Amnesty Demands El Salvador and Haiti Publish Troop Deployment Deal

Amnesty International wants answers on who is running the show in Haiti. On Monday, the rights group called on El Salvador and Haiti to publish the agreement that governs the mass deployment of Salvadoran troops into the gang-ravaged Caribbean nation, and to guarantee that human rights are respected.

El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele has sent around 2,000 troops to Haiti since the mid-October disappearance of four Salvadoran personnel. The vast majority of those soldiers are not serving under the UN-backed Gang Suppression Force (GSF) — a gap Amnesty says leaves their rules of engagement dangerously unclear.

Amnesty's Americas director, Ana Piquer, laid out the questions the group wants answered, saying: 'Both governments must make public the agreement governing the deployment and explain how they oversee the deployed forces, what rules govern the use of force, to whom they are accountable, and how people can report possible violations without fear of reprisals.'

Bukele first framed the mission as a rescue operation to bring the missing personnel home, then hinted at a wider aim: dismantling Haiti's powerful gangs, much as he did at home with a crackdown that has drawn allegations of rights abuses. Piquer pressed Bukele and Haitian Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aime to 'ensure that all operations conducted by Salvadoran forces in Haiti comply with international human rights law.'

She also demanded that both countries set up 'prompt, independent and impartial investigations into all allegations of human rights violations.' Her warning was blunt: 'The response to gang violence must not replicate the abuses and impunity that have characterized previous interventions in Haiti.'