Haiti "the State has Completely Collapsed"

"Every Haitian thinks that we are being abandoned by the whole world."

"If I was in a foreign country and I believed at any moment my life could be at risk, I would leave too."

"[But] what about the ones who can't leave?"

Dr. Wesner Junior Jacotin, Haitian physician

"Those who are here to stop the mess are running away from it."

"Leaving a capital in total anarchy is an act of cowardice."

Reginald Delva, former Haitian minister of the interior

Charred vehicles in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on March 9, 2024. The U.S. Embassy in Haiti is evacuating some of its personnel from the nation's capital as rampant gang violence intensifies. CLARENS SIFFROY/AFP/Getty Images

Haiti, the impoverished, crime-ridden, woebegotten half of the island of Hispaniola that it shares with the Dominican Republic, is in a chaotic mess of immense proportions, a total breakdown of civilized mores, with roaming masses of Haitian criminals assaulting all the arms of government, including the police and the military, with free reign to spread terror among the population, where they rape, and loot, destroy and murder at will. 

Echoes of the dictatorship-rule in the 1950/60s of Papa Doc Duvalier and his dreaded Tontons Marcoutes acting on behalf of the Duvalier reign, collecting 'taxes' from residents, similarly threatening, looting, raping and murdering. The Duvalier reign in  Haiti had the tacit approval of the United States when Haiti became a getaway for Americans seeking a holiday spot with no rules of civilized conduct.

At Duvalier's death, his son, Baby Doc Duvalier exercised a stint at governing the  ungovernable nation  of blacks whose heritage on the island stemmed from their status as enslaved black Africans set down on Hispaniola when the original indigenous population was decimated by diseases brought by the presence of western European colonizers like France and Britain, who established plantations and used enslaved Africans in slave labour. 

The two countries on the island couldn't be further apart in their fortunes and their social, cultural, historic and economic outcomes, Haiti is a pathetic failure of a country, while its neighbour enjoys a far superior state of civil engagement; the contrast between a successful nation and one that is a perennially ungovernable state whose people live in primitive conditions of fear of the criminal class which their authorities are incapable of controlling.

 

A resident carries tires to be added to a burning barricade to deter gang members from entering his neighbourhood, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Tuesday, November 19   [Odelyn Joseph/AP]

 

As conditions in the island nation steadily descended from bad to horrible, United Nations personnel in the capital Port-au-Prince were being evacuated for safety's sake. Embassies and international aid groups including Doctors Without Borders operating a few still-functioning hospitals have been forced to suspend operations, given gangs storming into greater areas of the capital.

 

Most recently the UN Security Council debated whether to begin an official peacekeeping mission with its background of failed interventions in the Caribbean nation. After the earthquake and tsunami of 2010 that devastated Haiti, UN troops had arrived to aid in maintaining calm and helping in reconstruction, but they also engaged in sexual exploitation, and their presence led to an outbreak of cholera from unsanitary practises contaminating water systems.

 

Despite which, the population and government officials were prepared in their desperation to welcome UN soldiers returning, but it was not to be, when both Russia and China used their veto power, arguing that there is no peace to keep, in Haiti. The United Nations had some 300 employees in 18 different agencies engaged in Haiti. Dozens assigned to the UN Integrated Office in Haiti, a political mission known by the acronym of BINUH, have been evacuated.

 

 

Petionville, a Port-au-Prince neighbourhood where aid groups and their employees are based were raided by gangs and although police and local residents fought back and killed many, the gangs have not been put out of commission. At least 220 people were killed due to a dozen attacks from November 11 to 19. The UN migration agency revealed that 41,000 people had fled their homes in November.

The Kenyan police staffed international force sent to Haiti in June has faced heavily armed gangs. The UN feeds 40,000 people daily. According to Pierre Esperance in Port-au-Prince, only senor staff remained at most embassies. "Everyone is gone -- Canada, Japan, the U.S. The state has completely collapsed."

 

Residents question a person who is not from the neighbourhood after an attempted overnight attack by gangs on the affluent hillside suburb Petion-Ville sparked a violent civilian response, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, November 19, 2024. REUTERS/Ralph Tedy Erol/File