Haiti Gangs Back to Violent Tactics as Kenyan Police Guard Installations

Tuesday July 30 2024

By AGGREY MUTAMBO

The Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS) in Haiti led by Kenyan police has been reporting partial successes in the past month since they arrived in the Caribbean country.

But there has been little time to celebrate. 

On Monday, for instance, Haitian Prime Minister (PM) Garry Conille came under fire as he left the General Hospital, also known as the Hospital of the State University of Haiti.

Mr Conille, who came to power in April as a transitional prime minister, had walked into the Hospital with a CNN crew led by Larry Madowo and was accompanied by Haitian National Police (HNP) Director-General Normil Rameau and the General Commander of MSS Godfrey Otunge “to do an assessment,” according to a dispatch.

“Towards the end of his interview, two shots were heard from the nearby neighbourhood. After the PM had successfully completed the interview, he left the hospital with his security detail but at one of the corners at the Hospital, some security officers fired some shots to provide cover for the PM’s exit,” a joint statement by the HNP and the MSS said on Monday.

The PM left the scene unscathed, but the police said they later “pacified the area,” with no injuries or fatalities on their side.

The hospital had been taken over by the HNP and MSS on July 8, after nearly four months of gang control and non-medical activity, which human rights groups said worsened the humanitarian crisis. But it is still not yet operational because of the damage on its facilities, and those of other 30 medical facilities in the city.

When the gangs upped their tempo of violence, hospitals were burned, prisons emptied, and police stations looted. At one point, the main airport in Porto-Au-Prince was under gang control, and so was the main port, which have been recaptured. 

The MSS, now composed of 400 Kenyan police officers and is expected to receive troops from Jamaica soon.

“As part of the team’s effort to provide security for critical infrastructural sites and transit locations, the MSS has made significant strides in patrolling and clearing road blockades that had been,” the Mission said.

Those who have observed gang violence in Haiti, however, say the MSS should expect on-off violent scenes throughout the mission’s stay in Haiti. When they touched down in June, for instance, gang leaders announced that they had withdrawn to the outskirts of the city. 

On Saturday last week, the MSS was confronted with a new battle in Ganthier, just days after they had retaken the Port from gangs. The town east of the capital Porto-Au-Prince lies on a main road connecting Haiti with the neighbouring Dominican Republic. Gangs have reportedly used it to bring in supplies or smuggle drugs.

Otunge told the Nation his troops conquered the main police station in the town, which had been used by the Mawozo gang control their business. The police know the gangs might try to retake the station in future.

Himmler Rebu, a former Haitian colonel argued, said the gangs tend to engage in violence as a show of power and withdraw if instructed by their political minders.

“The criminal gangs operating in Haiti are not autonomous entities. Their visible activities, which are very harmful to the people, are only the tip of the iceberg. Their real leaders are hidden at the heart of the political-financial complex of the state, associated with foreign entities,” Rebu told the Nation recently.

His argument is that while local politicians fan the incitement, gangs earn money and weapons from abroad, often through illicit trade and backing from foreigners.

Haitian gangs can be brutal. Last year, they doubled the country’s homicide rate to 41 deaths in every 100,000 inhabitants, according to UN figures. 

A report by the Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime said in March that the gangs are neither fully autonomous nor homogenous.

“Criminal groups in Haiti remain proxies and political tools,” said the report, ‘Violence in Haiti: A continuation of politics by other means?’ 

Violent brokers, it said, have sustained operations of gangs and their relations with politicians. They up violence when they deem fit and retract their claws when other means are suitable.

“The gangs seem to be pursuing a strategy of maximum pressure, consisting of attacks interspersed with lulls. Rather than a decision taken solely by the gang leaders, our research suggests this may be the result of the relationships that still bind them to their political bosses, who could be setting (fluid) red lines without renouncing the use of violence for political ends.”

When the MSS arrived, Haitian gangs had announced unity under the Viv Ansamn coalition. But, while that coalition had escalated their control on parts of the city by targeting strategic installations, they also offered political fig leaf of peace. 

In June, gang leader Jimmy Chérizier recorded a video asking the Prime Minister to consolidate the country’s peace and stability, seeing him as an untainted politician. He, however, warned MSS of a confrontation.