(2016) Lame ayisyen an, estabilizasyon ak gouvènans sektè sekirite a
Rezime — Geoff Burt sou pwojè pou remonte yon lame ayisyen, li gade l nan optik gouvènans sektè sekirite a olye estrikti fòs la. Pibliye nan Stability 5(1) : 14.
Teks Konple Dokiman an
Teks ki soti nan dokiman orijinal la pou endeksasyon.
stability
Burt, G 2016 Haiti’s Army, Stabilization and Security Sector Governance.
Stability: International Journal of Security & Development, 5(1): 14,
pp. 1–16, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/sta.473
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Haiti’s Army, Stabilization and Security
Sector Governance
Geof Burt*,†
Haiti’s long and diicult security sector reform (SSR) process has entered a new
phase. The reinstatement of the Haitian armed forces, nearly 20 years after former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide disbanded them, adds a new set of actors
and more complexity to a process already struggling to deliver results amidst a
seemingly endless series of political crises. The armed forces must be an impartial
and apolitical institution if they are to contribute to stability in Haiti – an uncertain proposition given their past inability to stay out of the political arena. Building on a summary of the latest developments in the reinstatement process, this
paper discusses its implications for Haiti’s prolonged international engagement.
In particular, the paper focuses on the process to develop a new White Paper on
Defence and National Security in Haiti. This process has the potential to contribute to two of the most signiicant shortcomings of SSR in Haiti, a limited focus on
security sector governance and a lack of local ownership.
The reinstatement process has been an interesting test case of the international
donor community’s commitment to the concept of local ownership, long held to
be a moral and practical pillar of international engagement. Though reinstatement has been driven by Haitian authorities, the process has struggled to make
progress without donor support, raising questions about the appropriate role of
international actors in strategic decision-making at the national level. Regardless
of their initial reaction to reinstatement, Haiti’s international donors risk missing
an opportunity to inluence the development of an important pillar of Haiti’s postMINUSTAH security sector by choosing to remain on the sidelines.
Introduction
Haiti is suffering through yet another political crisis. While observers hope for a peaceful
electoral transition, recent events highlight
uncomfortable realities about contemporary
Haiti. Without the continued presence of the
UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH)
and its armed contingent, periods of insecurity and instability centered around political
* Centre for Security Governance, CA
Security Governance Group, CA
gburt@secgovcentre.org
†
transitions threaten to spiral out of control,
with the potential for widespread violence. In
this context, the continued development of
both the Haitian National Police (HNP) and
the newly reconstituted Haitian army will be
a key factor in determining how much stability MINUSTAH will leave behind. Critically,
it remains to be seen whether Haiti’s army
will reinforce or undermine the country’s
efforts to establish and enforce the rule of
law. In presenting the latest developments
in the process of reinstating Haiti’s armed
forces, this paper examines the related issues
Art. 14, page 2 of 16
Burt: Haiti’s Army, Stabilization and Security Sector Governance
of security sector governance, local ownership and international intervention in Haiti.
As the long-awaited post-MINUSTAH transition approaches, the failures of domestic
governance after such a prolonged international engagement threaten the legacy
of the UN-led intervention. For better or
worse, Haiti’s armed forces will play a significant role in the country’s post-MINUSTAH
future, and a failure by international donors
to engage in the reinstatement process may
end up being a missed opportunity to influence its development. In a related sense, the
recent political upheaval suggests that the
governance of Haiti’s security sector should
be as important a priority as the development of any particular capabilities on the
part of the security forces. Moments of acute
political crisis like what Haiti is now experiencing will test whether the armed forces
will protect the state, as intended; or become
embroiled in political conflicts, as many fear.
Indeed, it was the country’s political volatility and the threat of authoritarian responses
that caused trepidation among domestic and
international actors when former President
Martelly announced his plan to reinstate the
armed forces in 2011.
The reinstatement of Haiti’s armed forces
is best viewed in the context of a lengthy and
internationally-led period of stabilization.
Between 1991 and 2004, eight UN peacekeeping missions were deployed to Haiti, all
with the mandate to build, stabilize or consolidate Haiti’s democratic institutions (CIGI
2009: 2). The present mission, MINUSTAH,
has operated in Haiti since 2004, and is
joined by a variety of bilateral donors, notably
the United States, Canada, France and Brazil,
in supporting various security sector reform
(SSR) activities targeting the Haitian police,
justice and corrections sectors. In spite of
this longstanding commitment, the international community’s engagement in Haiti has
generated relatively few notable successes,
suffering from a number of familiar challenges including a failure to advance reforms
focused on governance of the security sector.
Above all else, Haiti’s SSR process has been
criticized for a lack of local ownership and
commitment. SSR in Haiti has for the most
part been an internationally driven process,
suffering from limited national ownership
on the part of the country’s political elites,
and even less participation from the country’s marginalized majority (see, for instance,
CIGI 2009: 4; CIGI 2010: 4). The process to
reinstate the armed forces, by contrast, has
been wholly driven by Haitian authorities,
with the Ministry of Defence having received
virtually no support from Haiti’s traditional
SSR donors to date.
This paper will provide both a survey of
the latest developments in the process to
reconstitute the Haitian armed forces since
2011, as well as an analysis of what progress
in this area means for Haiti’s security sector
reform process. In doing so, this article surveys various policy and academic reports, in
addition to the author’s own field work with
the Haitian security sector and interviews
with relevant experts. The first section of the
paper outlines the politics and process of
the disbanding and reinstatement of Haiti’s
armed forces, beginning with a discussion of
Haiti’s military history and the initial concern
around the army’s reinstatement. It then provides an update on how the process to revive
the army has unfolded. The paper situates the
army’s reinstatement in the context of Haiti’s
failure to develop an effective system of security sector governance, and with the inability
of Haiti’s leaders to effectively plan, lead and
own their country’s SSR process. The paper, in
turn, focuses on the promise of the development of Haiti’s White Paper on Defence and
National Security to improve both local ownership and security sector governance. It concludes with an analysis of what the Haitian
army’s reinstatement means for the future of
SSR in the country, and the challenges facing
Haiti’s future leaders.
The Haitian Army’s Past and
Controversial Reinstatement
To understand the significance of Haiti’s new
armed forces, it is important to understand
the circumstances under which they were
Burt: Haiti’s Army, Stabilization and Security Sector Governance
disbanded and the controversy surrounding
their reinstatement. Former President JeanBertrand Aristide disbanded the army, as one
of his first acts of office in 1995, following a history of human rights abuses and involvement
in coups against the country’s elected governments (Le Chavallier 2011: 118). Aristide’s
decision to disband the armed forces came as
a relief to many, considering Haiti had experienced some 34 military coups since gaining
its independence (Heine and Thompson 2011:
16).1 The disarmament, demobilization and
reintegration (DDR) process, initially focusing
on former members of the Armed Forces of
Haiti (Forces Armées d’Haiti – FAd’H), is widely
considered to have been a failure, with many
soldiers maintaining access to their weapons
and few participating in the limited reintegration programming made available to
them (see, for instance, Kolbe 2015: 66, 74;
Camilien 2012).
Twenty years later, the Haitian armed
forces were officially remobilized on
October 9, 2015 by decree of the country’s
Council of Ministers.2 The announcement
was no surprise given former President
Michel Martelly’s 2011 campaign promises, including the creation of a commission to study reinstatement, the subsequent
establishment of the Ministry of Defence
and initial steps toward training a corps of
military engineers. Even before Martelly’s
presidency, the movement to re-establish
a military force had adherents from across
Haiti’s political spectrum. In 2004, Haiti’s
interim government established a commission to study the issue. Their report, published in February 2006, recommended the
reinstatement of a military force without
policing functions (Commission Citoyenne de
Rélexion sur les Forces Armées 2006: 4, 22).
The first commission cited the army’s pivotal
role in the nation’s heritage, its continued
constitutional basis, and the presence of a
multi-national armed force in Haiti as justifications for reinstatement (Commission
Citoyenne de Rélexion sur les Forces Armées
2006: 26). The subsequent government of
President René Préval established a second
Art. 14, page 3 of 16
commission to study the same issue. This
report, published in November 2008, similarly to the previous report, recommended a
second armed force of 4,000 to 5,000 members (Boutellis 2011: 3).3 Both commissions
held public consultations, founding that
“the majority of the population believed a
second armed force or military was needed
to complete the security architecture of the
state” (CIGI 2010: 6). Additionally, the Latin
American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP),4
in both 2008 and 2012, asked Haitians
whether they agreed that ‘another force is
needed in the country,’ or that ‘the police
is enough to provide security.’ In 2008,
75 percent of Haitians agreed that a second
force was needed, compared to 72 percent
in 2012, with the report’s authors attributing these support levels ‘in part to the fact
that a national army is strongly linked with
Haitians’ sense of national identity’ (Smith,
Gélineau and Seligson 2012: 124).5 For many
Haitians, particularly younger Haitians who
did not live through the Duvalier dictatorship,6 the reinstatement of the armed forces
is an issue of sovereignty and a matter of
national pride (ICG 2012: 5). Both leading
candidates for the presidency in Haiti’s 2011
election—eventual President Michel Martelly
and his opponent, Mirlande Minigat—favored
reinstatement. Reinstatement, in some form,
had clearly become politically inevitable.
The international donor community has
however been less prepared to embrace the
return of Haiti’s armed forces. A presidential
plan for the reconstitution of Haiti’s armed
forces, leaked in October 2011, sparked
an outcry from critics who opposed the
institution’s reinstatement. International
analysts largely stressed the risks of reinstatement, with initial critiques stressing
several common economic, security and
political concerns (see for instance Wilentz
2011, Washington Post 2011, Sprague
2012a). An International Crisis Group (ICG)
report suggested that reinstatement should
wait until a greater national consensus was
found, the HNP reached full strength, and
tax revenues rose to manageable levels (ICG
Art. 14, page 4 of 16
Burt: Haiti’s Army, Stabilization and Security Sector Governance
2012: iii, 6), noting that reinstatement was
not advisable for ‘budgetary, security and
political reasons’ (ICG 2012: 5). On the issue
of cost, a number of critics argued that the
price tag for reconstituting the armed forces
(then pegged at US$95 million) was unjustifiable, given the other urgent priorities
facing the country. Some felt that reinstatement was just an empty gesture given to
supporters of the army by the Martelly government—in this view, without the funds and
the international support for reinstatement,
the plan would inevitably stall.7 According to
a member of the presidential commission,
a representative speaking on behalf of the
United States and Canada told the commission that ‘neither country would fund a reinstated military’ (CIGI 2010: 7). The outgoing
US ambassador to Haiti, Kenneth Merten,
reportedly said at the time that Washington
‘had no plans to help fund the army but
would not interfere with Haiti’s rights to set
it up’ (Buenos Aires Herald 2012).
As a matter of public policy, the two
camps disagreed about the most appropriate
model for Haiti’s security architecture, with
one side viewing the HNP as capable (with
additional support and training) of ensuring stability throughout the country. From
this perspective, a second armed force was
unnecessary and potentially dangerously
counterproductive. Consequently, domestic and international human rights groups,
Haiti’s development partners and parts of
the UN mission all argued that the focus
should remain on the reinforcement of the
HNP, rather than the creation of a second
armed force. While among the Haitian population, the more satisfied respondents to one
poll were with the performance of the police,
the less likely they were to argue that a second force was needed (Gélineau and Seligson
2012: 124).
The HNP’s ability to safeguard the country’s
stability remains an open question. While
the HNP has made important progress (for
instance raising force levels to approximately
15,000),8 there remain significant capacity
shortfalls, financial issues and problems with
recruitment, among other serious issues, all
of which are compounded by the significant
downsizing of MINUSTAH ahead of its full
withdrawal (for a complete discussion of the
state of the HNP, see Baranyi and Sainsiné
2015). A recent progress report issued by the
Haitian Government cites progress in command and control, training, administration
and operations, while lamenting the underfunding of current programs and highlighting
future risks arising from a loss of donor interest in the HNP (République d’Haïti 2016: 6–8).
Of the 70 targets set in the 2012–2016 HNP
Development Plan, the report’s authors noted
that six have been fully achieved, while 38
have seen significant progress and 25 remain
in their initial phases (République d’Haïti 2016:
38). In spite of this progress, some researchers
now discuss the need to retain MINUSTAH’s
police presence to maintain a minimum level
of stability and ensure the withdrawal of the
MINUSTAH armed contingent does not cause
anarchy (Binetti 2016).9
There is no reason that the HNP is necessarily incapable of developing the security
capacities currently provided by MINUSTAH,
or those envisaged for the armed forces (for
instance a special forces unit, an air support
wing or a parks conservation service). Instead,
supporters of reinstatement who doubt the
suitability of a ‘police-only’ model for Haiti
are more likely to cite the police force’s
poor historical performance, for instance
during the instability of the 2000 to 2004
period. Ministry officials are quick to point
out that in 2003 and 2004, when faced with
an armed threat from paramilitary groups,
police stations ‘fell like dominos.’10 They
argue that whatever its mandated role, the
police proved incapable of protecting itself;
consequently one of the core mandates of
the armed forces is to protect the police and
the state.11 This is a role, supporters argue,
that is currently being played by MINUSTAH’s
armed contingent; and when the UN leaves,
a Haitian armed force capable of protecting
the country must replace it. The concept of
a post-MINUSTAH security vacuum leading
to widespread instability has thus become a
Burt: Haiti’s Army, Stabilization and Security Sector Governance
central justification for the reinstatement of
the armed forces.
Practical questions aside, the main criticism
leveled against the armed forces was political—namely that it was reckless to ignore the
institution’s history and it’s potential to be
used as a tool of repression. Given the army’s
track record, it was hardly surprising that the
Haitian human rights community and most
of Haiti’s international donors were initially
against reinstatement. The chief concern was
that the army would become a parallel armed
force that would report directly to the executive and operate outside of civilian and parliamentary control.12 Many privately feared
that the armed forces would become a kind of
Praetorian Guard for the presidency. President
Martelly’s association with the Duvaliers,
and key military figures heightened fears of
a return to Haiti’s authoritarian past (Parker
2015). Even the Brazilian Minister of Defence,
whose government has supported reinstatement, reportedly sought assurances that
troops trained by Brazil would not be used as
‘a personal militia’ (The Economist 2013).
The security crisis prompted by the occupation of public spaces by approximately 400
armed former members of the FAd’H (Forces
Armées d’Haiti), demanding reinstatement
and the honoring of their military pensions,
did little to allay these fears (see ICG 2012: 6).
Undeniably, paramilitarism in Haiti remains
a reality (see Sprague 2012b). In the days
leading up to Martelly’s exit, Guy Philippe,
a former leader of the anti-Aristide coup in
2004 threated to ‘divide the country’ should
a transitional government be installed that
did not represent the provinces, saying ‘we
are ready for war’ (Delva 2016). Philippe’s
threats were a reminder that Haiti’s politics
remain marred by the potential for armed
violence, as political interests continue to
use affiliated armed groups, including gangs,
to interfere with political processes.
The New Haitian Armed Forces
This section of the paper progresses to
provide an overview of the reinstatement
process since President Martelly’s initial
Art. 14, page 5 of 16
proposal was leaked in October 2011. Most
important to note is that in part due to the
reluctance of the international donor community to contribute to the government’s
efforts, the reinstatement process has moved
more slowly than originally envisaged and
remains in its very early stages. Perhaps
owing to the limited involvement of its traditional donors, the Haitian government
has taken a lead role from the outset. The
reinstatement process has gone through
several phases, beginning with the establishment of a civilian-led commission which was
given 40 days to finalize a plan determining the form the reconstituted armed forces
should take (Boutellis 2011: 1). This commission, like its two predecessors, also recommended the reinstatement of the armed
forces (Commission d’État d’Organisation de
la Composante Militaire de la Force Publique
d’Haiti 2012). Following the commission’s
recommendation, the Ministry of National
Defence was established, followed by the
creation of a 2013–2016 Development Plan
for the ministry. The Development Plan lays
out five strategic aims for Haiti’s defence
forces and calls for a public-service oriented
armed force made up of five components.13
The Presidential Decree of 26 October 2015
further elaborated on the structure of the
Ministry of National Defence and the Armed
Forces (Le Moniteur 2015).
After the reinstatement plan was finalized
and the ministry established, the process of
recruiting the first members of the armed
forces began. Faced with limited resources,
the Haitian government started with
the modest goal of accepting assistance
from non-traditional SSR donors, including Ecuador and Brazil, to train the first
cohorts of a new army corps of engineers.
As a result, recruitment and training has
moved at a far slower pace than the original
Martelly plan of October 2011, which called
for 3,500 troops to replace the MINUSTAH
armed contingent by the time of their withdrawal. By 2012, then Minister of Defence
Rodolphe Joazile noted that due to financial
constraints, ‘the army would be re-launched
Art. 14, page 6 of 16
Burt: Haiti’s Army, Stabilization and Security Sector Governance
with only about 1,500 troops’ (Buenos Aires
Herald 2012). To date, even that more modest goal has not been reached. Although the
2013–2016 Development Plan calls for the
creation of a number of specialized units,
the period from 2013 to 2015 saw limited
progress, except with respect to the army
corps of engineers and the development
of the Ministry of National Defence. Both
Brazil and Ecuador have pledged to support the development of the Haitian Armed
Forces, chiefly by providing training to the
corps of engineers.14 The Ecuador-trained
engineers are currently stationed at Petite
Rivière de l’Artibonite; and after taking over
a base formerly occupied by Ecuadorian
peacekeepers, they have begun to undertake civil engineering projects such as the
construction of roads.
One of the chief concerns of the international donor community was that any investment in the Haitian armed forces would draw
attention and resources away from the HNP,
which they considered the more important
priority. Indeed, the Department of National
Defence’s budget has been growing steadily
since the 2012–2013 fiscal year, when its total
budget was 180 million Haitian Gourdes (or
US$ 2.91 million at current exchange rates).
By the 2015–16 fiscal year, this number had
grown to 420.35 million Haitian Gourdes
(or US$6.79 million), more than doubling its
budget in three years.15 At the same time, as
Table 1 shows, the budgets of the Ministry
of Justice and Public Security and the Haitian
National Police have grown also grown since
2012–2013. Indeed, the level of spending on
the Department of National Defence and the
size of its staff is tiny compared to both the
MOJ and the HNP. In spite of the fact that the
Ministry of National Defence’s budget nearly
doubled in 2015–16, it is fair to say that fears
of the cost of reinstating the armed forces
marginalizing the HNP’s development have
not yet been realized. The current level of
funding has allowed the establishment and
staffing of the ministry and the operation of
a small corps of engineers, but little more. As
one report noted, ‘State Department officials
have said that there has been virtually no
Budget
Year
MOJ Budget
(Gourdes)
HNP Budget
MOD Budget
(Gourdes)
HNP
Personnel
MOD
Personnel
2012–13
7.18 billion
(USD 115.97
million)
5.98 billion
(USD96.58
million)
180.0 million
(USD 2.91
million)
11 859
NA
2013–14
10.34 billion
(USD 167.01
million)
6.81 billion
(USD 109.99
million)
240.0 million
(USD 3.88
million)
11 814
41
2014–15
9.77 billion
(USD 157.80
million)
7.55 billion
(USD 121.94
million)
244.42 million
(USD 3.95
million)
13 321
63
2015–16
10.86 billion
(USD 175.41
million)
8.48 billion
(USD 136.96
million)
420.35 million
(USD 6.79
million)
14 385
120
Table 1: Budgets and Personnel, Ministry of Justice and Ministry of National Defence.
Sources:
Ministère de l’Économie et des Finances (2012). Projet de Loi et de Finances, 2012–2013.
Ministère de l’Économie et des Finances (2013). Projet de Loi et de Finances, 2013–2014.
Ministère de l’Économie et des Finances (2014). Projet de Loi et de Finances, 2014–2015.
Ministère de l’Économie et des Finances (2015). Projet de Loi et de Finances, 2015–2016.
Burt: Haiti’s Army, Stabilization and Security Sector Governance
funding of the Defense Ministry to carry out
larger plans’ (Taft-Morales 2015: 40).
The Army and Haiti’s Failures of
Security Sector Governance
In spite of its holistic and governancefocused ideals, SSR practice has often
resembled more traditional security sector assistance focused on improving the
effectiveness of the state’s armed forces.
In particular, when faced with challenging reform contexts, there has been a tendency to revert to train-and-equip models
when faced with short-term security crises.
In Haiti, international security sector assistance has, since 2004, been dominated by
the massive undertaking of building up the
HNP, which has received by far the most
attention and stands as a relative success
compared to programs in other key areas
such justice and corrections (Boutellis
2011: 3). Reflecting the HNP’s stature in
the country, polling data from 2014 indicates that Haitians have among the highest levels of trust in their national police
in the Americas (Gélineau and Zechmeister
2016: 176). However, even though international support has focused intensely on
one pillar of the security and justice sector,
recent research by Baranyi and Sainsiné
(2015) indicates that the HNP remains
plagued by insufficient growth, weak territorial decentralization, excessive use of
force, and an inability to institutionalize
community policing and counter violence
against women. Regardless, successes in
police reform have been undermined by
dysfunctional courts and overcrowded and
inhumane prisons—the result of uneven
progress amongst the various pillars of SSR.
More importantly, notwithstanding the
successes and failures of the HNP, the UN
has not yet managed to support a successful
SSR process.16 Regarding the HNP, Timothy
Donais states that ‘to date in Haiti, the preoccupation with achieving a basic level of
operational effectiveness within the HNP
has come largely at the expense of building
mechanisms of democratic accountability’
Art. 14, page 7 of 16
(Donais 2011: 104). While the intense focus
on increasing the operational capacity of the
police force has led to progress in that area,
there has been much less attention paid to
security sector governance issues of parliamentary engagement, oversight, accountability and transparency. Most critically, the
SSR process in Haiti has failed to address
fundamental questions of security sector
governance—instead remaining an executivedriven process at the strategic level. By virtue
of the sheer length of international engagement in Haiti, projects with all manner of
actors, approaches, partners and donors
have been attempted, sometimes more than
once. Community policing, for instance, has
reappeared as a key component of the HNP
development plan, after being a focus of
international police reform efforts following the restoration of Haitian democracy in
1994 (Donais and Burt 2015: 14). What has
been lacking, however, are improvements in
the political and strategic processes by which
policies are developed, priorities weighed
and performance accounted for.
In a general sense, SSR in Haiti has traditionally been a top-down, non-consultative
exercise, which sidelined communities in
favor of political elites, whose performance
has largely been dismal. In particular, the
most recent parliament has been beset by
political infighting, constitutional paralysis and general dysfunction. For the next
phase of SSR to have any chance of success,
Haiti’s incoming parliament and leadership
will have to perform better. How Haiti’s
politicians manage the early stages of development of the armed forces will be an important test. The initial impulse to restore the
armed forces was driven by the personal will
of the President, but it has since seen the
establishment of a civilian commission in
2011 and, more recently, consultative workshops relating to the Defence White Paper.
The challenge today is to build on these initiatives in order to reorient the development
of the armed forces into a broader SSR discussion based on a strategic vision for Haiti’s
justice and security sector as a whole.
Art. 14, page 8 of 16
Burt: Haiti’s Army, Stabilization and Security Sector Governance
Local Ownership in Theory and
Practice
The fact that reforms will not be successful if
imposed by external actors is a cornerstone of
SSR theory and practice.17 National authorities
must be accorded the right to lead SSR processes. By contrast, SSR in Haiti has tended to
be driven by donor agendas, with limited local
ownership and political will, particularly in
specific areas such as justice and corrections.
Indeed, local ownership has been cited as a
critical concern dating back to 1994, when the
process to abolish the armed forces and create the Haitian National Police was conducted
with ‘minimal consultation’ with the public,
leading to its eventual unraveling and the
creation of a new UN-led stabilization mission
(MINUSTAH) (Mobekk 2005: 414–415). Some
have argued that a lack of sovereignty, partially
stemming from the presence of missions such
as MINUSTAH, is at the root of Haiti’s present
problems (Podur 2012).
The army’s reinstatement raises interesting
questions about the nature and definition
of local ownership in SSR. Reinstatement
has thus far been driven by Haitian authorities and realized without the assistance of
Haiti’s traditional donors, whose strategy has
been to ignore the armed forces and remain
focused on providing support to the police
and justice sectors, perhaps hoping that
without the financial means to reconstitute
the armed forces, the project would stagnate
or stall entirely.18 If the benchmark for local
ownership is merely the absence of international involvement, the reinstatement process certainly qualifies. For more maximalist
definitions of ownership requiring a broader
and more inclusive consultative process, the
picture is mixed.19 What began as a process
associated with a single political figure, later
expanded to encompass an expert commission and eventually public consultations.
On the other hand, these activities for the
most part remained limited to Port-au-Prince
elites. Beyond the few polls noted in this article, which focused on the overall desirability
of a second armed force, there is little available data on Haitian attitudes towards specific
aspects of the reinstatement process, such as
the appropriate form, size and mandate of
the armed forces.
Among the most interesting questions
arising from the army’s reinstatement is why,
after two decades of hoping Haitian authorities would take the lead on SSR, Haiti’s traditional donors have shown so little interest
in the armed forces. One explanation is that
there is a legitimate difference of opinion
about whether a ‘police-only’ model can
work for Haiti. Donors who believe it can,
such as Canada, have preferred to stay on
the sidelines, viewing the armed forces as
a distraction to the more important task of
bolstering the police force. Another explanation for the lack of interest from Haiti’s
traditional donors is that these donors are
not used to Haitians articulating their own
strategic priorities. One ministry official told
a story of a meeting where donors debating
the merits of reinstating the armed forces
were taken aback when he exclaimed: ‘This
is my country and I will not allow foreigners to think for me.’20 The traditional donor
community seems torn between a sincere
conceptual attachment to the importance of
ownership, and a legitimate belief that the
government is making a mistake in reinstating the army.
The White Paper: From Ownership to
Governance
Given its origins as a Haitian-led initiative,
the White Paper process—undertaken with
the support of the Organization of American
States (OAS) Inter-American Defense Board
(IADB)—may be a particularly important
opportunity to address both local ownership and security sector governance. After a
visit by the IADB Chairman in January 2012,
Haiti’s government made a formal request
that the IADB participate in the commission
on the reinstatement of the armed forces,
with the Chairman noting at the time that
‘it is clear that this is a controversial topic
given the difficult recent history of civilmilitary relations’ (OAS 2012). It was during this time that Martelly’s government
Burt: Haiti’s Army, Stabilization and Security Sector Governance
discussed with the IADB its plans for reintroducing the army. In a report to the IADB,
the chairman noted that President Martelly
‘acknowledged that this is a very unpopular
issue for many in the international community’ (IADB 2012: 2), while noting that
‘re-creating a Haitian Defence Force was a
very popular idea with the vast majority of
Haitians’ (IADB 2012: 2). Martelly reportedly
connected the issue of the army’s reinstatement with Haiti’s ‘need to plan and have the
eventual capacity to assume responsibilities
from the international community with the
inevitable withdrawal of MINUSTAH’ (IADB
2012: 2). Moreover, Martelly told IADB representatives that he wants the government
‘to be able to respond to natural disasters
and help its reconstruction activities,’ which
would require engineering, medical, communications and logistics abilities. Martelly
also ‘highlighted the need for protecting
borders and specifically mentioned capabilities to counter threats from transnational
crime and drug trafficking’ (IADB 2012: 2).
Representatives of the IADB recommended
in 2012 that Haiti ask for advice on the development of a national security strategy (IADB
2012: 2). The IADB at the time felt that ‘real
measurable progress is impeded by the lack
of clear strategic direction and effective coordination...’, making it ‘important to understand the Government’s overall National
Security Strategy, and have a complete security sector evaluation and needs assessment’
(IADB 2012: 3).
Following these meetings, Haiti’s government launched a White Paper process with
the support of the IADB, which included
public consultations, albeit with a small
and unrepresentative group of Port-auPrince based experts. Participants included
‘experts from the IADB, the Organization of
American States (OAS), the Commission of
Development of the White Paper, university professors and members of civil society’
(Haiti Libre 2014). The role of the IADB in the
White Paper process was described as helping to write technical policies, and involving other OAS representatives, including US
Art. 14, page 9 of 16
and Canadian defence officials, in the process.21 In partnership with the IADB, Haiti’s
Ministry of Defence held a series of four
workshops to develop the White Paper on
Defence and Security of Haiti, the first of
which was held in September 2014. On June
25, 2015, a ceremony was held to launch the
White Paper. While it has not been released
publically, remarks by the Director General
of the IADB at this event provided some hints
as to its content. The Director General of the
IADB Secretariat, Vice Admiral Bento Costa
Lima Leite de Albuquerque Junior, called the
White Paper, ‘a document that goes beyond
only security and defense, it incorporates the
variable of economic development and social
sustainability, all in one text’ (IADB 2015).
The White Paper process is significant on
several levels. First, one of its most important
contributions will be to transition the reinstatement of the armed forces from an executive-led process to one grounded in a National
Security Strategy. The new armed forces have
been associated with the personal politics of
former President Martelly from the beginning, not least because of his well-known
associations with former military figures (see,
for instance, Delva and Fletcher 2011).22 The
White Paper process has the potential to depersonalize the development of the armed
forces. As one Senior Official in the Ministry
of Defence noted in 2015, ‘the Ministry is full
of good ideas, good people, competent people, who are waiting for the green light of the
president; the minister refuses to act without
the green light from the president.’23 In his
view, one of the challenges was that President
Martelly ‘has a lot of interests; you have to
wait for him to turn his attention to your
area,’ with the effect being that ‘they are losing and have lost precious time that could be
used to move forward.’24 While this dynamic
explains the slow development of the armed
forces outside of the Ministry and the military engineers, it also highlights an important
issue for the army’s next phase of development. If Martelly was the driving force behind
the army’s development, what should the
next government do to make sure it proceeds
Art. 14, page 10 of 16
Burt: Haiti’s Army, Stabilization and Security Sector Governance
in the right direction? In this sense, it is a positive sign that the White Paper process involved
civil society leaders and Haitian intellectuals,
rather than being limited to Martelly’s inner
circle or political party.
Second, the White Paper establishes a
clear outline for the responsibilities and
mandates of the country’s security sector
actors. As one report noted, the activation
of the Ministry of Defence added ‘another
body to the confusion of institutions with
often overlapping security responsibilities,’
recommending that the Conseil Supérieur
de la Police Nationale (CSPN) ‘must clearly
define the terms of reference of each, particularly for the supervision of and relations
with the HNP’ (ICG 2012: 6). The CSPN plays
an advisory role on all major policy matters
relating to the HNP (Le Moniteur 1994). The
White Paper will help to create some conceptual clarity surrounding the security forces.
The fact that the White Paper is associated
with the OAS and the IADB means that questions relating to the armed forces could be
referred back to those bodies.
While de-linking the executive from the
armed forces is a sensible policy, and an
empowered parliament may have the ability
to tame any authoritarian tendencies Haiti’s
new president may have, the White Paper will
ultimately be no more than a piece of paper
unless it contributes to genuine changes in
Haiti’s security sector governance. In this
sense, its greatest potential may lie in its ability to serve as an entry point for donors who
come to see the need for a second armed
force after the MINUSTAH withdrawal. The
White Paper process provides an alternative
outlet for international engagement, which
allows donors to focus on security sector
governance, depoliticization, oversight and
accountability, rather than rushing to provide training and equipment.
Conclusion
Haiti appears to be at a crossroads. The
reinstatement of the Haitian armed forces
is now a fait accompli. A sound system of
governance for Haiti’s security and justice
system—including both the police and the
armed forces, but also the judiciary, ministerial
control and parliamentary oversight mechanisms—is a crucial bulwark against a return to
authoritarianism. There is a Haitian proverb
that says ‘konstitisyon se papye, bayonèt se fè:
a constitution is made of paper, a bayonet of
iron’ (Schuller 2015). In other words, laws and
regulations do not define political reality in
Haiti. While the White Paper and the Ministry
of Defence’s Development Plan paint a picture
of a public service oriented military focused
on natural disasters, medicine and protecting
Haiti’s forests, this may not prevent the army
from later becoming coercive or politicized.
The international community must help
Haiti’s government build deeper and stronger
systems of accountability, oversight and strategic policymaking. Rather than withdrawing,
the timing is right for the international community to further engage with Haiti’s security
sector. The Defence White Paper provides that
opportunity.
The process to reinstate Haiti’s army highlights some uncomfortable facts about local
ownership and international stabilization
missions. International donors, of course,
have the right to choose which projects
they will support financially and politically.
This must be balanced with the right of
the host nation to choose its own path. In
Haiti, most donors and international organizations chose to disengage, largely leaving
Haiti’s government to pursue reinstatement
alone. There are two realities here. First, the
Haitian state remains dependant on donor
largesse to function. The ability of donors
to effectively stall the process of the army’s
development by withholding financial
support underscores the power inequality
between the country’s sovereign government and the international community.
What ownership does the Haitian government have over its SSR process if it is effectively unable to pursue programming, or
at least severely constrained in its options,
without the active support of its donors?
Second, once the government demonstrated
that it was determined to move forward
Burt: Haiti’s Army, Stabilization and Security Sector Governance
with reinstatement, the international community’s decision to remain on the sidelines
could constitute a missed opportunity to
influence the development of a key security
sector institution in its formative stages.
While it is likely that the development of
the HNP will continue to occupy the majority of donor attention, a renewed focus
should be placed on the governance, oversight and accountability of the security sector in general. With the eventual election
of a new government, the timing is favourable for donors to pursue a security sector
governance agenda. Strengthening the role
of Haiti’s parliament in the oversight of the
security forces and building the capacity of
the Ministry of Defence to be an effective
and accountable institution, would be ways
to contribute to the governance of Haiti’s
army without directly supporting the training of new recruits. Even if they are training
non-combat units, countries like Ecuador
and Brazil, who are actively engaged in training the security forces, should avoid a narrow focus on operational effectiveness. The
training of senior, management personnel
in human rights, governance and accountability should be a key aspect of any training
arrangements.
The risk is that if this opportunity for
engagement is not taken, Haiti’s familiar
pattern of authoritarianism and repression
could repeat itself. While Michel Martelly is
not permitted by Haitian law to hold consecutive terms, there is every reason to believe
that he is not finished as a force in Haitian
politics. Indeed, he told a journalist in 2016,
that if there is ‘continuity’—in other words,
if his preferred candidate Jovenel Moïse wins
the current round of elections—he could
come back. The same journalist asked Moïse
if he and Martelly had a twenty-year plan of
alternating presidencies in mind, Moïse said:
‘Yes. It’s a good plan. We need stability. We
need it’ (Anderson 2016).
Competing Interests
The author declares that they have no competing interests.
Art. 14, page 11 of 16
Notes
1
Fatton (2002 and 2007) provides an
influential account on Haiti’s political
history.
2
Because the armed forces had been disbanded by decree, there were no major
legal hurdles facing the Martelly administration in reconstituting the institution. It remained authorized by Haiti’s
Constitution.
3
For an excellent discussion of Haiti’s military past, and Martelly’s initial plans for
reinstatement, see Boutellis (2011).
4
A regional organization that conducts
biennial attitudinal surveys.
5
One report that has been reported to
demonstrate that over 96 percent of
Haitians oppose a second force was
in fact asking whether former (demobilized) FAd’H members should ideally be responsible for security (see for
instance Sprague 2012c). The data in
question came from Kolbe and Muggah
2011: 243.
6
An estimated 70 percent of Haiti’s population is under 30, while Haitians aged
15-to-29 alone make up 50 percent of
the country’s population (Muggah and
Maguire 2010).
7
Interview with Haiti analyst, September
2, 2015 by phone.
8
Experts believe that the Haitian National
Police would need to grow to approximately 20,000 to maintain stability on its
own (Delva and Fletcher 2011).
9
Other analysis has stressed the likelihood
that crime and security will deteriorate
‘if MINUSTAH withdraws too early’ (IHS
Jane’s 2015).
10
Interview with member of the Ministry of
Defence cabinet, September 1, 2015, by
phone.
11
Interview with member of the Ministry of
Defence cabinet, September 1, 2015, by
phone.
12
Interview with Arthur Boutellis, Director
of the Brian Urquhart Center for Peace
Operations, International Peace Institute
(IPI), September 21, 2015, by phone.
Art. 14, page 12 of 16
Burt: Haiti’s Army, Stabilization and Security Sector Governance
The five strategic goals are: 1) The defence
of Haiti’s territorial integrity through the
control of the country’s land, sea and air
borders; 2) Fight transnational organized
crime; 3) Fight terrorism and cyber terrorism; 4) Protect the population against all
forms of aggression and against natural
disasters; and 5) Protect the environment
against all risks and threats (monitoring
forests, watersheds, mangroves and mining) (Ministry of National Defence 2013: 7).
The armed forces is to be made up of five
components: 1) A corps of engineers, 2) A
mandatory civic service unit, envisaged as a
means to promote employment for Haiti’s
youth, 3) An environmental unit / Forest
Rangers, 4) A medical unit, and 5) A border
unit (Ministry of National Defence 2013: 8).
14
Ecuador’s training program began in
October 2012, and by the end of 2013 had
trained 41 Haitian engineers (Haiti Libre
2013). The Haitian students graduated
from the Eloy Alfaro and Los Vencedores
del Cenepa military training schools
after completing ten months of training
in Ecuador (Caribbean News Now 2014).
They received training in repairing and
constructing buildings, roads and sewer
systems, surveying and using heavy construction equipment (Diálogo 2014).
In May 2013, Brazil announced that it
would train up to 500 Haitian students
in Brazil and a further 1,000 in Haiti
(Diálogo 2013).
15
Before 2012, the level of military spending in Haiti was effectively zero, according to the Stockholm International Peace
Research Institute (SIPRI 2015).
16
Interview with Arthur Boutellis, Director
of the Brian Urquhart Center for Peace
Operations, International Peace Institute
(IPI), September 21, 2015, by phone.
17
See, for instance, Nathan (2007),
Chesterman (2007), and Schirch and
Mancini-Griffoli (2015).
18
Interview with Arthur Boutellis, Director
of the Brian Urquhart Center for Peace
Operations, International Peace Institute
(IPI), September 21, 2015, by phone.
13
For a full discussion of the definition of
ownership in SSR, see Donais (2008),
Gordon (2014), Nathan (2007) and
Mobekk (2010).
20
Author Interview, Senior Member of
Ministry of Defence, 2015.
21
Interview with member of the Ministry of
Defence cabinet, September 1, 2015, by
phone.
22
Former president Martelly, who had
appeared in public with former dictator Jean-Claude ‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier several times, called him an ‘authentic son
of Haiti’ on Twitter after his death (BBC
News 2014). He is reportedly close to
Duvalier’s son, Francois Nicolas Duvalier
(Renois 2014).
23
Interview with member of the Ministry of
Defence cabinet, September 1, 2015, by
phone.
24
Interview with member of the Ministry of
Defence cabinet, September 1, 2015, by
phone.
19
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How to cite this article: Burt, G 2016 Haiti’s Army, Stabilization and Security Sector Governance.
Stability: International Journal of Security & Development, 5(1): 14, pp. 1–10, DOI: http://dx.doi.
org/10.5334/sta.473
Submitted: 21 June 2016 Accepted: 23 August 2016 Published: 30 September 2016
Copyright: © 2016 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the
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distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
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