Haiti is no stranger to armed groups, and the gangs ravaging the country are highly organized and control vast arsenals of military weapons, presiding over a shadow economy of kidnapping for ransom and lucrative rackets.
"Gangs in Haiti are a longstanding phenomenon. They link to a tradition of non-state armed groups that stretches back to the 1950s, with the development of the Tonton Macoutes (paramilitaries) by President Francois Duvalier," the non-profit Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime said in a February report.
