Haiti is finally addressing its profound crisis in leadership. For more than a dozen years, Haiti’s leaders have dismantled democratic institutions and relied on corruption and gangs to maintain their control. After President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated in 2021, Ariel Henry, who was deeply unpopular among Haitians, became prime minister with the help of international support. His tenuous hold on power led to increasingly brazen acts of sabotage and violence by astonishingly well-armed and increasingly independent street gangs jockeying for territory and dominance.
In early March, the gangs united to declare war on the state, attacking the airport, police stations, and government buildings. On March 11, Henry announced he would resign after gangs shut down the main airport and blocked him from returning to Haiti after a trip to Kenya. Now, the gangs are stepping in to fill the power vacuum. They claim they represent the people, but the reality on the ground tells a different story. In at least one neighborhood of the capital, Port-au-Prince, gangs fighting the police have gone house to house telling people to unlock their gates so that gang members can, at any moment, run inside and use the residents as human shields.
Across Port-au-Prince, armed groups are looting businesses and burning down houses. Their violence touches anything within reach. As well as government buildings, gangs have destroyed or severely damaged a center for children with disabilities, pharmacies, and medical clinics. In most of the capital, banks are closed, so people cannot get money; hospitals are not operational, so people cannot receive treatment; and police officers are not patrolling the streets, so there is no one to call for help. According to the United Nations, famine is a step away for 1.6 million of Haiti’s 11 million people.
Yet this could also be a moment of transformative change in Haiti. Since Henry stepped down, feverish negotiations have been underway among Haitian leaders to determine the parameters and makeup of a transition government. After years of frustration and despair, there is hope that Haiti could finally create a government that is committed to the country’s democratic future.
But this opportunity can be realized only if the United States, which has long had a deciding role in Haitian politics, works with Haitian democrats carefully and constructively, and avoids repeating the mistakes it has made in the past. That means not getting into bed with criminals and not backing corrupt leaders. The United States has ceded the role of broker in negotiations to the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), a regional trading bloc. But the current process risks putting in power people with deep ties to the gangs. The United States should take a more forceful and prominent role to support Haitian leaders on the presidential council and ensure that the prime minister and cabinet ministers who take charge in the new government are people of integrity, capacity, and skill who have no ties to armed gangs. An international security force may be necessary to install the transitional government and confront gang control of the capital. The gang leaders cannot be allowed to write the next........