The Republic of Haiti has been sliding toward failed state status for much of the 21st century, but over the past few weeks, the collapse escalated at a blistering pace. Following the assassination of president Jovenel Moïse in 2021, the prime minister and acting president Ariel Henry has failed to control the gang violence wreaking havoc on the capital, Port-au-Prince. With gangs now controlling as much as 80 percent of the city, Henry traveled to Guyana in February to sign a treaty allowing a contingent of 1,000 Kenyan police officers to patrol Port-au-Prince. But after the gangs shut down the airport and released thousands from prison, Henry was forced to announce his resignation from exile — and delay the police-force deployment that could help bring order to the capital.
To choose a new leader for the country, a transition council with Haitian politicians and Caribbean officials is in the process of being appointed. But it remains an open question how much they can change from abroad. I spoke with University of Virginia professor and Haiti expert Robert Fatton about the danger of the gang takeover and how to begin to fix it.
For the transition council appointed to lead Haiti, what are the real options that they have right now?
The council has to pick a prime minister. This is not easy, because the gangs, in particular the one headed by Jimmy Chérizier — better known as “Barbecue” — have very clearly stated that they will not accept any type of foreign agreement.
What are you going to do vis-à-vis the gangs? It is not clear. The assumption is that the Kenyan mission will eventually be deployed. Now, the force is rather small. It was initially supposed to be 1,000 officers, which is already small, but as far as I understand it, only about 400 of the Kenyan officers are ready to be deployed. So if everything goes well, you could have the Kenyans in Haiti by next week.
But that’s a very short and optimistic view. The other possibility is that it may be too late. In other words, that the gangs will reactivate their violence and may in fact put someone of their liking in power. They’ve encircled, from what I gather from people in Haiti, the National Palace. So if they were to take the National Palace — and let’s assume that they would put in power Guy Philippe, the leader of the 2004 coup who has been calling for the presidency — then I’m not sure what the heck would happen, because there would be two distinct platforms: one that is backed by the violence of the armed men and another one that would be backed by the international community.
To what extent will the international community cooperate with the gangs?
You have to deal with the gangs because they have the firepower. But the international community has basically stated that they are not part of the solution, which makes sense. But on the other hand, from a realistic perspective, they are controlling Port-au-Prince, and therefore, you need to deal with them, like it or not.
As for their demands, I don’t know what they would want. It looks like Barbecue seems to think that he has the upper hand, which is probably correct, and therefore, that he wants much more than what he had asked in the last few weeks. He had asked for the resignation of Ariel Henry; that is done. And then they asked him, “What do you want?” He said, “Well, I don’t give a damn about Ariel Henry now, and I don’t give a damn about the Jamaica agreement. We are going to impose our own solution.” So, that’s the situation.
The gangs are currently united under an alliance known as Viv Ansanm, or Living Together. What is the structure of that group and how does it differ from previous gang alliances?
This is an important alliance. Up until about two weeks ago, there were two major gangs — one dominated by Barbecue and the other one dominated by a young fellow by the name of Izo. They were fighting, and their fighting for territory was extremely violent. So, the alliance may be just one of convenience, allowing them to make a claim for more resources or even a claim for participation in the government.
The question then is whether it’s an alliance that can be sustained and whether this alliance would survive if in fact you had an international contingent of officers coming to Haiti, which would be better equipped and better trained than the Haitian police at the moment. That may change the equation because the police in Haiti are rather weak. They are not very well-trained. And from what I gather from people in Haiti, the weapons that they have are not as good as the weapons that the gangs have. So, if you have a better force, trained, it may be that the gangs or at least the youngsters forming part of those gangs might decide that, “Well, I’m not going to get killed for Izo or for Barbecue,” but we don’t know.
How big are the gangs in Port-au-Prince?
The number of armed men is not clear. Some people put it at 20,000, but others put it at 10,000. It’s a rather complicated thing to know what kind of capacity they ultimately have.
This is a difficult thing to gauge, but if there is a humanitarian effort led by the United Nations in the coming months or years, to what extent will there be distrust from the people in Haiti following the cholera outbreak that was brought by U.N. workers that killed thousands of people across the country? Or is the mind-set of many that “we need security and we need food”?
I think it’s both. I think humanitarian assistance will be welcome. The military or police intervention is another matter. But even for the Haitians in the transition council that has been created, one of the conditions to be part of that council is that you have to accept that the Kenyan troops are going to come. So many of those people in that group had publicly said they would never accept foreign intervention. Now, not only are they signing onto an agreement that compels them to accept an intervention, but they would be presiding over it.
Right now, the government has essentially abandoned any type of pretense that it can do anything for those internal refugees. So, if the U.N. comes with food and with some sort of assistance, I would doubt that Haitians would not accept it. But it’s one thing to accept, and another thing to cheer for it.
How does the situation in the countryside — where the majority of Haitians live — differ from the crisis in Port-au-Prince?
In the rest of the country, the gangs are not really supported. In Port-au-Prince, it may be by necessity, because the violence is really affecting Port-au-Prince.
There is some gang violence elsewhere, but it has not reached the level that it has reached in Port-au-Prince, and there has been resistance to those gangs. And there has even been popular resistance to the gangs in Port-au-Prince. There’s a movement, which is called bwa kale, which is essentially people in the neighborhoods that are perceived to be targets of the gangs where people organize, and they control the gangs — sometimes extremely violently. They don’t have the weapons of the gangs, but they are organized around neighborhoods. It’s kind of a popular form of justice. If you want to put it, a vigilantism of the people, because they’re left to their own devices, so that shows you that there’s resistance to the gangs. It’s not something that is there and everyone accepts it. Far from it.
Could you discuss the gun-trafficking network through which most Haitian gangs are getting their weapons?
From what I gather from groups who have studied the issue, most of the weapons come from the United States, mainly from Miami. They also come from Colombia, because the drug cartel is active in Haiti, and also some from the Dominican Republic. In other words, the weapons get to the Dominican Republic, and they are smuggled into Haiti from Jamaica, etc. So, you have an international criminal network in the Caribbean and Colombia and Miami, because obviously Haiti, we don’t produce much and let alone weapons, so all of those weapons come mainly from the United States.
Haitian gang leaders like Barbecue have been unusually press-friendly and happy to give interviews to foreign journalists. Do you have a theory for why that is, outside of just promoting themselves or their narrative?
They are very savvy in terms of using social media. The other guy, Izo, he was a rapper with an online following. I think they want to portray a very different image to the world and to Haiti than the one that they really embody. Izo wants to portray himself as a potential leader of Haiti, as kind of a Robin Hood. Social media is a very good thing for him, and he has a certain charisma, so therefore, he’s using it.
I don’t think it’s very difficult to understand why those guys are manipulating the media. They have an audience that they’re creating for themselves, and some people ultimately may believe or think that what they are saying has some validity, and some of it is absolutely true. I mean, the Haitian elite has been absolutely horrible in terms of its treatment of the vast majority of Haitians.
Their message can resonate with the public because it’s a reality, but that doesn’t mean that the solutions that they’re offering are real solutions. I mean, those guys have no program, no real vision. They’ve been extremely violent with the very poor. So, it’s difficult to see how they would differ once in power.
In other words, there is something to the idea that the Haitian political class has behaved in such horrible ways that the people want to replace them are the mirror image of that. So, it’s sad to say, but it’s a situation where virtually anyone who has the capacity to get power doesn’t seem able, ultimately, to offer any long-term concrete solution. Now, there might be a short-term solution in terms of establishing a new government, and that remains to be seen.
Florida governor Ron DeSantis has warned of the “possibility of invasion” of migrants from Haiti coming to the United States. Rhetoric aside, does it seem that people are trying to get out more than in the years since the assassination?
There is a sense that most Haitians, if they have the ability to exit, they would exit. Now, I don’t know where they would go. I think clearly they prefer the United States, but they’ve gone to Brazil and Chile. But once they get there, many of them take that very long trek to Mexico hoping to get to the United States.
I don’t know if it’s going to be an “invasion” or not, but there probably will be if things deteriorate further, if a humanitarian crisis increases the number of people seeking to leave the country. On the other hand, it’s difficult to leave now. You don’t have an airport. The D.R. is closing its border, actually building a wall. The U.S. Navy is patrolling the high seas, and they have an agreement with the Haitian government that any Haitian who’s picked up would be returned. But there might be political pressure on whoever is in power in the United States to accept those people because of the humanitarian crisis.
Your guess about the number of people who will try to exit is as good as mine, but they would want to exit. I mean, if you were in Haiti now, it’s difficult for me to see the option of staying as the most favorable if you had the capacity to exit.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
