned tens of thousands of people and declared a state of emergency, which has led to the suspension of numerous civil rights.
More troops, more violence?
Experts warn of insufficient coordination between the various security forces in Haiti. Aid organizations such as Doctors Without Borders fear that the additional international troop presence and the large-scale offensive could further inflame the armed conflict.
The operation has not met with any resistance from the government in the country itself. International forces have not come to replace the state, said Haiti's Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé. They came to support him.
UN spokesman Dujarric assumes that of the more than 2,000 Salvadoran emergency services, only very few have an official mandate. There are around 200 Salvadoran forces that fall under the mandate of the GSF - the force to combat gangs - and therefore also under the United Nations monitoring and reporting mechanism set up by the Security Council.
He described the deployment of the remaining forces as a bilateral matter. At the same time, he emphasized that security operations must be in accordance with international human rights standards. According to the UN, at least 5,700 people have been killed or injured in Haiti as a result of gang violence since the beginning of the year. More than 1,000 women and girls were raped.
