Haiti Is Not A Forest

Amid political bickering and seemingly-endless violence, flickers of hope appear.

Photo of Port-au-Prince by the author.

The appearance of Haiti’s hydra-heard government at the United Nations General Assembly last week was instructive for both what it told observers about how Haiti is currently being governed and also how those ostensibly in power now may be prepared - or not - to address the multifaceted crises back home on the ground.

On 21 September, Edgard Leblanc Fils, presiding over the rotating presidency of Haiti’s CARICOM-midwifed transitional council, decided that he would not be attending the General Assembly because, he said, the U.S. State Department had declined to grant him VIP diplomatic protection. Leblanc Fils - who on the 9-member council represents the Collectif du 30 janvier, which incudes his own Organisation du peuple en lutte political party and the Parti Haïtien Tèt Kale of former president Michel Martelly - thus missed a meeting with United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres that had been scheduled for 22 September. He then appeared to change his mind, announcing he was “awaiting a formal note from either the Directorate of Diplomatic Security or the U.S. State Department regarding the security of dignitaries.”

Leblanc Fils eventually did attend the General Assembly and, on 26 September, gave a a thoughtful and impassioned speech there, noting that Haiti’s “recovery cannot be fully achieved without international solidarity,” paying tribute to revolutionary leader Jean-Jacques Dessalines for having “launched the process of dismantling the colonial and slave order” and observing that, though

The resolution of Haiti's problems rests first and foremost on the shoulders of the Haitian people…the international community, the United Nations, foreign powers that have often played a decisive role in Haiti's history also have an essential part in this process of restoring peace, economic recovery, institutional development and establishing a rule of law….Haiti's failure to recover is not only that of a nation. It reflects a collective failure, a global inability to fully respect the principles of solidarity, justice and international cooperation.

Leblanc Fils then finally, quite reasonably, demanded restitution for the extortionate colonial debt - equivalent to $560 million in today's money - that Haiti was forced, quite literally at gunpoint, to pay its former colonial power France, noting “We demand the recognition of a moral and historical debt and the implementation of just and appropriate reparations that will allow our people to free themselves from the invisible chains of this unjust past.”

It was a beautiful speech, marred only slightly by Leblanc Fils’ bizarre lunge for rehydration at the water pitcher before him on the podium, during which he proceeded to guzzle and spill water in front of startled spectators.

But it was just that, only a speech. What was going on behind the scenes at the General Assembly and, more importantly, back on the ground in Haiti amid these lovely words? With all the focus on protocol and security, what of the security of the Haitian people?

Before Leblanc Fils arrived, Leslie Volatire, the transition council member who represents Fanmi Lavalas, the political party founded by former president Jean-Berrtand Aristide and which in the early 2000s created the template for the politically-aligned armed gangs currently rampaging through the capital, attempted (unsuccessfully) to crash a meeting between Haitan Prime Minister Garry Conille (who co-rules the country with the council in uneasy cohabitation) and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a meeting to which he had not been invited. As he tried to talk his way in, Voltaire was mocked by Brazilian security agents when he claimed that he was one of the “nine presidents of Haiti,” to which the agents responded incredulously “Your country has nine presidents?” Clearly still piqued, the transition council is now targeting Haiti’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dominique Dupuy, summoning her to “clarify the misunderstandings that have arisen around the Haitian delegation to the United Nations General Assembly,” something it has no power to do. 

Meanwhile, the council itself has some clarifying to do. On 2 October, Haiti’s Unité de lutte contre la corruption (ULCC) recommended prosecution against three council members: Louis Gérald Gilles, a former Fanmi Lavalas senator who now ostensibly represents the Accord du 21 Décembre which the government of ousted Prime Minister Ariel Henry hammered out with several political entities in late 2022; Emmanuel Vertilaire, acting on behalf of the Pitit Dessalines party of former senator and presidential candidate Moïse Jean Charles; and Smith Augustin, who represents the Engagés pour le Développement (EDE) party formed by former Prime Minister, Claude Joseph, and the Résistance Démocratique (RED), formed by a number of close allies of Moïse. The ULCC has accused the three of abuse of office, bribery and corruption in connection to a scheme to profit from the reappointment of Raoul Pascal Pierre-Louis as chairman of the Board of Directors of the country’s Banque nationale de crédit (BNC).

As the council fixated on protocol and its own intigues, meanwhile, the Biden administration abandoned its attempts to convert the Kenyan-led security mission in Haiti into a formal United Nations peacekeeping operation amid objections from China and Russia, though the West African nation of Guinea recently announced its willingness to contribute 650 police officers to the stabilization force. Landing in a Port-au-Prince bereft of signs or welcome messages of any kind, Kenyan President William Ruto visited Haiti on 21 September, greeted by several members of the transitions council as well as “Kenyan police officers in military fatigues, officers from the specialized units of the Police nationale d’Haïti, the band of the Palais National and a red carpet.”

Even given the statement by Leblanc Fils at the United Nations that “the Haitian people, despite the trials they face, refuse to be overwhelmed by despair.” the situation on the ground in Haiti remains dire indeed.

During the course of last week, I have received no less than three videos of Haitian gangs killing people, including one of Joseph Wilson, aka Lanmo San Jou, leader of the 400 Mawozo gang, gunning down two handcuffed man in an open field, and one of a fully conscious man being set on fire, apparently by the Taliban gang of General Jeff in Canaan, on the road north from the capital, Port-au-Prince. In a recent report, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) estimated that more than 3,600 people have been killed in violence in Haiti this year, while about 600,000 people were displaced in the first six months of 2024 alone. In recent weeks, the bay of Port-au-Prince has been experiencing a series of attacks on ships and port facilities, including the kidnapping of two Filipino sailors, shots being fired at passing boats and shots fired at the offices of the port. According to two sources I spoke with, the spike in violence is coming from the 5 Segonn gang of Village de Dieu leader Johnson “Izo” André. 

Armed groups also continue to spread terror in Haiti’s Artibonite Valley, north of the capital, with gangs maintaining a stong presence in and around Source-Matelas and Cabaret remaining under defacto gang occupation. Haiti’s Route Nationale 1, the main north-south road between Port-au-Prince and Cap-Haïtien, the country’s second largest city, remains effectively closed to private vehicles, with public transportation only allowed to pass after having paid extortion fees to the armed gang members who line the road. Late last month, the United States sanctioned  former parliamentarian Prophane Victor and Artibonite-based Gran Grif gang leader Luckson Elan for "forming, supporting, and arming gangs that have committed serious human rights abuses" [Victor was sanctioned by the Canadian government last year.] At the time of writing, I was receiving reports of a new gang attack against the community of Pont-Sondé.

There have been signs of progress, however, and, more than from the international community, these have come from the Haitians themselves.

Last week, the Police Nationale d'Haïti (PNH) manage to drive out gang members who had tried to overtake the Plateau Central towns of Saut d’eau and Mirebalais. Police have also reportedly been making in advances in the community of Gressier, south of the capital on the road heading to Mariani and Léogâne. Police also recently arrested the girlfriend and sister of Bel-Air gang leader Kempes Sanon.

The Forces armées d’Haïti (FADH), Haiti’s army, has been working to secure the Champ de Mars, the vast central public square in downtown Port-au-Prince and life has has been gradually, timidly returning there and in areas such as the Marché Salomon and Rue Capois in recent weeks, even though the area around the Hôpital Général remains a ghost town and the Hopital Universitaire de l'Universite d'Etat d'Haiti (HUEH) has been abandoned since early this year. A police source recently told Haiti’s Le Nouvelliste that

There is a difference compared to three months ago. The police are carrying out operations everywhere, in the city center, in Solino, in Bel-Air. The recovered positions have been consolidated. The operations at Carrefour-Feuilles, at the Ruelle Alerte, made it possible to neutralize members of the Village-de-Dieu gang who were using the Port-au-Prince cemetery

And this week, Haiti’s young scholars returned to school, even as a number of educational institutions around the capital remained occupied by residents displaced from their homes by the capital’s roiling violence. It is for them and for the hope in Haiti’s future that the country’s security forces must continue to fight, and I am increasingly convinced that it is with Haiti’s police and army, rather than with any outside intervention force, that the ability for the state, such as it is, to reassert control over the country remains. Many international actors are fixated on the holding of elections, but any credible vote is impossible in the current atmosphere of gang terrorism and mass displacement, which has now gone of for years. I think Haiti’s security forces, imperfect as they are, have increasingly shown their willingness, when given proper material and leadership, to stand and fight in defense of their country and they should be given the proper tools with which to do that.

Watching the images of the students returning to school this week, so full of hope and promise even amid such a daunting situation, I was reminded of the words of the late singer Manno Charlemagne: Si ayiti pa forè/Ou jwenn tout bèt ladan (If Haiti is not a forest/Why are all these beasts around?).

These children deserve a future. Everyone in Haiti does. One hopes that Haiti’s rulers and their international partners can see far enough beyond narrow self interest to give it to them.

Ayiti pap peri.