Haiti is experiencing critical moments. Under the violence of criminal gangs, the Caribbean country is on the verge of collapse as it waits for the arrival of foreign forces, for help that can bring hope. Without help, life in the capital Port-au-Prince deteriorates. The violence is also spreading to the center and west of the country. In recent weeks, one of the few safe routes between Port-au-Prince, the north and the border, route three, has no longer been safe. Now, like the rest, it is part of the trenches of criminal groups.
The border conflict with its neighbor, the Dominican Republic, is further fueling the fire. In September, Luis Abinader’s government decided to close the border crossing with Haiti because residents on the other side of the border had built a canal to carry water from the Masacre River to their land. The answer, the conclusion. In many areas of Haiti, the blockade proved crippling. Nothing left Port-au-Prince, nothing crossed the border. Cities like Cap Haitien in the north, initially spared from the violence, began to suffer the consequences. This week, the Dominican Republic finally agreed to reopen, but only for the movement of goods, not people, angering residents in the west of the island.
Haiti is used to disasters and has finally received good news from the international community. On Monday, the United Nations Security Council approved sending troops to the Caribbean country for a year, a task that Kenya will have to take on if confirmed. The government in Nairobi gave in to pressure from the US, which had been looking for months for an ally who could take over the mission on Haitian soil. The aim is very specific: to contain and push back the criminal gangs, to give the country the opportunity to hold elections and return to a certain institutional normality.
The problem now is to bring the United Nations mandate down to earth. Kenya is ready to lead the mission and send 1,000 police officers to Haiti, whose police strength does not even reach 10,000. The Caribbean country has around 12 million inhabitants. The United Nations expects that the contingent should include at least 2,000 agents, according to EL PAÍS. The cost of the mission also appears to be an obstacle. The United States has announced a donation of $200 million, although the amount necessary to send such a number of people to the country and maintain their residence and operations appears to be higher.
The United Nations resolution comes just a year after the Caribbean nation’s incumbent president, Ariel Henry, appealed to the international community for help. September and October last year marked the start of the penultimate cycle of violence and chaos in the capital and surrounding areas, home to three million people. Henry announced an increase in the price of gasoline, sparking protests. Criminal gangs took over the port terminal where imported fuel is stored. Médecins Sans Frontières detected a new cholera outbreak between late September and early October, years after the last case.
It was the penultimate cycle of Chaos, but there were others before it. Even later. There has been no peace in Haiti since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July 2021. Many in the country criticize Henry, who took over the reins of government after the president’s assassination. Henry, prime minister under Moïse, did not call elections during this period, partly due to his cabinet’s inability to maintain order. Haiti has not organized elections since 2016.
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The Haitian gate on the binational border in Dajabón (Dominican Republic). Luis Tavarez (EFE)
Violence and the border
Violence is reproduced. While the chaos of September and October last year was followed by a few months of relative calm – relative because more than half of the capital was controlled by criminal gangs, according to the United Nations – violence broke out again between April and May. Residents of various neighborhoods organized themselves against criminal groups, besieging entire neighborhoods like Turgeau and protecting them with enchanted barricades. The vigilantes adopted a name, Bwa Kale, a Creole phrase meaning “fuck you.”
As with any movement of this kind, there were excesses. The Bwa Kale killed at least 300 people, suspected members of criminal gangs. Because Haitian authorities are unable to investigate, it is impossible to determine who were gang members and who were not. And even if that were the case, there would be no way to find out who killed them, let alone bring the killers to justice. The Bwa Kale are incompetent in the face of criminal groups and are definitely falling apart. Crime prevails.
The criminal groups’ latest salvo was to present themselves to the people as a solid political option against Henry. In September, one of the prominent leaders of Port-au-Prince’s underworld, former police officer Jimmy Cherizier, took part in a march through the city with his army of armed boys and used the opportunity to announce the formation of what he called a grand coalition of criminal groups it without irony: “Vivre Ensemble, living together”. As before, the goal was to defeat Ariel Henry.
“That happened and a few days later the gangs came into conflict again,” explains Haitian economist and political scientist Joseph Harold Pierre. “They immediately started fighting and many people in the Croix-des-Bouquets area had to leave their homes,” he says, referring to a large neighborhood that extends around two of the streets connecting the capital with the rest of the country connect and border. “You can’t expect anything from them, they can conflict about anything,” he emphasizes.
The escalation of the fight between the gangs had consequences. First, Port-au-Prince lost one of the few more or less safe routes that connected the city with the north of the country and the border with the Dominican Republic. Like routes one, two and eight before them, the gangs took route three as part of their battlefield and made traffic impossible. Worse, gangs appeared in communities outside the capital, such as Mirebalais and further to the northwest.
So the problem now goes beyond the capital and also affects the Artibonite region. Last week, Unicef released a statement to denounce the situation in the region. “The violence observed in the capital is similarly intensifying in Artibonito, the country’s main rice region, terrorizing families (…) Half of the 298 kidnappings recorded in the country between May and June” They occurred in the south the region”, i.e. in the part that is closest to the capital. “These cases mainly involve civilians traveling on public transport. In a single incident, 15 women going to the market were kidnapped and raped,” the report said.
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