Camilo Gonzalez Videos*

Haiti is still sinking into the abyss of insecurity and ungovernability. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights recently indicated that 530 people were killed and 281 abducted as a result of gang violence in the first three months of 2023. Haitian authorities have already shown signs of impotence in the face of the military might of these criminal organizations, and interim government spokesmen have called on citizens to defend themselves, while inviting the newly formed armed forces to join the crusade to the them.

Criminal dismantling of democracy

The erosion of the state is a result of the tolerance the political elites have had of the territorial dominance of the gangs following the 2004 humanitarian intervention and the 2010 earthquake. In subsequent election cycles, the gangs have benefited from their territorial dominance. In addition to playing a patronage role, they used violence to favor their political patrons in their respective districts.

María Isabel Salvador, former foreign minister of Ecuador, took over as UN representative in Haiti

However, under the government of Jovenel Möise, of the neo-duvalierista Parti Haïtien Tèt Kale, democracy would eventually collapse with the invitation to gangs to participate in the autocratization process. The government secretly reinforced them, but to the detriment of the fragile police force after the end of the mandate of the UN stabilization mission in Haiti (Minustah).

The gangs thus became the shock forces of the government, causing the deaths of 947 people between 2018 and 2022, according to the National Network for the Defense of Human Rights (RNDDH), many of them in suburbs considered strongholds of opposition to the moise .

Ibero-American summit calls for UN action in Haiti

The gangs (especially the G-9) have grown stronger despite the democratic erosion in the Caribbean country. The government took advantage of the environment of social control and the gangs of access to state resources. However, the surprising murder of Möise opened up a new situation. The G-9’s weakness has been exploited by other gangs vying for territorial control. This has led to the proliferation of new gangs that have seen democracy quickly hijacked by gang terror. The high number of kidnappings, the seizure of the Varreux terminal and the attacks on police stations have created an environment that makes holding elections impossible.

Authority and paper agreements

In this climate of uncertainty, Ariel Henry took office as interim Prime Minister in June 2021. Since then, its role has been nominal in the face of continued armed attacks, and successful gang competition currently dominates about 60% of the capital. The Prime Minister’s authority is in turn answered as the opposition reemerged politically under the figure of the Montana Agreement, demanding his resignation and the speedy holding of elections. The opposition has even backed the rejection of the deployment of an international force requested by the prime minister last October.

Haiti is waiting for an international force to fight the armed gangs

However, the Montana Agreement has been weakened by the defection of some of its members, because of the prime minister’s better political position, and thanks to the Musseau Agreement. This agreement between political forces has designated a Supreme Transitional Council that will support the Haitian Prime Minister in organizing the elections that have been postponed to 2021.

However, in the current situation, the initiative has fallen on deaf ears, as the country lacks the minimum security conditions to hold fair and peaceful elections. Paradoxically, holding elections right now could further fuel conflict in a country where the electoral institution is tentative and support for democracy is the lowest on the continent, according to the latest study by Latin America Public Opinion (LAPOP).

Mutation of Violence and Arms Trade

Violence in Haiti maintains its own logic. Many analysts have linked the security landscape to what is happening in various conflicts in Africa. In Haiti, however, the violence is not the result of conflicts between ethnic groups vying for political power. Rather, they are criminal groups that are exploited by business and political groups to maintain the fiefdoms where they can exercise their territorial control. The problem is that this character seems to be changing because of the gangs’ greater autonomy to act without the consent of their former sponsors.

This dangerous criminal transition is fueled by the increase in arms trafficking from the United States and the Dominican Republic. According to the latest report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNDOC), the country’s critical situation has made it an attractive market for the illicit arms trade. On top of that, the porosity of the borders makes it difficult for the authorities to stop the flow of arms to the gangs, further compounding the numerical and qualitative gap to the gangs’ firepower.

a complicated mission

In October 2022, the Prime Minister requested the deployment of an international force to restore law and order in his country. The petition remains unapproved due to the divisions in the UN Security Council and the Caribbean countries’ resistance to pressure from the United States to push a country from the global south to assume leadership of this international responsibility. to take.

If eventually approved, the mission to stabilize Haiti will be more difficult than it has been in the past. This mission will certainly not be aimed at overthrowing an authoritarian government, but it will also not be comparable to that of Minustah, who during his tenure limited himself to reducing murders and kidnappings. Here the task would be more complicated: it would involve dismantling a criminal system of government, which would mean breaking the alliance between politicians, businessmen and criminals who keep political power tied to the use of gangs as a mechanism of political power. broken. measures to prevent this and new collusion from affecting the functioning of the institutions.

Without a clean state, there is no functional democracy. This leaves us with an unpopular argument as an alternative: intervention is necessary if elections in a democratic future do not lead to approval of the authoritarian and criminal practices that have kidnapped the state and millions of Haitians. (OR)

Camilo González Vides is Professor of International Relations at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Colombia. Master in Political Science, from the University of Salamanca (Spain).