Haiti’s start for real security

Initial success against gangs by foreign forces only opens a door for both the people and an interim government to achieve the "greater good.”

The Monitor's View

For over a century, Haiti has seen four large-scale foreign interventions that tried to quell violence in the fragile Caribbean nation. On Tuesday, the latest attempt saw its first measure of success. Two months after their arrival, foreign troops working with Haitian forces took back a gang-infested part of the capital, Port-au-Prince.

The operation did not garner much attention perhaps because of 109 years of past failures by outside countries to restore order. “We must be patient,” a newly appointed prime minister, Garry Conille, told his very impatient 11.8 million people – nearly half of whom survive on aid – after the operation.

His tone of caution reflects a long learning curve on the limits of armed force to reshape torn societies like Haiti’s. Yes, the United Nations has mandated up to 2,500 foreign troops to work in the country, with most of those due in coming weeks. And yes, the United States began transferring armored vehicles to Haiti in the past week. In places where gangs are not in control, such as critical roads, the national police now feel confident to stay put.

With the new foreign military support, the capacity of the police to “track, respond to, and prevent gang movements will be greatly reinforced” within six to nine months, reported the U.S. aid group Mercy Corps. And, it added, foreign help will lower civilian casualties. In the past three years, an estimated 12,000 people have been killed because of political turmoil and a rise in the power of gangs.

Yet as Xavier Michon, a U.N. representative to Haiti, noted, inclusion is vital to Haiti’s future and ability to hold an election. “This is not just about casting a ballot but about building a more cohesive society where everyone feels part of a greater good,” he wrote in Americas Quarterly.

The biggest move toward such cohesion began in May and June when Caribbean countries along with the U.S. brought together all major social and political groups to create a transitional body with Mr. Conille as prime minister. He has since announced an anti-corruption strategy and made other reforms while working with civil society.

With such trust-building as well as the deployment of foreign forces, “the gangs operating in the capital have mostly retreated to their strongholds, where they have built barricades and trenches,” wrote Renata Segura and Diego Da Rin of the International Crisis Group in Foreign Affairs. “Improvised markets have taken over busy streets, and buses have established new routes (the violence having forced them out of their old ones).”

That sort of grassroots response – or Haitians feeling they have the freedom, safety, and agency to fix their society – may provide the lesson needed after a century of trying to rely mainly on armed force as a solution.