Gang violence in Haiti is a symptom of the political crisis

In October 2023, the UN Security Council voted to authorize “the deployment of a multinational security force, led by Kenya” to Haiti. In addition to 1,000 Kenyan police officers, the Bahamas, Jamaica, Belize, Suriname, Antigua and Barbuda, Guatemala, Peru, Senegal, Rwanda, Italy, Spain and Mongolia pledged armed contingents. Former Prime Minister Ariel Henry — who served as de facto, and therefore unelected, acting president — had previously called on the international community to act “on behalf of women and girls who are raped every day, on behalf of an entire people who are victims of gang barbarity.”

According to the National Network of Human Rights Defense (RNDDH), between November 2018 and March 2024, gangs were responsible for the murder of more than 1,500 people and the rape of more than 160 girls and women, as well as dozens of disappearances and the internal displacement of more than half a million people. At the beginning of this period, these armed groups acted in isolation and in competition with each other. However, in August 2020, nine of them united under the leadership of former police officer Jimmy Chérizier, also known as Barbecue.

In January 2024, Chérizier consolidated the rest of the gangs in the capital to begin what they called a “revolution.” First, they seized control of the area around the international airport to prevent Henry from returning to Haiti after his trip to Kenya. In the months that followed, they bulldozed police stations and prisons and burned down public hospitals, universities and libraries, killing several hundred people. To replace Henry’s government, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) facilitated the creation of a seven-man presidential council, the majority of whose members represented the Parti Haitien Tèt Kale (PHTK), which has been in power since 2011.

International news coverage of the crisis in Haiti has presented it as a problem of gang violence outside the control of the state. Yet social movements and human rights organizations have noted Henry’s silence about the hundreds of people who have been slaughtered and kidnapped during his tenure. Moreover, reports from independent investigators in Haiti and elsewhere have shown how various actors, both domestic and international, have “manufactured” the chaos.

The following conversation, based on a panel discussion, forces us to look at current events in Haiti beyond the idea of ​​a crisis that can be solved by military occupation, elections, and “good governance.” The panelists discuss what the gangs reveal about the nature of the Haitian state and its relationship to economic elites in Haiti and around the world.