“Thirteen years later, Haiti is a very different place.” With that phrase, the then head of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (Minustah), Sandra Honoré, closed the intervention in the Caribbean nation in October 2017. But the truth is that this change, if there was one, , it didn’t last long.
Just the UN blue helmets They left Haiti that year, instability once again took over the country. Since then, the nation has faced scandals over the embezzlement of Petrocaribe funds, political disputes to unconstitutionally extend the presidential term, the assassination of President Jovenel Moïsenatural disasters and the violent advance of criminal gangs that kidnap, rob, kill and control 80% of Port-au-Prince – the capital – and other areas of the country.
The critical situation of violence has led to the displacement of at least 200,000 people who have been forced to flee their homes to other areas of Haiti and also abroad. The Haitians, after the Venezuelans and the Ecuadorians, are the third nationality that crosses the Darién Gap the most, with 35,724 people between January and August of this year, seven times more than the previous period. And in the neighbor Dominican Republicwith which it shares the island of Hispaniola, currently lives between 650,000 and one million Haitians, according to UN data.
Once again, the international community – through the United Nations Security Council – accepted that the solution to the Haitian drama must come through the intervention of a multinational armed force. It took a year to authorize the operation that the president of that country, Ariel Henry, had applied in 2022. This time will this formula be successful to remove Haiti from the whirlwind of violence and instability that plagues it?
It is estimated that the intervention will begin in January 2024, although this time the blue helmets will not participate, but at least 1,000 troops from the Kenya Policeand possibly some of his partners in the Caribbean Community (Caricom), such as Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas and Jamaica.
But Kenya’s participation as leader of the intervention raises doubts not only about its effectiveness, but also about the possible excesses of the Kenyan police force, which has been accused of human rights violations. Extrajudicial executions, extortion and abuse of refugees from Somalia, violent repressions against protesters and illegal use of force are some of the irregularities that international organizations, such as Human Rights Watch, have denouncedin the actions of that police force.
But Kenya is also considered a developing power, it has the East Africa’s largest economy and usually carries out cooperation missions in other countries, such as the educational programs recently agreed with Colombia. He has even participated in actions to stop violent groups, such as at the end of last year in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Kenya, more than 12,000 kilometers from Haiti, has a point in its favor when it comes to deploying its police in the Caribbean nation. Although it became independent from France 219 years ago, for its inhabitants colonialism is a very deep wound that the last century reopened the United States occupation. Hence, as political scientist Louis Jean-Pierre Loriston says, it has always been requested that “any intervention with the military has to be by people of the same color as us. Slavery itself tells us that if you bring white people with weapons, that will result in not accepting that situation. Culturally, the Haitian does not accept it.”
Haiti has spent more than 13 of the last 20 years intervened by UN forces. Minustah (United Nations Stabilization Mission), which lasted from 2004 to 2017, came after the coup d’état against then-president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. It was agreed amid rejection over the postponement of the general elections and disputes between armed gangs for territorial control.
The armed gangs
Today, more than 150 criminal organizations of diverse origins plague the country. But the most striking is the ‘G9 Revolutionary Force is Family and Allies’ (Fòs Revolisyonè G9 an Fanmi e Alye, en Creole), an alliance of nine armed groups led by former police officer Jimmy Chérizier. Best known for his alias: ‘Barbecue, retired from the police in December 2018 accused of human rights violations. Several reports indicate him as a strong ally of Jovenel Moïse to intimidate the protesters who in 2019 filled the streets of Port-au-Prince in protest against the diversion of funds from Petrocaribe.
Just at the beginning of the following year, kidnappings resurfaced with such force that they have since become part of the Haitian landscape. And the worst thing is that this nation faces great institutional weaknesses when it comes to fighting armed groups. Indeed, it abolished the Army in 1995, has a police force with ties to criminal groups and a National Intelligence Service (WITHOUT) infiltrated by these.
Thus, it is impossible to resolve the violence and insecurity that keeps the residents of the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere subjugated.
Some of the experts consulted prefer to call militias what the international community usually calls gangs or criminal gangs. Loriston explains that armed groups have accompanied Haiti since independence in 1804 and are often linked to political groups. This has happened, above all, since the eighties, after the fall of the bloody dictatorship of Jean-Claude Duvalier (‘Baby Doc’).
You cannot call someone a gang to whom the State or government itself gives weapons.
“You cannot call someone a gang to whom the State or government itself gives weapons. If it is the same political-economic elite that gives weapons to these people, they are militias. (…) Everyone who has governed Haiti from 1986 to today has always had an armed wing,” says Loriston.
In this regard, the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti has received reports from the territories controlled by the gangs and highlights that the conditions are dramatic. “The situation on the ground is described by Haitians as a living hell, where they risk their lives if they have to leave their homes to look for food and water,” says Alexandra Filippova, senior lawyer at the institute, based in Massachusetts (United States). ).
Filippova highlights that the bands that They control a good part of Port-au-Prince and other areas usually use brutal violence to obtain and maintain that territorial control that includes murders and mutilations, as well as kidnappings, sexual violence and burning of homes. “At this point, the situation is really desperate,” he says. And he agrees with Loriston: there is government complicity with the gangs that has led to the police being deeply infiltrated by them.
Hence, given the extreme levels of severity that the crisis has reached, the question arises as to whether this next intervention could end with different results than 2017. We must not forget that, in addition, this operation left countless cases of sexual exploitation and a cholera epidemic in Haiti. For Henry Boisrolin, a member of the Haitian Democratic Committee in Argentina, while before it was a shipment of blue helmets – directly dependent on the UN –, this time it will be “a collaboration of countries, with the blessing of the Security Council. That is the only difference”.
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Boisrolin highlights that the operation contradicts “the will of the people, of their popular organizations, which have overwhelmingly expressed themselves against any intervention.” Internally, he adds, these types of operations must be authorized by Congress, but in Haiti there is no such thing, because The mandate of deputies and senators ended in 2020 and no elections have been held. “Every way you look at it, it’s wrong,” she says.
Loriston, for his part, considers that an intervention such as the one proposed can contribute to certain levels of security in the streets and, above all, to ensuring that these groups lose influence in the areas they control. However, he assures that “those (intervention) forces are not going to enter the communes (poor neighborhoods), in areas where there is no law. “They are going to stay on the large avenues, and the groups are going to retreat to the communes.” Furthermore, he adds that, to disarm the gangs, you must first prevent weapons from reaching Haitia motorized traffic by political sectors.
The institutional challenge
On the other hand, the intervention could help pave the way for celebrating the general elections pending for two years, by providing some level of security and confidence so that the population can go to vote for a new president and a new Congress. This could partially resolve the governance problems of the country, whose leaders have been in power since 2020 by decree.
Precisely, the legitimacy of the two most recent presidents has been in question. Moïse, assassinated in July 2021, was considered a de facto ruler by some sectors. The reason? He had decided to govern for one more year – until February 2022 – because he could not take office when appropriate. But the opposition insisted that his mandate had ended in February 2021. As in Haiti there is no Constitutional Court to resolve those issues, everything was left to the interpretation of each group.
And the lack of institutionality once again played a determining role with the current president Ariel Henry. The Constitution says that, in the event of a presidential vacancy, the prime minister must assume power. A few days before his assassination, Moïse had appointed Henry to that position, but he never swore him in. In the end, the then interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph He stepped aside to avoid a greater institutional crisis and left the way clear for Henry.
The governance crisis It is precisely the culprit of the insecurity catastrophe of humanitarian dimensions that the Caribbean nation is experiencing. At least that’s what Filippova believes, for whom this succession of bad governments has been a deliberate strategy of the parties to dismantle democratic institutions and thus keep the State in their hands and perpetuate corruption.
Experts have different perspectives on what Haiti needs to overcome this dramatic situation.
According to Loriston, the solutions are very long-term: education as a formula to rescue young people in the communes, purging the Haitian Police, among others. Meanwhile, Filippova believes that the capture of the state apparatus and the corruption carried out by political groups has to stop so that an international intervention has a chance of having lasting success. And Boisrolin considers that Haiti needs a broad reform plan, but carried out by the Haitians themselves, without international intervention. “No one can decide for a people. “Nothing is really going to advance without popular consent,” says the activist.
The diversity of solutions that Haiti needs speaks precisely to the depth of the crisis. For now, we will have to wait to see if the international community this time is willing to go beyond a military intervention, to accompany the Caribbean nation on the path to a better future. Something that, for now, seems quite distant.
SUHELIS TEJERO
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