Haiti has so many problems at the moment that you would need three hands to account for them all. The country has had its fair share of political turmoil over the last several decades, but nothing compares to the situation in which Haiti now finds itself.
There are at least 200 armed gangs roaming the country, with the most powerful located in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince. Haiti hasn’t held an election in eight years, its last president was assassinated in his home (a judge recently charged the president’s widow and a former prime minister, in addition to 50 others, in his killing), and there isn’t a single elected officeholder in the country. The United Nations estimates that at least half of the population isn’t getting enough to eat.
On top of all the political and economic problems lies a security catastrophe. Gangs, for all intents and purposes, run Haiti at this point. Last week, a new gang alliance rampaged through Port-au-Prince, attacking police stations, shooting up the airport, taking control of ports and key highways, and freeing over 4,000 inmates. One Haitian political activist interviewed by the Guardian described the seven-day onslaught of violence as “pure terror,” as if the state itself ceased to exist. That assertion isn’t far off from the truth — the security situation is so bad that interim Prime Minister Ariel Henry is in Puerto Rico trying to find a way to get back into Haiti.
Even in an ideal world where the gangs were eliminated, Haiti’s problems would continue to be there. The gangs, in fact, are as much a symptom of the disease as they are the cause. Haitian politicians have spent decades using criminal elements to do their bidding, whether it’s undermining political rivals, trying to get supporters to the polls, or stifling the vote.
The institutions that make up the state rest on very thin foundations, a consequence in part of the multiple foreign interventions that have been conducted by the United States and the U.N. since the early 20th century. If anything, those interventions only made Haiti’s combustible situation even worse. If you don’t believe me, just read about the U.N.’s 17-year mission in the country, when U.N. peacekeepers were accused of sexual violence and unleashed a cholera epidemic that killed at least 10,000 people.
Instability isn’t exactly unique in Haiti. In 1986, a protest movement ended the Duvalier family’s dictatorship after nearly three decades. In 1991, the Haitian military overthrew Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti’s first democratically elected president, prompting President Bill Clinton to order a naval blockade. In 1994, Clinton authorized an invasion of Haiti and deployed two U.S. aircraft carriers to the region in the hope it would scare Haiti’s military leaders into handing power back to Aristide. It worked — Aristide was reinstated, but a decade later, he fled into exile aboard a U.S. aircraft.
The difference between then and now, however, is stark. Back then, the U.S. believed it could at least be a part of the solution. Yet the Haiti of today is seemingly immune to foreign-imposed schemes. Right now, the U.S. and its partners in the Caribbean are betting on another foreign intervention to pull Haiti from the abyss. The Biden administration has agreed to fund the Kenya-led stabilization force to the tune of $200 million, and the plans have already been approved by the U.N. Security Council. Even Haitians who are extremely wary of yet another intervention have come around to it, if only because security has gotten so out of hand that anything would be an improvement.
But if Haiti’s history has taught us anything, it’s that interventions aren’t a cure-all. Assuming the 1,000-strong Kenyan-led force actually deploys (the Kenyan High Court objected to the mission as unconstitutional), the Kenyans will encounter gangs that are more powerful than the Haitian police with whom they are ostensibly going to partner. Nobody really knows how the mission is supposed to work. Are Kenyan police officers going to target the gangs in densely populated neighborhoods directly, or will they be tasked with guarding Haitian infrastructure so Haiti’s own underequipped police can be freed up to do the job?
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And let’s not kid ourselves: Even if the mission succeeds, Haiti’s political fissures will need to be addressed. That’s far easier said than done, particularly when you have a prime minister in Ariel Henry who refuses to step aside. Eventually, a transitional government will have to be put into place to restore basic governance. Elections, of course, will need to be organized and held as well, which means that foreign troops will likely have to stay in Haiti at least until the voting ends — and more likely after the new politicians settle into their offices.
Haiti’s road out of hell is long, bumpy, and littered with land mines.
Daniel DePetris (@DanDePetris) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. His opinions are his own.
