(2024-06) Hard Work Ahead: Haiti's Government Seeks to Restore Security with International Support
Summary — Keith Mines and Kirk Randolph argue that Haiti's new Transitional Council and Prime Minister Garry Conille must build a comprehensive counter-gang strategy: a surge of properly tiered security forces alongside the Kenyan-led MSS mission, large-scale gang diversion and disarmament that targets elite patronage networks, a temporary justice and prison system, and unprecedented citizen involvement through security dialogues. With gangs controlling 80 percent of Port-au-Prince, they warn current efforts are underfunded and unserious.
Key Findings
- Gangs killed or injured more than 4,700 people in 2023, displaced over 600,000 and control 80 percent of Port-au-Prince, while elites secured themselves and excluded citizens from security policy.
- A comprehensive counter-gang strategy needs four pillars: a surge of tiered security forces with the MSS, mass gang diversion and disarmament, a temporary justice and prison system, and funded citizen engagement; current efforts are unserious and underfunded.
- DDR will fail unless elite patronage networks that sustain the gangs (a lineage running from the Tonton Macoute to the Chimères) are investigated and prosecuted, not just leaders like Barbecue, Vitel'Homme and Izo.
- The MSS arrives with capacity but real deficits (size, language, local knowledge) and needs enablers such as drones, air support and superior intelligence, while Haiti's redesigned forces should span community police to rapid-reaction units and include the army.
- Community-level justice and security dialogues, with women, displaced people and youth prominent, can guide the strategy and extend government services beyond security.
Full Description
Written in June 2024 after the killing of American missionaries Davy and Natalie Lloyd and local director Jude Montis, this analysis (originally published by Just Security) argues that violence that shocks the United States is daily life in Haiti, where gangs killed or injured more than 4,700 people in 2023, displaced over 600,000, and control 80 percent of Port-au-Prince. The authors fault Haiti's business and political class for privatizing their own security while excluding citizens, and warn that without an adequate response Haiti risks sliding from fragile to failed state.
The proposed counter-gang strategy, to be developed by a Haitian National Security Council with international advisers and community input, has four pillars. First, shift the balance of force: the MSS mission brings capacity and mobility but is small, language-limited and needs enablers (drones, air support, intelligence), while Haiti redesigns its forces into tiers, community police backed by heavier units and rapid-reaction forces, and brings the sidelined army in. Second, comprehensive gang diversion and disarmament that separates foot soldiers, offered demobilization, vocational training and restorative community work, from leaders and, crucially, the elite patronage networks (from the Tonton Macoute to the Chimères to today's gangs) whose prosecution is a precondition for communities accepting DDR. Third, a temporary justice and prison system: courts have received donor support but administration and the penal system, further damaged by gang prison destruction, need emergency assistance. Fourth, real citizen involvement through roundtables and community-level justice and security dialogues piloted by USIP in Africa, with women, displaced people and youth prominent. The goal is restoring Haitians' basic rights and rebuilding trust and human rights protection as the foundation of long-term stability.
Notes
Recovered from Wayback Machine (USIP 2025 publisher takedown); web article printed to PDF