Since 2018, armed gangs have multiplied and quickly expanded their territories in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, as well as other cities across the country. They have even reached cities described as andeyò, or outsiders, that were generally known to be calm and safe.
Today, the metropolitan region of Port-au-Prince is surrounded by armed gangs who kidnap, murder, rape, violently invade neighborhoods, and forcibly recruit children, forcing thousands of families to flee their homes. They have taken national roads hostage, imposing their own tolls. On February 29, 2024—marking the 38th anniversary of the Haitian Constitution—they stormed dozens of police stations, launched assaults on the country’s two largest prisons, and enabled the escape of nearly 4,600 prisoners. They attacked vital infrastructure such as Toussaint Louverture International Airport, paralyzing all economic activities for more than seven weeks – a first in the contemporary history of the country.
This violence is on top of the nearly five million people who are food insecure, almost half the population. Such widespread food insecurity is a direct consequence of gang violence, decades of failing governance, and a flagrant absence of social programs.
Leaders have attempted to quell the recent wave of violence with the so-called “April 3 Agreement.” Under the April 3 Agreement, Haitian leaders appointed a nine-member Presidential Transitional Council—seven with decision-making voting rights and two observers. The PTC is to exercise collectively the powers of the presidency until a new president is inaugurated or February 7, 2026, whichever comes first. The PTC marks the seventh government transition in Haiti since the fall of the Duvalier regime in February 1987.
Meanwhile, the first Kenyan contingents of the UN-backed international police mission, the Multinational Security Support Mission, set foot on Haitian soil on June 25 this year, eight months after the UN Security Council voted to create the mission on October 2, 2023, and which the TPC officially approved when it took power on April 25, 2024. The mission is led by Kenya and coordinated with the Haitian National Police. Even though it is backed by the United Nations Security Council, it is not a United Nations operation. Haiti and Kenya signed a security deal on March 1, 2024, and Kenya has committed to sending 1,000 police officers. The Multinational Security Support Mission aims to assist the government of Haiti in restoring law and order amid worsening civil strife and gang violence since 2021. This is a gigantic task to be completed in just 20 months.
A Fragile Political Agreement with Ambitious Expectations, Haitians Hold Their Breath
From March 1 to April 3, 2024, after numerous negotiations—under the international community’s scrutiny—various Haitian political actors drafted and signed the April 3 Agreement. This deal is the first point on the new government’s roadmap to “restore public security conditions and define with international partners the conditions for effective support for the Haitian security forces while respecting national sovereignty.”
The Haitian National Police, often overwhelmed by gang violence over the last three years, must dismantle the gangs. The national police will have the support of the Multinational Security Support Mission. Led by Kenya, Benin, Jamaica, Bahamas, Belize, Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, Bangladesh, Trinidad and Tobago, and Algeria have pledged to send police to participate in the mission. Canada, France, Germany, Turkey, United Kingdom, and Spain may join the mission as well. A functional police force is essential if democratic elections are to be held. And elections are necessary for the public to renew their faith in the executive, legislative, and local authorities.
The National Police will finally be able to count on the National Military. After years of military interference in politics and dozens of military coups—the last one was on September 30, 1991, against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide—the Haitian Army Forces were disbanded on December 6, 1995, by Aristide. On November 17, 2017, President Jovenel Moïse suspended the previous executive orders by then-President Aristide and restored the armed forces. The government re-established the Army in 2018 despite some key international partners’ refusal to recognize its existence. Since then, the 750 active duty members of the Haitian Armed Forces are entrenched in their headquarters—a one-minute walk from the National Palace—and have kept their distance from Haitians’ lives.
At the end of June this year, the Ministry of Defense informed the National Police that the army is on call. This marks the first time since 2017 that the military has offered any kind of support to the National Police during armed interventions against the gangs. Acting Prime Minister Garry Conille declared a state of emergency on July 17, 2024 in 14 municipalities in the West and Artibonite departments, which allows the armed forces to implement their security strategy and re-establish the state’s authority.
In addition to defeating the gangs, the government of acting Prime Minister Conille, in agreement with the Presidential Council, must set up the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP)—the electoral commission board of the legal electoral agency, whose members come from civil society. A major challenge awaits this CEP: completing the next electoral list with data from the National Identification registers. The national office, responsible for producing the registers, however, cannot provide accurate data on citizens who have lost their lives or gone missing over the last four years. In addition, the electoral list determines the voting center for voters based on their residencies. The council will have to take into account the nearly 600,000 people displaced by the gang violence and guarantee them the ability to vote.
It is déjà vu for Haitians. The country experienced the same scenario with the United Nations Peace Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) after the forced departure of Jean Bertrand Aristide on February 29, 2004. The chimè of the time—pro-President Aristide’s armed gangs—held certain working-class neighborhoods like Cité-Soleil, located in the north of Port-au-Prince, or Bel-Air in the center, prisoners of their violence. The UN stabilization force led by Brazil had tracked down these armed gangs and carried out raids to put them out of action.
At the time, the National Commission on Disarmament, Dismantlement and Reintegration was responsible for liaising and reintegrating into society gang members who wanted a fresh start. It was a dismal failure. The members of the armed gangs moved to other neighborhoods—mainly to the south of the city—and kept a low profile for a time. Then the trafficking of firearms and ammunition—mainly from the United States—intensified exponentially in the country shortly after the earthquake of January 12, 2010. All the while, armed gang members, businesspeople, and politicians were deepening their ties with each other.
President Jovenel Moïse himself, during his public statements before his assassination on July 7, 2021, accused powerful politicians and entrepreneurs of drug and arms trafficking. Gangs, whose loyalty belongs to whichever politicians are lining their pockets the most, have split into two rival coalitions: G9 and GPèp. These coalitions have formed a united front against the police and the Haitian government as a whole, while terrorizing the general population. Now, the gangs are calling in political favors, presenting themselves as victims of the “system’’ and demanding to be part of the political negotiations—a tactic to avoid justice.
The new government’s task is to implement the necessary transitional reforms in the fight against corruption and impunity and to create a Justice, Truth and Reparations Commission. This is an urgent and necessary mission. Civil society must also be a part of this process and push for significant changes in governance.
What Was Old Is New Again; Haiti Keeps Experimenting With Quick Fixes for Lasting Change
The Petrocaribe corruption scandal was a real breaking point for Haitian civil society. In 2006, Haiti joined Petrocaribe, an oil alliance led by Venezuela, which allowed Haiti to borrow funds for development projects and social programs with very favorable conditions. The Superior Court of Auditors and Administrative Disputes published on January 31, 2019, May 31, 2019, and August 12, 2020, detailed reports on the mismanagement of the funds. These followed two Senate committee reports in 2016 and 2017 that had already highlighted irregularities in the management of the fund. These documents detail how leaders, notably late President Jovenel Moïse, squandered public funds for road construction, half of which are still in poor condition today, through bogus social projects; overpriced contracts signed and paid without even having started; and astronomical sums spent on parties at every opportunity, including President Michel Martelly’s birthday. In total, more than $2 billion went missing from public coffers into the pockets of corrupt political leaders.
On August 24, 2018, protests triggered the hashtag #KotKòbPetroCaribeA (where’s the Petrocaribe money?) started. Young activists, so-called Petrochallengers, organized a sit-in on April 26, 2018, in front of the Superior Court of Auditors and Administrative Disputes. On October 17, 2018, young leaders of civil society organized a large demonstration in the capital to demand accountability for the management of funds. Since this date, weekly rallies calling for accountability and justice forced the political class and the international community to react. Eventually, on July 7, 2021, President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated.
Over the last three years, there have been several Haitian diplomatic scandals. The Haitian government replaced its ambassador to the United States after a scandal involving the sale of passports in May 2023 orchestrated at the Embassy in Washington. However, then-Prime Minister Ariel Henry’s government made no arrests or recalled any personnel. A 40-page report from the Foreign Ministry outlines the abuses, with supporting evidence provided by US authorities. Worse, the Haitian justice system did not seek to prosecute anyone involved in the scandal.
The new Minister of Foreign and Religious Affairs, Dominique Dupuy, two weeks after she assumed office in June 2024, requested an audit and investigation to the Superior Court of Accounts and Administrative Disputes and to the Unit Anti-corruption concerning the central office of the Ministry as well as diplomatic missions, running from 2021 to 2024. This is one of the first anti-corruption initiatives taken by the government.
Haiti has a clear lack of social protection and security. The agencies responsible for the social safety net are the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor, the Board of Directors of Social Security Offices (CAOSS), the Economic and Social Assistance Fund (FAES), the Social Assistance Fund (CAS), the National Senior Insurance Office (ONA) and the Office of Work Injury, Disease and Maternity Insurance (OFATMA). They are largely unknown and plagued by bad management and embezzlement scandals.
Civil society continues to sound the alarm over corruption and embezzlement of public fund. In addition to the above scandals there has been the theft of construction equipment from the National Equipment Center, which is responsible for building roads; embezzlement of funds from the Social Assistance Fund (CAS) and the National Insurance Office (ONA); and corruption, embezzlement and arms trafficking at the General Directorate of Customs. The list is long.
The judicial system, between complex operational procedures and a significant lack of resources, is stifled by politicians and is unable to prosecute corruption. Any attempt by the judiciary to prosecute corrupt politicians and business people is called political persecution. Those arrested are released and the files are forgotten. In an attempt to calm the gangs, some politicians are debating ideas of large-scale amnesty.
Members of governments formed from political negotiations have rarely distanced themselves from their mentors. Everything seems to repeat itself. Haitians watch with suspicion the dance of politicians and the international community, while clinging to two priorities: security and justice, doubting that the second will become a reality any time soon.
Haitian Civil Society Pushes For a Change
Haiti’s relations with the US and Europe have always been complex and even abusive. The US has largely dictated its relationship with Haiti since the 19th century, following the Monroe Doctrine, which held that non-US intervention in Latin America and the Caribbean was considered a hostile act against US Interests. Even today, the US has an outsize impact on Haiti’s domestic and foreign policy. The US dominates all UN decision-making regarding Haiti, including the Core Group. The UN Security Council established the Core Group in 2004, bringing together the ambassadors of Brazil, Canada, the United States, France, Germany, Spain, the European Union, and the Organization of American States with the aim of providing advice on how to solve Haiti’s crises.
The administration of President Michel Joseph Martelly from May 2011 through February 2016 benefited from the support of the Core Group, in particular the US and Canada. Jovenel Moïse, of the PHTK party, came to power in February 2017 and enjoyed the international community’s support after he won in the second round of the vote. . The appointment of Hélène La Lime, a former State Department official, as the UN Special Representative in Haiti in 2019, gave the US total dominance of the Core Group. After the assassination of Moïse in 2021, the Core group was at the center of the debates around the leadership transfer and gave its support to Prime Minister-designate Ariel Henry. The group continued to back him throughout his disastrous 28-month tenure in office.
Haitian civil society is determined to provide a Haitian-led solution to the country’s multi-sectoral crises. In 2021, representatives from all parts of Haitian civil society came together to find a Haitian-led solution to the crises facing the country. In August 2021, they signed the Montana Accord, which called for the election of a transitional executive power as an alternative to the government of Prime Minister Ariel Henry. The Montana Accord denounces the corruption, opaque governance, and misappropriation of public funds of the PHTK as well as the interference and partisan position of the Core group dominated by the US and Canada. Countries like France, Spain, England, and Germany, completely in the shadows, close ranks behind. Although some of their elected parliamentarians are calling for a change in their foreign policies.
The US Congress and the United Nations held several hearings about the ongoing conflict in Haiti, including civil society testimonies for change. From December 2022 until September 2023, the United States and Canada sanctioned corrupt Haitian politicians for drug and arms trafficking including former parliamentarians, former President Michel Martelly, as well as his former ministers and close collaborators. While sanctions may have financially affected targeted individuals and businesses, they have not slowed down the rampant trade in illicit arms and ammunition. As for known gang leaders, they are also subject to asset freezes and travel bans, but they have not slowed their territorial expansion or stopped the violence.
The leadership of the Caribbean Common Market (CARICOM), unable to welcome more Haitians fleeing the crisis in Haiti, took a more prominent role in talks between Haiti and the Core Group to find a solution for the crisis, which led to the April 3 Agreement. Since then, however, CARICOM has resumed its spectator-supervisor role of the political tango between Haiti and its “friend countries” of the Core Group.
Break With Politics As Usual To Open the Road to the Path of a Rule of Law
The April 3 Agreement tasks the Presidential Transitional Council with setting up the steering committee for the National Conference. The National Conference aims to provide the country with a new social contract and a sustainable development plan. It is an ambitious project aimed at revising the constitution, redefining the state and the existing relationships between the state and civil society. Human rights organizations like Réseau National de Défense des Droits Humains (National Human Rights Defense Network) in Haiti and Human Rights Watch issued reports linking the lack of justice in Haiti to the politicization of its positions, disrespect for fundamental rights and influenced by impunity and corruption. Civil society is demanding a fair and equitable distribution of resources and social security in society, and many Haitians are hoping the National Conference—an idea from Haitian political leader Turneb Delpé more than 30 years ago—will help achieve that.
US and Canadian sanctions on politicians and business leaders can be interpreted as a shift in the relations between civil society and international partners. This shift is crucial to keep momentum for Haitian-led governance. Unfortunately, other CORE group countries have not followed the lead of the US and Canada.
Haitian civil society has experienced the worst of the country’s crises, corruption and violence. Now, with the Montana Accord, civil society is demanding a seat at the table with the government and the international community that has long interfered in Haitian politics to the detriment of the Haitian people. More than hoping, civil society is standing at the precipice of justice.
About the author: Souzen Joseph is a Haitian Journalist and TV Producer. She is based in NYC. Her work focuses on culture, education, women’s rights, and social justice.
Top image: Community workers cross a street after removing trash from outside the National Palace in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Thursday, Aug. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph)
