More than three weeks after the resignation of Haiti’s Prime Minister, Ariel Henry, no Presidential Transitional Council has been set up, while the country is still hostage to increasingly violent gangs. In this context, CNEWS spoke with Monique Clesca, former UN official and expert on the crisis in Haiti.
A month has passed since the escape of prisoners from the national penitentiary in Port-au-Prince after it was stormed by armed gangs. Since then, the country has been plunged into a deep security and humanitarian crisis. However, there are several outcomes, this is what Monique Clesca, author, former UN official and member of the Commission for the Search for a Haitian Solution to the Crisis, explains to us.
The UN has described the situation in Haiti as “cataclysmic”, deploring that “porous” borders make it easier for gangs to supply weapons and ammunition. Where do these weapons come from? How are they transported?
The majority of weapons, if not all, come from the United States. You have to wonder how these American weapons get here, mainly by plane or ship. Some are also hidden in containers among clothing or products destined for Haiti. There is also a small amount of weapons passing through the Dominican Republic.
With the Akó Montana group (Commission for a Search for a Solution to the Haitian Crisis created in 2021, editor’s note) of which I am a part, we asked the American authorities at the end of 2021 to stop this illicit arms trafficking and to take measures. They started doing it late. But we have not seen any major progress other than significant seizures of weapons by Haitian customs over the past two years.
The future Haitian Presidential Council, which must take the reins of the country, is committed to restoring “public and democratic order”. By what means can he do this?
This Presidential Council must fulfill the powers of the president. Former Prime Minister Ariel Henry fulfilled this role. So the idea of a Presidential Council is to be a body that could represent the Presidency of the Republic. The problem is that there has not been a presidential election since 2016. Javelle Moïse (former president assassinated in 2021 editor’s note) was supposed to organize a vote well before his death and he had not done so just like his predecessor Michel Martelly.
Obviously, the priority tasks would be to restore public order and only secondarily, organize presidential elections. It takes a minimum of 18 months in these kinds of circumstances to organize them. This is explained by the fact that there has been no population census for almost 10 years and that there has also been massive emigration. It is obvious that we must review the electoral register on the one hand, and put the machine into motion to re-establish a minimum of security allowing people to go and vote. I remind you that currently we cannot leave our homes, the children can no longer go to school.
Do they have the means to restore security? Is military intervention by external powers inevitable? If so, why isn’t this happening?
Should Haiti have military intervention? I’m not convinced of that. I think there was never the desire to restore security. For what ? Because the governments that have been in place have worked with armed gangs. Insecurity was created from scratch by these men in power to control the population, so that they could not demonstrate against this government.
I think it’s important to understand all of this, imagine: it’s as if Emmanuel Macron had his own armed militia and put it on the streets precisely to destroy public property and reach the population. This is what we are experiencing. We need a government that is not for violence. Previous corrupt governments allowed the situation to deteriorate so much that now just saying it won’t be enough. There must also be a government that puts in place a security plan, which was never done under Ariel Henry. Based on this security plan, we will be able to determine whether or not we need outside help.
You mention a security plan, should we wait for the presidential elections before it can be put in place?
The security part comes well ahead of a presidential election. We are far from wondering who the next president will be, this must be done as part of a transition which will not take place before the end of 2025 or even 2026. Above all, we will have to restore this public order and a minimum of calm well before . The Port-au-Prince airport has been closed for at least a month. We can’t wait until there are elections for this.
The second priority will be to start responding to humanitarian needs. There are more than 360,000 people* who have been displaced by gangs in 2023 alone. You have people who are now in schools, some in the streets, in stadiums, in offices… All these people -will they ever be able to return home? Several million people are on the verge of famine, there is an acute humanitarian crisis.
How to bring security back to Haiti? How to deal with gangs immediately?
I don’t think the only solution is force. For what ? One of the things that we have noticed in Haiti for almost two years is that there are no more children on the streets, because they have been recruited into gangs. In a way, we’ll have to see how to manage this, and it can’t just be through repression. Why do even young people join these gangs, why do they join them? Today there is such misery, such poverty. If you come to them and offer them a weapon, when they have nothing to eat, you are offering them a certain power. I saw it. We will also have to see how to resolve this problem of deep inequality and this problem of poverty so that young people can have health, education and professional training.
It is for these reasons that repression alone will not work. There are examples all over the world. Most gangs are based in slums and there is a serious population density problem. We are in such cramped spaces that not everyone can sleep there at night, because there are not enough beds for them. So you have people who sleep during the day to compensate. You cannot repress in the neighborhoods, since there are too many people who will die. We will have to find other solutions in Haiti and it is possible.
Is it possible to enter into negotiations with the gangs? What would their demands be?
What do the gangs want today? They want death. When you attack an art school, when you try to set fire to the oldest library in the country, it’s obvious to me that what you want is terror, what you want is kill. The agenda is clear. What the gangs want, they demonstrate every day by killing, raping, destroying and setting fires. I think it will be the new government in place, which will have to, depending on the strategies adopted, see if at some point it will sit down with the gangs and negotiate, that’s the only thing I can say.
*According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM)more than 360,000 people have been displaced in the country, some of them several times.