Can Haiti’s mayhem be fixed this time?
Experts are skeptical interim panel can find a way to restore order on long-troubled island nation
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Heavily armed gangs are sowing mayhem, killing indiscriminately, breaking open prisons and blocking aid. Nearly half the country is hungry; one million people are starving. The country’s leader has announced plans to resign.
Haiti has been here before — several times, in fact, since the ouster of the Duvalier dictatorship in 1986. Its government has fallen or been chased out, the streets have erupted, and the U.S. has stepped in to lead international efforts to stand up new leaders who can be seen as legitimate and will be friendly to Washington.
It has yet to work.
Haiti’s presidency has been vacant since the 2021 assassination of Jovenel Moïse. Its National Assembly has been empty since the last lawmakers’ terms expired in 2023. Prime Minister Ariel Henry has been unwilling or unable to bring new elections.
When Henry left the country this month to build support for a UN security force to restore order, the gangs joined forces and rampaged, shutting down the international airport and the main seaport and attacking at least a dozen police stations. They haven’t let him back in.
Now U.S. officials say they see a way forward. After emergency negotiations last week between U.S., Haitian and neighbouring leaders, including Canada, the Caribbean Community (Caricom) announced the creation of a panel of Haitian leaders to put the country on the path to elections. Henry said he’d resign once this transitional presidential council picked an interim prime minister to succeed him.
The U.S. has a long history of intervening in Haiti. U.S. Marines occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934. Washington initially supported the murderous and kleptocratic Duvalier dictatorship. U.S. forces invaded in 1994 to restore ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and returned in 2004 to restore order after Aristide fled to exile.
In 2011, the U.S. helped Michel Martelly win the presidency. The UN last year accused him of using “gangs during his term to expand his influence over neighbourhoods to advance his political agenda, contributing to a legacy of insecurity, the impacts of which are still being felt today.”
This time, U.S. officials say, they’ve learned the lessons of history. They’re not imposing a government on Haiti, they insist, saying they’ve made a concerted effort to centre Haitians in the talks.
“It’s Haitian-designed,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters. “It’s Haitian-led.”
But critics ask just how Haitian-led an agreement can be that was negotiated by foreign diplomats meeting in Jamaica while Haitians joined by Zoom. They say it was cobbled together hurriedly and lacks a long-term vision for security against the gangs.
And they say the council would simply turn the problem over to a political and business elite that in some cases is responsible for the nation’s dysfunction. Many in this squabbling, insular group have been trying and failing to achieve political consensus and stability for years.
“The idea that this ultimately should be a Haitian-driven solution is right,” said Christopher Sabatini, senior Latin America fellow at London-based Chatham House. “The question is: Which Haitians?”
U.S. and other officials reject criticism that the agreement was drawn up in a backroom with little Haitian input. A senior State Department official told The Washington Post that at least 39 Haitian stakeholders participated in the Jamaica talks. A Jamaican official put the number at 66.
“It’s not one meeting at which things were agreed behind closed doors,” Kamina Johnson Smith, Jamaica’s foreign minister, told reporters on Friday.
More than two centuries of subjugation and exploitation by larger powers helped transform Haiti from the economic powerhouse of the Caribbean to the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, perhaps the world. That history weighs heavily on the Biden administration.
“The history of Haiti is replete with foreign actors trying to shape the outcomes and decisions around the leadership of Haiti,” a senior State Department official said. “And what they’ve said is that it’s vital that there be Haitian ownership of the political process and the way forward.”
It’s difficult to overstate the severity of the crises in Haiti, a country where the legacies of colonialism include corruption, endemic poverty and warlordism. Gangs control 80 per cent of Port-au-Prince, the capital; they’ve killed thousands with impunity and driven hundreds of thousands more from their homes.
The country’s democratic institutions have been hollowed out. The few hospitals operating in Port-au-Prince are full. Schools are closed and businesses are shuttered; Haitians mostly stay home.
“The challenge that lies ahead is gigantic,” said Romain Le Cour, a senior expert with the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. “You have to rebuild almost every institution from the ashes.”
The council is to include seven voting members nominated by civil society, private-sector and political groups, including allies of the deeply unpopular Henry. There’s to be one non-voting member each from the private sector and the faith community.
The panel is to make decisions by majority vote. Le Cour, for one, is skeptical it can work.
“We have to be realistic about the fact that building a transitional council with seven members - in some cases belonging to parties or currents that are antagonistic - and making them work together, align with common interests and advance toward a comprehensive and transparent and cohesive political solution is going to be a significant challenge,” he said.
The challenge that lies ahead is gigantic ... You have to rebuild almost every institution from the ashes.”
Organized crime analyst Romain Le Cour