The Chaos in Haiti is Getting Worse

It has been more than a week since Haiti’s Prime Minister resigned in response to demands made by violent gangs. The US and Caribbean nations put together a plan to select a temporary leader until new elections could be held but meanwhile, the gangs have continued their violence in the capital. 

For three weeks, Haiti’s capital has been trapped in a gory cycle that far exceeds the kidnapping and gang violence for which it was already known. An insurgent league of heavily armed gangs is waging war on the city itself, seeking new territory and targeting police and state institutions. Scared and angry, vigilante groups are blocking off their neighborhoods with felled trees and chains, killing and burning outsiders suspected of gang membership. It’s the only way, they say, to defend themselves…

When Haiti’s gangs began this wave of violence at the end of February, they demanded the resignation of the unpopular prime minister. He capitulated – but they kept rampaging.

Ten days have now passed since CARICOM announced that Haiti would set up a transitional council, but no one has been named to it. The killings continue each day.

Regular people armed with machetes have formed a resistance to the gangs called bwa kale. They have been responding to the gang attacks with their own violence. Bodies left burned in the streets are a sign that they have had some success fighting back.

Two suspected Haitian gang members have been killed and set on fire in a suburb of Port-au-Prince in an apparent act of vigilante justice against the armed groups terrorizing the Caribbean country, a report says…

A Reuters journalist there said they saw two suspected gang members killed and set on fire. Earlier, the news agency said footage it viewed showed the individuals’ bodies lying and being dragged around on the street, with one of the men with his hands cut off.

But these killings only seem to inspire the gangs to strike back.

Armed gangs launched new attacks in the suburbs of Port-au-Prince on Wednesday, with heavy gunfire echoing across once-peaceful communities near the Haitian capital.

Associated Press journalists reported seeing at least five bodies in and around the suburbs, and gangs blocked the entrances to some areas.

No matter who wins a given battle, the constant fighting means that nearly all basic functions in Haiti have been shut down. Banks and schools are all closed. Only the National Police are left and they are just barely hanging on.

Much of the Haitian state has disintegrated, its courts occupied by gangs, its prisons left open, the prime minister effectively exiled with the country’s finance minister acting in his role. Haiti’s Ministry of Communications buildings is itself overrun by refugees fleeing gang attacks – in its front office, hungry children now sit on the floor and swing on rolling desk chairs.

Haiti’s National Police may be the only fully functional state institution left. But they are underequipped and overstretched, they say. Every day, police respond to gang attacks, beating them back in gun battles that echo throughout the city, only to be pulled to a new neighborhood the next day, while the gangs reclaim their hard-won territory.

Multiple police officers told CNN that they do not have what they need to continue the fight. “We are willing to fight, we are ready to save the country,” Garry Jean Baptiste, adviser to the Haitian National Police Union 17, told CNN. “But we don’t have any leadership, our equipment is falling apart, and we need air and marine support.”

Only between 30% and 40% of the police have bullet-proof vests, and the average police officer is paid less than $200 per month, he estimated. With a government in flux and low morale in the ranks, he worries that the multinational force will fail.

At this point, a return to law and order seems far off. The gangs may win their civil war against the police but by then there won’t be any businesses left to steal from. If the gang leader known as Barbecue, who previously demanded that the Prime Minister step down, has a plan for the current situation it’s not clear what it is. Here’s a report CNN published last night.