A protester burns tires during a demonstration calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Ariel Henry in Port-au-Prince on Feb. 7.RICHARD PIERRIN/Getty Images
Robert Rotberg is the founding director of the Harvard Kennedy School’s program on intrastate conflict, a former senior fellow at CIGI, president emeritus of the World Peace Foundation, and the author of two books on Haitian politics.
At Monday’s emergency meeting of Caribbean and North American leaders in Jamaica, Guyanese President Irfaan Ali said to the gathered leaders: “I think we can all agree, Haiti is on the brink of disaster. We must take quick and decisive action.” The country, Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness affirmed, was “at a tipping point” – indeed, he said, “it is already too late for too many who have lost far too much at the hands of criminal gangs.” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken promised hefty funding. But neither the U.S. nor Canada, the richest countries around the table, offered to deploy their own security forces to restore order.
Instead, the leaders and officials piously expressed hope that a force of 1,000 Kenyan police, plus 2,000 soldiers from Benin, smaller numbers of security personnel from Chad, and police from the Bahamas, Bangladesh and Barbados, will do the job. But that prospect is highly unlikely.
As many as 80 tough gangs of murderers, rapists and pillagers have taken control of the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, its airport, and just about anything that dares to move throughout the city and its suburbs. Those avaricious gang members, many of them high on Colombian crack and Mexican fentanyl, number 10,000 or more. Over the course of three years, they have vanquished what was left of Haiti’s government and cowed the roughly 9,000 members of Haiti’s National Police, shooting their repeating rifles and machine guns at anything that impedes their marauding.
Hospitals and police stations are being burned and looted. More than 800 civilians were murdered in January alone; another 200 were killed in February. Last year, nearly 5,000 lost their lives and 2,500 were kidnapped for ransom. A curfew and official state of emergency are now in place. More than 365,000 Haitians have been displaced from their homes. All non-essential staff have been evacuated from the U.S., Canadian and other embassies. In short, Port-au-Prince is a war zone.
The gangs refused to let Ariel Henry, Haiti’s acting prime minister, land at the Port-au-Prince airport after travelling to Kenya to seek support for a UN-backed security force. At the Jamaica meeting, most leaders agreed that Mr. Henry must go, and that a presidential council of appointed grandees should choose his successor; late Monday, he announced he would step down. Still, the gangs were not appeased.
The promised peace enforcers are too few and too ill-equipped for this challenge. Jimmy Chérizier, a former Haitian police officer who goes by the name “Barbecue” and leads one of the biggest, most brazen, and deadliest of the Haitian gangs, promised a full-scale civil war if the Kenyans and others try to arrive. Last week, Mr. Chérizier’s gang and two other outlaw groups sprung nearly 4,000 criminals from two Port-au-Prince airports, and attacked bank offices and government buildings. People are afraid to leave their homes.
What’s more, Kenya’s police are reported to have perpetrated human-rights abuses at home, with civilians gunned down during COVID-19 curfews and crackdowns on peaceful protests. Still, they have yet to face a situation as totally out-of-control as Haiti, where there has been almost no rule of law for more than a year. Kenyans also don’t speak local languages, such as French or Kreyol; swearing in Kiswahili will not quiet Haiti’s gangs.
The soldiers from Benin and Chad, on the other hand, do speak French, and that could help in giving orders. The Chadians have had serious field experiences of combat in the deserts of central Africa. But neither they nor the Kenyans will know the warrens and canyons in congested Port-au-Prince; the police accustomed to much gentler work in more peaceful areas will be overmatched, too. The proposed peace enforcers’ command structure – polyglot and from varied backgrounds – is liable to be confused by the challenges.
Nor are they equipped to relieve the immense hunger that now consumes Haiti. The World Food Program says that 40 per cent of Haitians are malnourished, with many children starving. The gangs have disrupted normal imports and the movement of produce from the rural areas to the capital, where about 10 per cent of Haiti’s 11.7 million people reside.
Not wanting to take the task on themselves, Washington and Ottawa have outsourced the saving of Haiti. The United States is contributing US$333-million toward the incoming peace enforcers; Canada is chipping in $80-million.
The two countries want to avoid direct involvement. But if the forces from Kenya and elsewhere fail – or fail to materialize – they may have to take charge.