As rampant gang violence displaces hundreds of thousands of Haitians and leaves millions on the brink of famine, the temptation to call on the United States to intervene is compelling. But, we must learn from history – US intervention in Haiti, whether through outright military force or imposing an outside economic agenda, has done tremendous harm and contributed immensely and directly to today’s instability.
This pattern cannot be repeated. The path forward must be charted by Haitians themselves, with international support channelled into uplifting homegrown efforts to restore peace, democracy and development from the ground up.
It is for this reason that the latest statements from powerful ganglord Jimmy Barbecue Chérizier are so concerning. Chérizier has expressed a willingness to potentially disarm his forces – if gangs like his are allowed to have a seat at the table in negotiations to establish Haiti’s interim government.
Legitimising armed criminal militias in governing would not only perpetuate Haiti’s anguish and make a mockery of democracy and the rule of law but ultimately set a fuse for civil war. Chérizier’s are dripping with blood. Gangs like his have already murdered over 1 500 people this year through what the UN describes as “harrowing practices” of violence, sexual assault, and terror against civilians. They cannot be treated as legitimate political actors and no chauvinistic suggestion that Haiti must be treated differently from any other nation on the face of the Earth will work.
The current crisis of over 360 000 Haitians displaced by gang violence is but the latest chapter in this grim history enabled by harmful US policies prioritising corporate profits over Haitian lives. Washington’s shameful “contingency plan” to divert Haitian refugees fleeing this chaos to the Guantanamo Bay military prison – reviving a practice from the 1990s — epitomises the racist disregard for Haitian humanity.
At the same time, trying to shut gangs out entirely through military action would start the fuse that would detonate deeper chaos and bloodshed and cement the gangs’ reign of terror. CARICOM and the international community need to work smart, not hard, on a solution.
Rather than imposing a heavy-handed foreign solution, we should listen to Haitian civil society and grassroots leaders who have long called for accountable governance, economic investment in poor communities, and a reckoning with the nation’s history of outside exploitation and racist subjugation – a legacy bequeathed by France and the United States.
Nothing is stopping Washington from funding an international reconstruction bank in support of Haitian-led development initiatives, staying out of the dialogue between civil and political factions, and imposing targeted sanctions and prosecutions to cut off the illicit arms flow that has turbocharged gang atrocities. But the solutions themselves must be made in Haiti.
Stabilising the nation will require extensive long-term partnerships and investment from CARICOM and multinational partners and donors. But it can only succeed if it empowers the Haitian people’s own democratic vision – not the interests of criminal gangs or overbearing foreign powers that have perpetuated the crisis.
Haiti’s people have suffered immensely from cycles of exploitation, upheaval and indifference. It is in Washington’s self-interest to contribute to the resolution of his latest tragic crisis but the US must once and for all abandon the arrogant notion that it can manipulate outcomes in Haiti. The path forward needs to be paved by engaging and elevating the Haitian people’s homegrown solutions with CARICOM’s backing.
