Haiti’s desperate need for political order

Haiti seems to have imploded as armed gangs carve up the country. Sadly, there are forces that do not want to see a Haiti characterized as law-abiding, peaceful, and safe for all of its citizens and neighbors.

In recent weeks the “temporary” government of Haiti’s prime minister seems to have fallen apart. Gangs armed with AK-47s, explosives, and other weapons control major transportation and commercial hubs, such as Haiti’s ports. It has been more than two years since Haiti’s president was murdered.

Taking a longer view, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere has muddled along from one crisis to the next: seven power transitions due to elections, coups, and counter-coups in less than six years (1986-1991). Add the 1994 U.S.-led intervention to put democratically elected Jean Bertrand-Aristide back in power, perennial floods, hurricanes, cholera, and a massive earthquake in 2010, and the political turmoil of the past few years.

Haitian society cannot seem to catch its breath. What is needed for success in a country geographically the same size as Maryland but with nearly double the population?

Haiti lacks political order. As I’ve argued elsewhere, political order in developing or post-conflict societies has three pillars. The first is to ensure that there are no international threats to the country’s sovereignty. Haiti is a link in the Caribbean drug smuggling network, and lawlessness works in favor of smuggling weapons, drugs, other contraband, and human beings. Haiti’s gangs and criminal underworld are directly tied to such networks, and international criminal syndicates do not want a stable, rule-of-law Haiti.

The second pillar of political order is domestic security. Does the government, through its military and law enforcement, have a monopoly on the use of force at home? Does the government face insurgents, cartels, terrorists, or others—such as militant gangs—that challenge the peace and the legitimacy of the central government? In Haiti, sadly, the answer is that multiple gangs have staked out fiefdoms and Haiti’s police force of 10,000 personnel is no match.

Thus, we have two related security problems in Haiti—well-armed gangs and their ties to international criminal networks. This makes it almost impossible for the third pillar of political order, which is basic governance, to take root. Haitians need a government that provides some of the basic needs for its people. From an economic standpoint, one-fourth of Haiti’s economy comes from foreign remittances (families and friends sending money home to help out). The government has been battered by corruption, including the charge that just a small group of families runs most of the most lucrative economic enterprises. Natural disasters, poverty, low trust, and a host of government failures, despite massive foreign assistance, have resulted in the disintegration of government services and extremely low trust in government efficacy.

Some say that Haiti has never gotten a fair shake, whether due to its birth as a slave colony or due to outside intervention in the 20th century. Others argue that the culture of corruption, led by elite families and most obvious in the Duvalier family’s brutal, kleptocratic rule (1957-1986), has so undermined institutions and social practices as to make a politically neutral, rule-of-law democratic order impossible. There are a lot of factors, but it is clear that things are getting worse. Consider, for example, that one humanitarian agency reports a 42 percent rise in sexual violence against females from 2022 to 2023.

Are there models on the international scene that could give us hope for a way forward? In some cases, the international community has intervened when there have been cross-border human rights atrocities, such as Serbia’s attack on Kosovo (1999) and the stormy Indonesia-East Timor violence of that same year. In both cases a robust international intervention was followed by long-term armed humanitarian intervention, hundreds of millions of dollars of aid, and the slow and steady training of local forces. East Timor required a second intervention just a few years later. But intervention in Haiti has been difficult, to say the least.

Elsewhere, there have been civil wars where the winning side has imposed order, with the most notable recent example being perhaps Rwanda and the long rule of Paul Kagame. But, so often leaders who come to power by overcoming national violence and imposing order fail to build institutions for permanence and refuse to leave the stage. The Philippines and Colombia have also tried to fight armed gangs, terrorists, and separatists, but in each case they had a much sturdier central government and massive military assistance. Haiti does not.

As we observe and pray for Haiti, we can know that the country will not be stable until it has all three pillars of political order. There is no way to provide a better future for the country’s people merely through humanitarian aid or through power-sharing arrangements. The people of Haiti need security at home, protection from international threats, and basic governance. Without these, it is hard to chart a future for the nation.