Lawfare Daily: Haiti's Deteriorating Security Situation, with Robert Fatton

[Intro]

Robert Fatton: Last week was one of the most violent moment as the gangs tried to take over some of the more affluent regions in the city. In particular, the Pétion-Ville. That apparently failed. The police managed to repel them with the help of the population. It was a violent encounter. But nonetheless, the situation is really, really stark.

Anna Hickey: It's the Lawfare Podcast. I'm Anna Hickey, Associate Editor of Communications, with Dr. Robert Fatton, Emeritus Professor of Government and Foreign Affairs at the University of Virginia.

Robert Fatton: We are facing so many problems that it's difficult to know where to start. And this is why I'm saying that at one point it may be that there would be negotiations, even if they are secret negotiations with some of the gangs. I don't know what you can promise them.

Anna Hickey: Today we're talking about the deteriorating security situation in Haiti, how the Trump administration may change the United States’ approach. And the effectiveness of the international community's response so far.

[Main Podcast]

So to frame the conversation, you joined the Lawfare Podcast back in 2021 to discuss the assassination of the Haitian president.

But in the three years since, the security in Haiti has significantly deteriorated. With nearly half the country's population experiencing crisis levels of hunger. And recently the United States grounded all flights to Haiti after three planes were struck by gunfire at the Port-au-Prince airport. Can you explain what has kind of happened over the past three years that has led to this devolving security situation?

Robert Fatton: Well, you're absolutely right. The situation has deteriorated significantly. The main problem, obviously, is the violence of the gangs that has disrupted life. And on the other hand, it is the incompetence of the different governments that we've had in Haiti since the assassination of Jovenel Moïse.

When Jovenel Moïse was assassinated, there was a temporary prime minister. First it was Claude Joseph who then resigned and then it was Ariel Henry who had promised all kinds of things: reestablishing order, having elections, having a new constitution. and a national conference. And obviously he failed miserably in that task.

When that happened, Ariel Henry attempted to call for a new UN mission. That did not materialize. He had to settle for a special mission that was the so-called mission of the Kenyan contingent of police. And that's very different from the type of UN peacekeeping force that was in Haiti from 2004 to 2017. So that force arrived after the downfall of Ariel Henry himself.

Ariel Henry became a problem for the international community and in particular for the United States, because he was not accomplishing much. So after, paradoxically, traveling to Kenya to sign the agreement with the Kenyans about the police contingent. He tried to return to Haiti and he never did return to Haiti. He was stuck first in New Jersey, then in Puerto Rico. He tried to go to Haiti and the D.R. didn't allow him actually to land in Haiti and at that time you could land only in Cap-Haïtien, but the D.R. said no and assumed that it was under strong American pressure and Ariel Henry was essentially forced to resign.

And there was a process of negotiation in Jamaica that followed and the Transitional Presidential Council was set up. That presidential council has been in office. You have nine members in that presidential council. Seven of them are voting members and the president rotate, and there should be some kind of four rotations till the end of the mandate of the presidential council hopefully, in 2026, when a new government is supposed to be voted in.

All of that is really very unlikely because the security situation has deteriorated further. The gangs are controlling more than 85 percent of the territory of Port-au-Prince.  Last week was one of the most violent moment as the gangs tried to take over some of the more affluent regions in the city, in particular, the Pétion-Ville. That apparently failed. The police managed to repel them with the help of the population. It was a violent encounter. But nonetheless, the situation is really, really stark.

As you said, the gangs did shoot at certain planes, and that has resulted in the cancellation of all international flights to Haiti till January or February. There might be some flights to Cap-Haïtien, although that's not clear.

And the contingent of Kenyans which arrived is a rather small one, much smaller than expected. There are only about 400 of them, and it was to be something like a thousand plus 1500 coming from other countries in West Africa and in the Caribbean. So far, you have about 400 Kenyan police officers. They are not very effective so far. They have not really engaged against the gangs.

So the Haitian population, I think, is now at a point of being very cynical about their role and the situation, the humanitarian situation, is horrible. Half of the population is facing famine and yesterday Médecins Sans Frontières, Doctors Without Frontiers, left Haiti because of the situation, the security situation, which is a catastrophe for the very poor people because that's where they could receive health assistance.

So all considered, we've never been so close to the precipice of really a complete collapse of the state.

Anna Hickey: And thinking about the government itself, can you give listeners a little bit of a, like, temporal situation, just a timing situation of the rotating prime ministers that you've seen? How long was Prime Minister Henry in power before he was not let back into the country, and how long has his replacement, or lack of replacement, been in?

Robert Fatton: Yeah, well, Henry came after Jovenel Moïse arrived, and then he was replaced earlier this year. And at that point, the presidential council was formed. There have been so far two people in the presidency. The current one is Leslie Voltaire, and he's supposed to step down a month from now, but the problem is that the person who's supposed to replace him is one person who has been accused of bribery. And there are three members of the Presidential Council that have been accused of bribery. And it's not clear at all whether they will in fact succeed him, and whether those three individuals will in fact be in the presidential council for very long.

Then you've had the change also of prime minister, because when the presidential council was formed, Garry Conille became the prime minister, but then he had real trouble, personal problems, policy differences with the current president, Leslie Voltaire. And Leslie Voltaire decided, with the presidential council, that Garry Conille should be removed.

So his government fell and we've had a new government that is brand new. I mean, it's something that occurred in the last week or so. And Alix Didier Fils-Aimé is the current prime minister, just in office. And it's not clear whether he can, in fact, deal with the problems of the country because they are absolutely humongous.

Anna Hickey: How were the people on the presidential council chosen? Was there an election? Were they chosen by international observers? How was this council created?

Robert Fatton: Well, it was a mixture. There were no elections, but there haven't been elections in Haiti, let alone good elections, in a very long time. But the problem for the presidential council is that it was assembled with the help of the international community, the countries of the Caribbean, the so-called CARICOM group, and the United States. And the idea was to have representations of different sectors of Haitian society and different political parties.

So you have seven members representing different political parties, representing different civic organizations, etc. And then you have two non-voting members that represent, in particular, the church and cultural organizations. So the important members are the seven voting members.

But as I've said, with the problems of bribery, it is not clear whether that group will shrink or whether the three fellows will still remain in power or whether they will be replaced. That is not clear at all. There are increasing demands for the replacement of those three.

And then you have divisions within the different coalitions, as it were. Each president or member of the presidential council, as I've said, represent a coalition, and some of those coalitions are now rejecting the people that they had appointed in the first place.

So the situation is extremely fluid, extremely unstable. And with the increasing power of the gangs, it's not at all clear whether that presidential council can survive for long, except if they manage to re-establish public order and to squash the gangs, which is, at this moment, very difficult to see how they're going to do it.

Anna Hickey: In regards to the powers that these gangs have, is it primarily concentrated in the capital of Haiti, in Port-au-Prince, or do they have any power or control of areas outside of the Haitian capital?

Robert Fatton: They do have some control in terms of adjacent territory, in particular in L'Artibonite, which is the breadbasket of Haiti.

They control some parts of that, but what you have to understand is that Port-au-Prince is really the hub of Haiti. So when Port-au-Prince has a crisis, the rest of the country feels that crisis because most of the imports, the exports come from Port-au-Prince. It's an extreme centralization. So that's one thing that you have to remember when we say that the gangs control most of Port-au-Prince.

The other issue is that they control the main arteries going to the south of the country and going to the north of the country. So if you are in Port-au-Prince, you are literally taking your life in your own hand if you are going to try to, you know, travel from Port-au-Prince to the south. Same thing if you want to go to the north.

Now you can pay the gangs, sometimes that works, but sometimes it doesn't work. So, the gangs have the capacity to paralyze all economic activities. And they also have control of the main road to the oil depot of Haiti. In other words, they can literally stop all economic activities by preventing, you know, trucks from moving the gas and the oil to the capital city and elsewhere in the country.

So the gangs are extremely powerful and they can truly lead to an absolute paralysis of the country if they wish to do so. And they've managed also to, as we said, the international flights have been stopped. And this is the second time that this happens.

Anna Hickey: And when we talk about the gangs, how many major players are there? Is it two or three? Is it, you know, dozens? And of the gangs, how long have they been around? Do you have a sense of whether or not there are new, you know, organizations being created in this, you know, turmoil, or is it more established players entrenching their power?

Robert Fatton: There are several gangs. I mean, the gangs federated, that's about a year and a half ago. In other words, the main gangs have created what is called Viv Ansanm, which is a term in Creole, which means living together. Those are some of the gangs in Port-au-Prince and they are led by the most visible gang leader, whose name is Jimmy Chérizier, he’s also known as Barbecue. And then there are other gangs that are also in the political and violent system, but that Viv Ansanm is the one that appears to be the dominant one, not necessarily the most violent one, but the dominant one, and Jimmy Chérizier is their spokesperson.

He's been saying in the last few days that the goal of the gangs, the goal of Viv Ansanm at least, is to overthrow the government, to overthrow the presidential council. And he had announced last week that he was going to take over Pétion-Ville and the main hotels of the capital. And that's what happened. I mean, it started on Monday. It's ongoing, but it looks like they failed, so far, to do so.

So the gangs represent, if you put them all together, some 12 to 15,000 people, essentially young men, some of them not very well trained, but extremely violent and armed. Now there might be a core group of gangs that are fairly well trained. And what is interesting is that in the last incident that happened on Monday night the gangs were stopped. They had stolen some trucks and they had all kinds of equipment, ammunitions, Kalashnikov, etc. And they even had drones.

So when they stopped them, that's when there was a very violent reaction in terms of the police and the local population. And most of the gangs were killed. And those who tried to escape, they were seized by the local population, and they were also killed. There is what we called Bwa Kale, which is a movement, a popular movement of essentially popular justice that is becoming very active.

And it looks like, at least in Pétion-Ville, that they join with the police to fight the gangs and that would be a renewal of Bwa Kale, which had been very active a few months ago, but kind of disappeared. But it looks like it's reappearing and that may mean that the police and the local population may, in fact take things into their own hands and fight the gangs. We shall see.

Anna Hickey: Before I move on to how the UN mission has been operating in Haiti, why has the Haitian police or the Haitian military struggled to get this gang violence under control over the past, you know, few years or many years?

Robert Fatton: Well, the Haitian Army was disbanded in 1994 under President Aristide when he was restored to power. So the army was just a semblance of an army, and the police has been very ineffective and has been very corrupt and poorly trained and poorly armed. I mean, if you look at Jimmy Chérizier, Barbecue, he was a member of the police and it's very clear that many members of the police joined the gangs, and they have informers within the police to tell them what the police is going to do.

So the weakness of the police, the weakness or non-existence of the army, which is just beginning to reappear, but it's really an embryo of an army, explain partly, the collapse of Haiti. What you have to look also at the really corruption and incapacity of successive Haitian government to establish certain modicum of stability and some modicum of equity.

There is absolutely no way that you're going to see gangs vanish in Haiti, if you don't give opportunities to the people in the slums who have been marginalized and are facing poverty and joining a gang has become for some of them, clearly not all of them, a way out of an impossible life. In other words, they have no alternative, no jobs, even if they're educated, they can't do much with it. So there is that kind of social decomposition that is partly generated by the massive levels of inequity, and that explains that everything is falling apart.

And the other element is the role of the international community, which has sustained rather corrupt government. And as far as I'm concerned, has imposed economic programs that have led to the collapse of local production and the collapse of agricultural production in Haiti.

Anna Hickey: Thinking about the international community, how has the United States responded to this deteriorating security situation? And what was their role in starting up this current UN mission, which is comprised almost solely of Kenyan police officers?

Robert Fatton: Well, it's very clear that the U.S. at one point wanted a UN mission, but they found that neither Russia nor China would approve, and that has to be approved by the Security Council. So they decided to change strategy. First they started looking at Latin America, they talked to the Mexican, then they talked to the Canadian, and no one wanted to go to Haiti. So the alternative became Kenya.

The U.S. and the Kenyan government have very good relations. And at the time of the signing of the agreement to send the Kenyan police to Haiti, the United States had signed a security agreement with Kenya itself, to the tune of more than half a billion dollars. And I think this is at that point that Secretary Blinken decided, well, maybe we can ask the Kenyans to help. And the Kenyans have said, yes, they would help, but they wanted a significant amount of money. And so far, only half of that money has arrived. So you have a financial issue in terms of the mission. And as I've said, only 400 of them have appeared in Haiti, and they are, to some extent, not fully engaged in the fight against the gangs.

The U.S. built a significant, essentially, military base next to the airport to offer lodging to that mission, but so far, it's only, less than half of it has appeared. The U.S. also has been the main contributor, financially, to the Haitian police, and there is a renewed attempt to see if the Russians and the Chinese might accept to have a UN peacekeeping force.

And actually the Security Council is meeting today about this matter, and the request came from the Chinese and the Russians. So we'll see if there is a fundamental change or if it's going to be the same problem. But it's clear that the current mission is too small and doesn't have the effectiveness that is required to deal with the gangs.

Anna Hickey: Obviously, this month, the United States faced a significant presidential election, so there will be a change of administration. Do you have a sense of how an incoming Trump administration might change the United States policy towards Haiti?

He has made remarks during his campaign about Haitian immigrants, in the United States, those who are on temporary protected status, but as far as I'm aware, he hasn't made any significant statements about the country of Haiti itself or, you know, the funding the U.S. has given. Do you have a sense from him or his likely Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, how they might address the situation or change the United States policy?

Robert Fatton: Well, for Trump, as far as I can tell, Haiti doesn't really exist only, it exists only insofar as it is a problem of immigration and illegal migrants in the United States. Now, Trump has always essentially said that about Haiti, not only Haiti, but a lot of African countries, when he was president for the first time, he used rather strong language to define those countries.

On the other hand, if he's serious about immigration, he may have to, in fact, look at what the heck is happening in Haiti, because it may create a vast exodus. And even if the Haitians don't reach Haiti, they may be reaching, you know, the high seas. And what do you do with them? Do you reopen Guantanamo? It's a very complicated process.

The other issue is Mario Rubio and Mario Rubio, as you know, is a Senator from Florida. So he has a large, population of Haitians and Haitians are divided about Mario Rubio. They don't think he's going to do much more than what has been done. And there are others who say, no, he understands our problem is originally from Cuba, I understand the problem of immigration, et cetera.

So I don't know. I think the problem of Haiti seems to be quite minor, in the overall strategy of the incoming Trump administration because you have issues with Ukraine, issues with China, the Middle East, the economic issues. So I'm not sure if Haiti is going to become a huge problem or if it's going to be contained.

I mean, as far as we can see, the Biden administration has attempted to contain Haiti. They haven't invested much into Haiti except replacing prime ministers and sending the Kenyans. So it's difficult to see if there is going to be a fundamental change. And it may be that if there is a complete collapse of the government, then whether they like it or not, whether it's under Biden or the new incoming Trump administration, they will have to do something. But at the moment, it's clearly not the main issue dominating foreign policy in Washington.

Anna Hickey: And then thinking about the rest of the international community, you've mentioned Russia and China as major players on the UN Security Council, but obviously Haiti shares its island with the Dominican Republic. It is near a lot of other Caribbean islands.

If the United States decides to take a significant step back, do you see Mexico, other Latin American countries, other Caribbean countries stepping up to try to fill whatever gap the United States leaves if the Trump administration decides to stop funding the Haitian police with, you know, the little funding the United States has given, or the Kenyan-UN mission, or do you see this gap kind of unfillable?

Robert Fatton: Well, if the United States doesn't lead, I don't think we're going to have anything coming from Brazil or Mexico. And the Dominican Republic, actually, has followed a very stringent policy of deportation. I mean, they are building a wall between the Dominican Republic and Haiti. And in the last two months, some 50,000 Haitians have been deported. So, the Dominican Republic is not welcoming Haitians, except if they are well off, to put it bluntly.

Now, the D.R. has said that what's happening in Haiti is a threat to the national security of the Dominican Republic, and in addition, they've treated the gangs as terrorists. So that word means that they hope that by using that epitaph, that would be very severe kind of police or military intervention to suppress them. But I don't think it's going to come from the D.R.

The D.R. is basically not allowing Haitians to go back to the Dominican Republic. And they are not allowing, I mean, they are deporting on a massive scale, Haitians back to Haiti. And some of those people who are deported may not even be Haitians. They may have been born in the DR, but they don't have the proper paper to show.

So, you have a situation where the only game in town, really, is the United States and what the United States is going to decide to do, in terms of supporting the UN force or the Latin American force, etc. But the United States had tried to do that before, and they didn't find any partners.

The previous intervention by the UN peacekeeping force, which was called MINUSTAH, didn't work very well. There was a modicum of security established, but Haitians didn't like them. Haitians thought that they were rather violent. They brought in the cholera epidemic and there were all kinds of nasty stories of sexual, you know, violence too.

So it's a very complicated situation and my feeling is that Haitians have to decide what they want to do themselves. The dependence that we've had in Haiti for the last 60 years or so hasn't really generated the type of solution that we have, but clearly saying that is easy from the comfort of the United States, especially when you're confronting the gangs.

But what has happened in terms of kind of a fusion between the Haitian police and Bwa Kale, the popular movement may be one way out. And it may well be too that at one point there will have to be some form of negotiations with the gangs because it looks like they are not going to disappear. Now what kind of negotiations and with whom and what would be the terms of that negotiation, I don't know. But it's difficult to see how the situation can deteriorate further, and if it does, then you're not talking about negotiations, you're talking about the possible fall of the government itself.

Anna Hickey: Yeah. So, with the, thinking about the future of Haiti, is there anything you're keeping your eye on specifically over the next few weeks and months? Obviously, the situation has become incredibly complex, like over the past few weeks. It feels like there's been a lot of action in Haiti. So is there anything you're keeping your eye on tracking with what the international community might do or what the gangs or the Transitional Presidential Council might do?

Robert Fatton: Well, the gangs have been very clear that they want to overthrow the presidential council and they want a new kind of government. I don't know exactly what they want, but they don't want that current presidential council.

At best, they said in their social media that they could see someone from the presidential council remaining as president, but the council as such should go away.

Now, I don't know what that means. There is a possibility, too, that you could have certain political forces taking over. I mean, there is a fellow by the name of Guy Philippe, who used to be an army fellow, who was actually jailed in the United States and returned to Haiti, and he likes to present himself as the savior of the country. And he has links with the army. That's another possibility, kind of an internal military police coup in the country. But the more likely is, I think, more force foreign intervention. Now, what would be the kind of form it would take, it's unclear.

We may know a little bit better after the reunion of the Security Council today, and if that doesn't happen, then I am not sure what the government can do except hope that the police is going to be strengthened and maybe that the so-called Bwa Kale movement, popular justice on the part of Haitian neighborhoods, that that plus the police, plus whatever is remains of the army, all them together might at one point confront the gangs.

But it's unlikely that you're going to have a success story. And all of the promises of a new constitution, a national conference, and new elections, and the new government by February of 2026. To me, this is living in fantasy. This is not going to happen. Because the situation is so catastrophic financially and the humanitarian crisis and the security, everything is falling apart.

So how can you have a proper election if you don't have at least a modicum of order and an electoral list? There is no electoral list in Haiti now. One of the things that people forget is that Haiti is a very young country. So the last election, if you can call it an election, was 2016. You know, that's eight years ago.

So you have a significant proportion of people who are now at the age where they can vote. So are you going to just forget about them? And you have a significant number of people who might have died. So we don't have a proper electoral list. Then you have to have the logistic for the election proper. If you do an election without having a proper environment, it's going to be a catastrophe. The crisis will continue. Then whomever is elected will be perceived very quickly as illegitimate.

So, you know, we are facing so many problems that it's difficult to know where to start. And this is why I'm saying that at one point it may be that there would be negotiations, even if they are secret negotiations, with some of the gangs. I don't know what you can promise them. The American ambassador actually said, which was rather stunning two weeks ago, that the embassy had conversations with the gangs. And the Haitians were rather puzzled because most people expect that this is happening, but they didn't expect that to be publicly stated, and that was a shock to the system.

So, you know, my guess is, as I've said, it's full of uncertainty, so it's extremely difficult to predict what is going to happen.

Anna Hickey: Any negotiations with the gangs, would that be with the presidential council or would it be with any other players in Haiti?

Robert Fatton: Who knows? I mean, there could be secret negotiations between some members of the international community, the government, and the gangs. But I'm not sure that the current government or most Haitians would be willing to accept the leaders of the gangs in a government.

That, to me, would be rather shocking. But there is something different from that. In other words, you could promise to the youngsters that they wouldn't be prosecuted, and that they should disarm. And to the leaders of the gangs, I don't know, that there would be amnesty, which is difficult also to swallow for many Haitians because so many Haitians have been killed by the gangs and so many people have been displaced by the gangs.

I mean, there are 700,000 Haitians who are internally displaced as a result of the violence that the gangs have, you know, meted against poor neighborhoods. So, the contradictions are such that it's difficult. Now, people have said that in other countries you've had, you know, negotiations, and that people at the top get some form of amnesty.

But, I don't know if we are ready for that. This is something that Haitians in Haiti will have to decide. But the situation is so dire that they may have no choice but to accept what appears to be unacceptable.

Anna Hickey: Before we close out our conversation, do you have any final thoughts about the current situation in Haiti or where it might go from here? Or even just the humanitarian crisis in Haiti?

Robert Fatton: Well, the humanitarian crisis is colossal. I mean, we are talking about half the population facing starvation. And now with international transport very limited, things are going to get worse. I mean, some of the organizations that have been feeding very poor people and offering some medical attention are leaving the country or at least they are closing their clinics. And those very poor people are not getting, you know, the minimum kind of attention.

The government has little capacity to help. I mean, most of the people who have been displaced live in very nasty and horrible situation. And even if the government was effective in terms of having a proper bureaucracy, they don't really have the financial means to do much. What one might expect is that the current government should give an image at the very least of honesty and of a government that is trying desperately to solve the situation.

But most Haitians see that government as essentially a government of people who are in power because they want to obtain the spoils of power, the illicit spoils of power. And most Haitians don't understand how you can have three members of the presidential council who are accused of bribery and they are still in the government. And many of the coalitions that supported those very individuals have asked them to resign and the individuals are saying, no, we are not resigning.

So the public is watching that, that kind of spectacle and wondering what the heck is going on. And it's not even a government that has been elected. So it has very little legitimacy and the more it behaves the way it has behaved, the more it loses whatever remnant of legitimacy it may have. So perhaps a cleaning of the government would be the thing to demonstrate to the population that things are changing, but the more important thing is to reestablish some modicum of order and allowing people who've been displaced to return to their usual living spaces.

But that's very difficult. I mean, last week the gangs burned a whole neighborhood and those are not wealthy Haitians. The wealthy Haitians are in the mountains or they've left the country. So the real people who are suffering are the poor people, and that is something that is absolutely atrocious given the conditions in which they find themselves without even that violence.

So one can only hope. There is a saying, you know, you know, pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will, but I don't know if optimism of the will is now even warranted at the moment. I hope that it is warranted and that we see with the possible merging of police and local neighborhoods that there might be a change in the terms of the conflict, but we shall see.

Anna Hickey: And on that note, I think I'll leave it there. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Robert Fatton: Thank you so much. It was my pleasure.

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