The gangs that control much of Haiti have been escalating their campaign of violence against the national police in recent weeks, a display of power designed for the international community ahead of a planned intervention, observers say.
The country’s Presidential Transitional Council appointed a new Prime Minister to nominally lead the country on Tuesday, although the body is seen as illegitimate by many Haitians and has little authority.
In the town of Gressier, on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, a group of men armed with semi-automatic weapons set fire to a police vehicle on Monday, sending a thick column of black smoke into the air. They claim to have killed two officers and wounded another. Globe and Mail photographer Goran Tomasevic captured the scene, including the charred remains of an unidentified body lying near the wreckage.
Gang members in the suburb of Croix-des-Bouquets bulldozed their local police station on May 18, tearing at its walls with heavy machinery, seen in a video shared by human-rights activists.
The authorities have long been outgunned and outnumbered by the well-armed gangs who have largely taken over the country since the assassination of president Jovenel Moïse in 2021.
The recent run of brazen attacks on state institutions, including four police stations and two prisons, is at least partly designed for foreign eyes as a UN-sponsored policing mission prepares to deploy. “With the possibility of an international intervention, the gangs are making shows of force,” said Pascale Solages of the Haitian feminist organization Nègès Mawon.
Civilians sell produce on a street in the Kafou Peyan neighbourhood of Port-au-Prince, which has been overrun by local gangs.
Haitian women have been among the worst victims of the lawless violence that now pervades the country. On Monday, the body of a woman murdered by gangs was wrapped in a sheet outside the Ministry for the Status of Women and Women’s Rights in downtown Port-au-Prince – perhaps a deliberate act of symbolism by armed groups, some of which rape women in front of their children and partners as a “tool of dehumanization,” Ms. Solages said.
Looming over the scene in Haiti is the long-delayed arrival of the Kenyan-led force that was scheduled to arrive in late May, but has been delayed again for three weeks over logistical issues, according to Kenyan President William Ruto.
Mr. Ruto was feted by U.S. President Joe Biden with a state dinner last week in part for agreeing to send 1,000 police officers to Haiti. The contingent will lead a force that is supposed to comprise 2,500 personnel from various African and Caribbean nations, largely funded by the United States.
Pressure to intervene only increased after the murder of two American missionaries in Haiti last week.
With the state dinner behind him, however, Mr. Ruto has little incentive to launch a domestically unpopular mission that could end in disaster, said Dan Foote, former U.S. special envoy for Haiti.
If the international force does deploy, the fighting could be brutal, said the retired diplomat, who questioned the suitability of the East African nation’s police for such a difficult mission. “The gangs are just waiting for the Kenyans, they’re just cracking their knuckles and stretching out. … It’s going to be a battle if not a bloodbath of a war, because the gangs are ready, and these guys are like the Keystone Kops.”
New Prime Minister Garry Conille does not have much more chance of bringing stability to Haiti, argued Mr. Foote, who resigned from his special envoy position in September, 2021, over disagreements with Biden administration policy toward Haiti and Haitian migrants.
When Mr. Conille previously served as prime minister under the now-reviled presidency of Michel Martelly more than a decade ago, he was ineffective and lasted less than a year in office, said Mr. Foote, who worked closely with him while serving in the U.S. embassy at the time. “Empty suit. Haitians don’t like him. Not gonna work,” Mr. Foote said.
Neither politicians nor international forces can be counted on to quell the violence without deep reform of the country’s corrupt and dysfunctional police force, said Pierre Espérance, executive director of the National Network for the Defense of Human Rights.
Still, he has come around to the idea of the Kenyan intervention, he said, after initially opposing it. The poorly trained gang members would be no match for a quasi-military force, Mr. Espérance believes. In any case, he said, Haiti needs help. “All the institutions of the state don’t work. There is no rule of law. … There is no life in Haiti. Too many rapes, too many victims of abuse.”
