Trump administration labels Haiti's armed gangs as foreign global terrorists
The Trump administration has labeled a coalition of influential Haitian gangs, along with an allied force spreading chaos in Haiti's main agricultural region, as terrorists.
The Viv Ansanm coalition, whose membership consists of more than two dozen of Haiti’s best-armed criminal groups, and the Gran Grief gang have been labeled as both Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, News.Az reports citing foreign media.
Rubio, who views the gangs and their escalating violence and influence as a direct threat to U.S. national security, made the designation on Friday. The gangs join eight other Latin American crime organizations that were similarly labeled as terror groups by the State Department in February. That list includes Mexican cartels as well as Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua.
“The Trump Administration is sending a clear message with its terrorist designations of Viv Ansanm and Gran Grif,” a senior State Department official told the Miami Herald. “Under the leadership of Secretary Rubio we are holding accountable vicious groups which have undermined Haiti and its people. It’s in America’s national security interest to hold the vicious gangs accountable.”
Rubio sees the terrorist designation as critical in trying to address regional concerns that gangs are also trying to turn Haiti into a narco-trafficking state where illegal guns and drugs pass through freely.
Both designations come with significant implications criminally and financially for anyone deemed as providing “material support” or “resources” for the designated groups. Not only do individuals risk counter-terrorism sanctions and criminal charges, they could also be removed from the U.S. or be banned from entering.
Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article305515216.html#storylink=cpy
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