151 - Haiti is Being Eviscerated from Within, Ukraine Pummeled from Without
Putin is still attempting to destroy Ukraine from without. Haiti is rapidly being destroyed from within, by its own residents. Ukraine’s very existence is at stake daily, along with respect for sovereignty among nations, for the rule of law, and for the endurance among nations of fundamental freedoms. The challenges to Haiti’s very continuance as a nation and a people are less obvious, but still compelling – particularly since world order and the powers of Western Hemispheric integrity studiously avoid doing much to save Haiti from its inner demons.
Ukraine’s population is about four times larger than Haiti’s (47 million to 12 million) and Ukraine was far richer before the invasion (per capita annual GDP nearly $5,000 versus almost $2,000 in Haiti), but the future of Haiti still matters and should concern us all.
The people of Haiti, the poorest polity in the Americas, suffer even in good times from pitifully low life expectancies (64 years, a proxy for overall health) and startlingly high infant mortality (48 per 1,000 live births) and maternal mortality (521 per 100,000) rates. Very little of the western portion of Hispaniola (the much more prosperous Dominican Republic occupies two-thirds of the island) is arable, much of its tree cover and soils having washed over desperate decades into the sea. Garment industries, supplies of bauxite, and coffee-growing are no more. Tourism has dried up. Haitians are compelled to fend for themselves with hardly any remaining natural resources. It is no wonder that Haitians in their thousands flee to the United States, a more 617 miles away, hoping to join successful diaspora communities in Miami, Brooklyn, Boston, and Montreal. More than 10,000 Haitians in January alone crossed the dangerous Darien Gap from Colombia to Panama on their way to the U. S. southern border.
Haiti threw off French shackles in 1803, endured strong and weak local dictatorships, followed by a succession of weak and plundering minidespots. President Woodrow Wilson found many excuses to occupy Haiti in 1915; it remained under official (racist southern dominated) American “tutelage” until 1934. The mulatto elite that Washington backed thereafter ran Haiti until 1958 without doing much to uplift their constituents, to educate them, or to sponsor improvement in the general welfare.
When an American-educated dark-skinned public health official took office in 1957, it appeared that Haiti could finally do more for its people. But François (Papa Doc) Duvalier turned out to be a thoroughgoing despot, with little concern for his people. His tonton macoutes terrorized the population, even after Papa Doc died in 1971 and his son, Jean-Claude (Baby Doc) Duvalier took over. The dynasty was finally ousted by military officers (and drug smugglers) in 1986.
Despite the failed populist presidency of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a Salesian priest, in the 1990s, did little to right Haiti’s sinking ship. Rampant corruption, narcotics trafficking, and arms transfers have fueled the informal economy of Haiti (there is little formal economy) ever since and brought us into the gang-dominated third decade of the twenty-first century. Hunger prevails. As many as 200 criminalized gangs now control all of Port-au-Prince, the capital city, and large sections of other Haitian cities and the countryside. Kidnapping for ransom is constant. So is the extorting and terrorizing of the slums of Port-au-Prince; sexual violence is rife. Hard-scrabbling city dwellers fear for their lives.
A devastating earthquake and dangerous hurricane-caused damage hardly made life easier for Haiti in this century. Nor has repeated outbreaks of cholera on top of the coronavirus pandemic.
Haiti is not becoming (as some commentators say) a failed state. It long ago became one, even well before the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in 2021. Four possible organizers of that killing are now in custody in Florida, and with more under guard in Haiti itself. But even punishment for the perpetrators will not reduce gang power.
There are no democratically elected Haitian politicians. Acting president Ariel Henry has no popular mandate and no ability to project any power outward from the presidential mansion. Indeed, the national police are outgunned, poorly equipped, and intimidated by the gangs, some of whose leaders act as if they, rather than Henry, are presiding.
Haiti sits in the Caribbean on a straight route by air and sea from Colombia. Haiti thus has long been a comfortable transshipment destination for cocaine and heroin being smuggled into Florida. Cannabis transits Haiti from Jamaica. In turn, American manufactured lethal arms of all kinds are transferred via Haiti to criminal concerns in South America, the Caribbean. Haiti manufactures no guns, but is now awash in such weapons.
Haiti can no longer secure its borders or keep its citizens safe. Hence it is a failed country. Nor can Haiti supply anything resembling a rule of law, schooling, health services, road maintenance, and many other fundamental governmental deliverables. Failing for decades even under the Duvaliers, Haiti is a land of chaos, anarchy, and undeniable brutality. Thomas Hobbes in the seventh-century philosopher spoke of life being “nasty, brutish, and short’—a description tragically fitting today’s Haiti.
President Henry and other Haiti nominal leaders have asked for help. They have formally and informally requested intervention by the Organization of American States, the UN, and the stronger countries of the Western Hemisphere. Canada has skirted the edges of a positive response, sending a warship into Haitian waters and acknowledging some military overflights.
But Haiti now needs far more. I suggested in two earlier posts in this Substack Newsletter, and in articles in the (Toronto) Globe & Mail, that the UN should take Haiti under its official wing, send a contingent of French-speaking soldiers who could not easily be corrupted to restore order very forcibly, and to introduce a political grouping to administer the endangered nation for five years or so before returning it to non-criminal Haitians. (See 56 & 57, “Haiti: Mayhem Close to our Shores, I & II, May 27 and May 30, 2022.)
I nominated Rwandans for the first task and Canadians for the second. Within Canada there are accomplished Canadians of Haitian descent who could play important roles. The Rwandan army has recently restored order in northern Mozambique and has acted elsewhere in Africa to preserve the peace. It could knock heads hard in Haiti as well.
Washington’s role would be to help finance this restoration of sense and sensibility in Haiti and for Haitians. Leaving Haiti to decay farther, and its people’s lives to deteriorate without hope, is both morally wrong and harmful to our own needs of a prospering and orderly Caribbean and Central America. In comparison to Ukraine, the costs of saving Haiti from itself are trivial, especially in comparison to the cost of doing nothing. Making life outcomes better for Haitians would strengthen our credibility, even in a theatre of war like Ukraine. Let’s now do it, with Canadians and Rwandans (or some other strong military) providing the possibility of real stability.