December 11, 2024: A recent surge in gang violence has led international aid organizations to get their personnel out of the country as soon as possible. Aggressive criminal gangs have long been a problem but now the gangs are larger and cooperating with each other to take control of the government. Currently the gangs control most of the capital Port-au-Prince. The fighting has caused over 40,000 civilians to flee their homes and join the thousands who were displaced by earlier violence. The gangs engage in rape, robbery and kidnapping for ransom. The increase in kidnappings in the last year has led to many foreign aid groups withdrawing non-Haitian personnel. That leaves the aid operations run by Haitians, who are also subject to kidnappings, robberies and rapes. There was another outbreak of cholera earlier this year. This outbreak was dealt with by foreign aid groups and Haitian medical personnel. Treatment was difficult and often impossible in the capital because of the growing gang violence.

The UN tried to maintain a force of peacekeepers in Haiti starting in 2004 but the effort failed and the last peacekeepers were gone by 2019. For the last five years the violence in Haiti has been growing. The local police and military have been unable to halt it and many soldiers and policemen join the criminal gangs.

While peacekeepers were active, they were frustrated at the growing gang violence. At one point peacekeepers decided to try the gangbusters approach. So for two months, the peacekeeping troops went after the gangs, in particular the gang leaders. The gangsters responded by finding new hideouts. But the most damaging response by the criminals was to find journalists and tell the reporters what they wanted to hear. Since the gangsters operate out of the densely populated slums of the capital, peacekeeper visits are accompanied by a great deal of gunfire, and dead civilians. The gangsters told the reporters that the UN was deliberately aiming at civilians, in an attempt to terrorize the civilians who supported the criminals. The gangsters believe they are freedom fighters against the foreign occupiers. The gangs thoughtfully produced some dead women and children for the reporters to examine. One question reporters were reluctant to get answers for was, who actually killed the civilians? Rumors were already in the air that the dead civilians were conveniently shot by gangsters, providing the media with some compelling images for the evening news back home. Currently there are no peacekeepers, police or soldiers and the gangs do what they want, often fighting each other over particularly valuable items of loot.

Currently the criminal gangs have become less political, and more just criminals and mercenary. Former president Aristide, forced out of office in 2004, because of his use of gangs as political enforcers, went into exile, and $100 million is missing from the government treasury. The gangs make economic growth impossible and play a major role in keeping everyone poor. It's believed that at least 20,000 police are needed to regain control of the streets from the gangs, but no government was able to assemble that large a force of police, soldiers or peacekeepers. Even if such a force were created, the gangs would be difficult to defeat. When under pressure, the gangs tend to disperse into the countryside but keep in touch with each other. When the pressure dissipates, the gangs regroup and resume their business of mayhem, robbery, rape kidnapping and general anarchy.

The biggest problem in Haiti is that no one has any new ideas that seem likely to break the cycle of corruption, poor government and poverty that has cursed the country since its founding more than 200 years ago. The growing gang violence is largely a result of the government strategy of initially trying to negotiate with the gangs. Warlords and private armies are an old Haitian tradition. Your armed followers were the core of your political and economic strength. Many Haitians feel comfortable aligning themselves with a gang and dying in defense of their fellow gangsters. The government doesn't want to take on the gangs with force, if only because the gangs have more firepower.

Even with the UN peacekeepers, the gangs, as a whole, still had an edge. Although the gangs are divided by politics, business interests, and personal animosities, they will form a loose coalition to oppose any government attempt to put all gangs out of business. But the UN was determined to give it a try, go after the gangs, and break their power. The UN was trying to beat two centuries of Haitian history and tradition. Can the gangs really be reduced to impotence? The UN tried and failed. The UN was mostly concerned about the more blatant crimes, like the thousands of kidnappings a year, and the groups of young men roaming the city looking for people-of-means to mug.

The real money for the gangs comes from drugs. Some fifteen percent of the cocaine for North Americans goes through Haiti. Of course, much of the profits from that ends up with corrupt government officials. The gangs know they cannot survive a firefight with better armed and trained peacekeepers, but they can wait them out. Eventually the UN got tired of it all and left, leaving the gangs to fight each other, which they are currently doing. There has been no central government since 2021 and even when there was, government control was sporadic and subject to cancellation by vengeful gangsters.