Crisis in Haiti: A Primer on the Country's Violent Flashpoint with Brookings Fellow and NYU Visiting Scholar Sophie Rutenbar

Sophie Rutenbar, a Visiting Fellow with Brookings and Visiting Scholar at NYU’s Center on International Cooperation, has worked on the ground in Haiti for the United Nations

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This week, Christina interviews Sophie Rutenbar (she/her), a visiting fellow in the Brookings Strobe Talbott Center and a Visiting Scholar at New York University's Center on International Cooperation, on the current crisis in Haiti and the emergence of gangs as leading political voices. With experience as the Planning Officer for the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH), based in Port-au-Prince, Sophie has extensive experience on the ground in the first African Republic. Acknowledging the renewed wave of gang violence and the recent resignation of its prime minister Ariel Henry, Christina and Sophie discuss the many factors that have lead to this flashpoint in Haiti, and the unique political landscape of the country.

KEY QUOTES

OVERVIEW OF THE SITUATION IN HAITI

2:03 — It started about a month ago, when the acting Prime Minster Ariel Henry was out of the country for a regional summit of Caribbean nations, where the topic of Haiti was front and center […] At the end of it, the organization CARICOM (Caribbean Community) released a statement that Ariel Henry […] had agreed to hold elections by August 2025 — a further 18 months. As you can imagine, this was not well received by the Haitian population, which was already frustrated with the lack of political progress and increase in gang violence. Ariel lands in Kenya, and at the same time there are protests breaking out in the capital city of Port-au-Prince and elsewhere in Haiti. The gangs, at the same time, come out and take advantage of this moment and essentially seal off the city and attack key infrastructure. Most notably they attack the National Penitentiary, resulting in the opening of the penitentiary and nearly all of its prisoners escaping.

ON JOVENEL MOÏSE (FORMER PRESIDENT) AND ARIEL HENRY (NOW FORMER PRIME MINISTER)

7:28: Jovenel Moïse was elected in 2016. There were real issue with the election, and he entered into his term on a note of controversy. Moïse started off with some level of support. He was seen by certain parts of the population as a man of the people, not one from the elite ranks. However, he was hand-picked by the previous president, who also came to power on a populist wave of support, with strong allegations of his connections to shady activities, including drug-trafficking. The Haitian population saw Moïse as an extension of this line of leadership, which was focused not on developing the country, but on securing their power and place as head of the government of Haiti. Moïse didn’t do much to increase his favor in the population, and by the time it came close to Moïse’s assassination in July 2021, he was a very isolated and disliked figure. Acting Prime Minister Henry was appointed by Moïse to try and form a consensus government to lead to elections. The appointment had been in the works for a little bit, but it was only two days after the public announcement that Henry was going to be the Prime Ministerial candidate that Moïse was assassinated, and Henry hadn’t been sworn in yet. This gets at the foundation of Henry’s legitimacy, and how he started off in murky circumstances. There was this effort by the international community to get the two competing prime minsters together and figure out a way forward.

ON THE RISE OF GANGS

16:04 — Violence was infused into the founding of the Republic, unfortunately, and in that was violence for political purposes. Gangs, or armed groups, have been a part of the political framework of Haiti for decades. They were instrumentalized under longtime dictator Papa Doc Duvalier and his son Jean-Claude, who had a government aligned militia that did a lot of their dirty for them. There have been armed groups that have been used by different political figures over the past 30 years. […] Gangs were the extension of political figures and used to exert the will of these political figures in the Haitian political marketplace. What we’ve seen recently is an evolution in the last few years where gangs have gained a great deal of power and freed themselves from the chains that their political backers had on them before. There’s a lot of money to be made when the state is quite weak. Gangs brought in huge amounts of money through kidnapping, which has become something of an industry in the streets of Port-au-Prince. They possess weapons that far exceed the National Police, and control quite a lot of territory.