After Haiti’s prime minister signed an agreement in Kenya for an international security deployment, gangs in Port-au-Prince attacked two of the country’s biggest prisons, freeing thousands of prisoners.
While Prime Minister Ariel Henry of Haiti and President William Ruto of Kenya were in Nairobi, celebrating the signing of a security deal on March 1 that will see an international deployment of police and aid, the last semblance of state control evaporated. Amid an increase in gang activity, which saw four policemen killed, on Sunday armed men attacked two prisons, releasing thousands of inmates back among the long-suffering Haitian population.
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The assault on the two prisons in Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital, appeared to be instigated by Jimmy Chérizier, alias “Barbecue,” a former policeman who heads the most powerful gang confederation, the G9. In a video message last week, he announced an increase in attacks aimed at forcing Henry from office.
“With our guns and with the Haitian people, we will free the country,” he said, dressed in black and wearing body armor.
Observers reported seeing at least 10 corpses of prisoners around the National Penitentiary in Port-au-Prince. Of an estimated 4,000 inmates, around 100 remained. A second jail, the Croix-des-Bouquets Civil Prison, housing some 1,400 inmates, was also overrun, but there are no details yet on this assault.
Haiti has declared a state of emergency, including a curfew between 6 p.m. and 5 a.m., as it tries to reassert some measure of control in the capital. The US Embassy in Haiti has announced it is halting all official travel to the country. It now has a minimal presence in the country, as in July last year all non-emergency staff were evacuated amid a burst of violence, kidnappings, and threats.
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While no date was announced for their deployment, the Kenyan police, known more for a poor human rights record than any ability to tackle heavily armed gangs, will send up to 1,000 agents to establish some order on the Caribbean island, so that aid can be delivered, elections held next year, and basic security established.
The international effort, which has US and UN backing, has mustered over $120 million in aid money. However, without basic security conditions on the ground, which the Kenyans have pledged to provide, nothing can be delivered nor implemented.
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The Kenyans face a Herculean task. Haitian gangs now control much of the country, spreading out from their strongholds in Port-au-Prince. The Haitian police, 9,000-strong in a population of 11 million, are outmatched in every way.
The Kenyans will be walking into a failed state and one of the kidnapping capitals of the world, where the gangs in many parts of the country are the only recognizable authority. Last year an estimated 3,000 people were abducted for ransom. In January this year, six nuns were taken from a bus in Port-au-Prince along with two companions, showing that nobody is safe.
While Haiti has seen little tranquility since achieving independence in 1804, the latest wave of violence and instability was triggered by the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July 2021. Colombian mercenaries who carried out the killing and several Haitians have been arrested and others charged, including the president’s wife, who was wounded in the attack. But the motivation behind the killing is still unclear, as are the intellectual authors.
Whatever the reasons, Haiti now has no elected representatives. Prime Minister Henry, who was appointed after the president’s murder with international support, is widely seen as having no legitimacy.
Haiti has seen many foreign interventions. The island was invaded and occupied by the United States between 1915 and 1934. There was another US invasion in 1994 in the aftermath of a coup. Then in 2004, the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) was deployed until 2017. The mission was plagued with accusations of human rights abuses by the UN peacekeeping forces, who were accused of sexual crimes. The UN has also acknowledged its role in starting a cholera outbreak that killed thousands.
As soon as Kenyan policemen hit the ground in Haiti, they are likely to find themselves targeted by Haitian gangs, including the two most powerful rival criminal federations of the G9 under Barbecue and the G-Pèp, which have been fighting for supremacy.
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