The Doomed Republic of Haiti

"We believe the security and humanitarian situation in Haiti is worsening and the situation on the ground will not improve without armed assistance from international partners."

UN National Security Council 

"Kidnappings are rampant."

"The sexual violence that is taking place in Haiti is at levels never seen before -- and rarely seen in any society."

Helen La Lime, special representative, UN secretary-General for Haiti

Police fire tear gas at protesters demanding the resignation of Haiti's prime minister, Ariel Henry, in Port-au-Prince on Monday. (Ralph Tedy Erol/Reuters)

 

What is it about Haiti? A completely failed state. From the time of Papa 'Doc' Duvalier to the present. The Island of Hispaniola is shared between the Republic of Haiti (west) and the Dominican Republic (east). They are as unalike in their societal values, culture and makeup, politics and orderly civilized life as it possible to be. Destabilized, rampant crime and an inability of any government to bring order to the country, it requires the intervention now and again of the international community to bring a level of stability to bear. Yet it always seems to revert in time to yet another version of dystopian disorder. 

Five months ago its interim prime minister Ariel Henry pleaded for the deployment of a "specialized armed force" from outside the country to restore order in the country reeling from one crisis to another. Most Haitians want no intervention despite the critical nature of the failing state, in memory of its long history of foreign interventions. But its current struggle with gang violence, civil and political unrest and a cholera resurgence leaves it in a desperate state.

Both the United Nations and the United States support immediate rescue of the country through a brief intervention to restore calm and the authority of the government. Nothing has yet emerged, however, despite good intentions and the country is left to stagger from one misery to another with no end in sight. 2023 has seen 531 people killed, 300 wounded, 277 kidnapped in gang-related violence. In the first half of March alone 208 people died, 154 were wounded, 301 kidnapped.

Most of these unsettling violent episodes take place in the capital, Port-au--Prince. Most victims in the first half of March were killed or injured by snipers randomly shooting at people in their homes or out on the streets. According to analysts, allies of the United States remain hesitant to risk lives in a logistically complicated mission requiring an unknown but significant amount of time and resources, not to mention complexity.

 

Many Haitians are wary of International forces. Jaime Razuri/AFP via Getty Images)

 

"You don't go there for three months or six months. You will go there for at least a couple of years", said Gilles Rivard, a former Canadian ambassador to Haiti who has advised the foreign ministry on UN-led peacekeeping missions. Haiti's presidency has been vacant since the 2021 assassination of Juvenal Moise. The national government has no democratically elected officials in the absence of elections. 

Gang violence linked to drug-running and other criminal activities as the violence has gone deeper into more neighbourhoods. Haitian police struggle with high rates of attrition, outnumbered and outgunned by the gangs. Some in Haiti fear an outside force to bring order to the country would support interim President Henry's retention of his temporary post, a deeply unpopular appointee whose claim to power is viewed as illegitimate.

Some Haitians take a dim view of the international response to date as security conditions deteriorate. When two navy ships were deployed by Canada to patrol Haitian waters in February, Le Nouvelliste, the largest newspaper in Haiti, published a front-page cartoon showing a bandit holding a gun in one hand, a man upside down in the other ... shaking him down as he shrugs off the ships.

A Haitian historian, Georges Michel, who contributed in writing the nation's 1987 constitution, remarked that some measures taken by the international community have been well-intentioned, but too late. What will save this West Indies nation from itself?

Members of the Haitian diaspora as well as faith and human rights leaders protest outside the White House to demand the Biden administration stop supporting Haiti's government on Oct. 9 in Washington. Shannon Finney/Getty Images for Beyond Borders