Charities are being looted. Foreign embassies are being pelted with rocks, and the homes of government supporters and the wealthy targeted — some going up in smoke.
But as a crisis-stricken Haiti descends into anarchy almost unparalleled since the fall of the Duvalier dictatorship in 1986, the world appears to be keeping its arms folded.
The ad hoc group of ambassadors and foreign envoys known as the “Core Group” that represent Western nations and the United Nations and Organization of American States has been silent, seemingly unable to come to an agreement on what to say and fearful their words can make matters worse.
“They want us to hit rock bottom,” said a Port-au-Prince-based political analyst, who has been unable to leave his home for the past five days and worries about the coming days as Tropical Storm Fiona zones in on the flood- and disaster-prone country.
President Joe Biden is being briefed regularly on the crisis. But the only public comments originating in Washington have come from the president of the Dominican Republic. During a visit to the OAS on Thursday, Dominican President Luis Abinader called on the hemispheric body to do more to help and to privately press the Biden administration to take bolder action. But given the animosity between the neighboring countries, which share the island of Hispaniola, even some diplomats and analysts fear the Dominican leader’s outspokenness could be counterproductive.
On Friday, United Nations Secretary General António Guterres asked for a de-escalation of the violence, warning that if the current situation continues, the already dire humanitarian situation faced by Haiti’s most vulnerable people will deteriorate even further.
Guterres, who will welcome world leaders this coming week in New York during the United Nations General Assembly, did not offer a solution to ending the crisis.
His comments came after looters attacked several charity warehouses in the city of Gonaives, including a United Nations World Food Program facility with 1,400 metric tons of food intended for school canteens, families and children. They also burned its adjacent offices.
“Haitians want a Haitian solution to Haiti’s problems, but they are incapable of reaching a compromise,” said Robert Fatton, a Haiti expert at the University of Virginia who has written extensively about his homeland’s political troubles since its transition to democracy 36 years ago. “We are stuck in a dangerous, chaotic spiral, and all actors seem impotent and mute. Morbid symptoms are everywhere, but no obvious solutions. And now we may be battered by another storm.”
Late Friday, gangs had joined the mayhem, including members of the G9 gang coalition, whose members left Cité Soleil with an excavator, heading for Shodecosa Industrial and Commercial Park, apparently intending to tear down its perimeter wall.
By Saturday morning, members of the well-armed gang were circling the park, which employs 13,000 workers, preparing to attack by using containers to block access. Less than a quarter of a mile away, they were also attempting to block all access to the country’s main oil terminal, Varreux, and its fuel depot to prevent the delivery of tens of thousands of barrels of diesel, gasoline and propane to fueling stations out into the city. Gang members were placing trailers and barricades along the access road, and using an excavator to dig and cut the road to build trenches in order to ensure no possible access.
Though the latest crisis was ignited by a government hike in fuel prices, it had been brewing for weeks. Across the country, anti-government protest organizers and backers called on crowds to attack commercial banks and money-transfer houses, and in Port-au-Prince, distributed Russian flags in defiance of the United States.
Then came the announcement on Sunday by interim Prime Minister Ariel Henry about the fuel-price increase. Fury, fiery barricades, blocked roads and overall paralysis soon followed. That escalated into even more violence and transitioned into a power grab as mobs targeted the homes of politicians close to Henry, attacked foreign embassies, and looted businesses and more than a dozen beachfront homes in the coastal town of Montrouis, north of Port-au-Prince.
In a tweet, one of the few Haitian leaders to speak out, Eric Jean-Baptiste called on Haitians to stop burning the property of the state and for the “actors of the crisis” to agree to avoid the worst.
“The property of the state is ours,” said Jean-Baptiste, secretary general of the Rally of Progressive National Democrats and a former presidential candidate. “Do not destroy private investment because we cannot lose more jobs.”
In a statement, the civil society-backed coalition known as the Montana Accord said the increase in fuel prices of between 97% and 100%, “is an absolute provocation” by the interim government. The coalition accused the Henry government of trying to maintain power and said “it is another proof of the state authorities’ inability to lead the country.”
“Montana is telling the Haitian people that the anger it is expressing in the streets is legitimate,” the statement said. “Montana also urges the population to continue to fight to defend its true interests with firmness and conviction but also with great vigilance to avoid the infiltration of opportunists, agitators and troublemakers in its midst.”
The price hike, which the government argues is needed to save $400 million in fuel subsidies the nation cannot afford, couldn’t have come at a worse time, say some critics. Inflation is hovering around 30%, dollars are scarce, the local currency is rapidly depreciating and gas, diesel and propane have all been in short supply. Meanwhile, if Haitians manage to escape kidnappings, then they are held hostage by an unprecedented gang crisis that has blocked highways to major cities and left hundreds dead in at least two massacres this year.
Those who can, are escaping to the neighboring Dominican Republic and the United States. Those without visas and passports are taking their chances on rickety sailboats only to be returned by the U.S. Coast Guard in the largest Haitian seaborne refugee crisis in 18 years.
But that misery is also being used for political gain in the face of a weak interim government and paralyzing political, social and economic crises that have worsened since July 2021’s assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse.
Last month, the interim government began cracking down on illegal arms and ammunition, and contraband at its seaports in hopes of recouping millions in lost revenue and hampering deadly gangs. At the same time, 20 members of the country’s private sector who own some of the largest companies in Haiti, publicly committed to paying their taxes. They also, in a signed statement, called on the country’s revenue authorities to fight corruption by exercising their responsibility to collect customs duties and taxes.
Some believe what they are now witnessing is those efforts backfiring — and the result of criticism that has been lobbed against the United States. Following Moïse’s death, Haitians and others accused the United States of overstepping its bounds and seeking to shape the country’s politics.
That criticism has led to U.S. and other foreign diplomats repeatedly talking about supporting “a Haitian solution” to the current crisis — a call that some think may also be having “a do-nothing effect” on the part of foreign governments scared of being criticized.
“The (Haitian) government is late in trying to introduce some major reforms at customs and in the institutions collecting revenue,” said the analyst, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue. “I am not saying they shouldn’t have done it. But it is now backfiring to the extent that those who are being penalized are putting their money out to overthrow the government and to stop those reforms.”
Privately, U.S. officials are acknowledging that the multidimensional crisis could be reaching an inflection point — and that Henry has all but lost security control over the country. In the past few days, protesters have looted food warehouses, sent businesses up in smoke and run through the streets of the capital and secondary cities carrying off private property while calling on the prime minister to resign. Although police have responded, some wonder how long the force of just 12,000-plus for nearly 12 million citizens can sustain.
After resisting requests for over a year to provide muscle to help the Haiti National Police through either troops or a U.S. crackdown on corrupt individuals and gang leaders by issuing tough sanctions, Washington finds itself with limited options as those with money stoke genuine anger to elicit chaos in the streets.
Still, Washington doesn’t seem to be reassessing its course. In his speech at the OAS, Abinader called on the organization to put into motion three items in a recently approved United Nations mandate on Haiti: help Haiti improve security at its ports and seaports to better collect more than $600 million in lost revenues; tighten weapons and ammunition controls to block illegal arms from falling into the hands of criminal gangs; and coordinate with member countries to help train the Haiti National Police.
A U.S. diplomatic source said that the U.N. mandate, which calls on countries to stop the flow of guns to Haiti, could potentially include tougher language banning arms sales to the country and sanctions on those involved in the violence.
A vote on the resolution, which had been pushed by China over the summer, is unlikely to occur until after the General Assembly meets. But two events — one hosted by Canada and one by the United States — will focus on security and financial assistance to Haiti during the conference this coming week.
Yet, while the United States is hoping to raise more money for Haiti, its own officials acknowledge that the increase in aid that it has provided unilaterally this past year has not been able to reach Haitians on the ground due to gang activity.
Any resolution is likely to fall short of the crisis of the moment. A year ago, U.S. officials were questioning whether Haiti’s gangs had reached a threshold of overpowering the national police. Now the Biden administration acknowledges there is no contest. Critics say a U.N. resolution cracking down on arms sales is too little, too late.
Even now, the Biden administration remains reluctant to endorse an international peacekeeping force, worried that it would resemble an invasion.
But U.S. diplomats are expressing greater concern than they have over the past two years — during acute crises over the assassination of Haiti’s president and a crippling fuel shortage — and are scrambling ahead of the U.N. General Assembly meeting this coming week to come up with some kind of resolution that can gain international consensus, anticipating Haiti will be a top priority at the gathering.
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