IN RECENT weeks, the political and security crisis in Haiti has escalated.  We sat down with Georgette Mulheir, a spokesperson for Defend Haiti’s Democracy, who explained the current crisis and outlined a roadmap to restore democracy.

Haiti has an unusual history.  In modern consciousness, it is most remembered for the devastating magnitude 7.0 earthquake in 2010, that killed an estimated 200,000 people and the outpouring of assistance intended to help the country recover.  The efficacy of the aid programme was repeatedly questioned, with allegations of corruption and inefficiency.  More devastating still was the Oxfam scandal, where the charity was found to have covered up serious sexual abuse of vulnerable women and children by senior members of its Haiti team.

In 2014, Georgette Mulheir started working in Haiti, to help the country build a new system of protection and support services for the most vulnerable children and families.  She discovered a new form of child-trafficking that had exploded in Haiti since the earthquake, where fake orphanages were established, coercing and deceiving poor families to give up their children, so the orphanages could rake in massive donations from well-meaning churches and volunteers in the USA.

But more recently, Mulheir has become concerned that development work – including fighting child-trafficking – is on hold in Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, due to a political and security crisis that has been building for two years. “The world cannot stand by and watch”, says Mulheir, “while peaceful protesters are beaten off the streets, or shot dead by police, as the country slides into dictatorship”.

Georgette Mulheir explains Haiti’s political crisis.

A former slave colony, in 1804, Haiti became the first country to successfully rise up against slavery, end colonial rule and establish the world’s first Independent Black Republic.  But Haiti was then punished by former colonial rulers.  In today’s context of the debate around how to recompense the descendants of people who were enslaved, it is almost impossible to believe that, right up until 1947, Haiti was forced to pay ‘reparations’ for the ‘losses’ France had suffered when they were no longer able to keep Haitians enslaved.

A twenty-year Illegal occupation by the USA was followed by decades of dictatorship – most notably, the notorious Duvalier regime – military coups and failed political leadership.  Add the impact of natural disaster and Haiti clearly has many struggles to contend with on the road to democracy, development and progress.

As Georgette Mulheir says, “it is true that Haiti faces considerable challenges.  But the current crisis is the worst in a generation.  And the people of Haiti need our help to restore peace and democracy”.

There have been mounting protests against Moise’s administration since he was named in a Senate report as having participated in a massive corruption scandal.  Since then, in a series of increasingly authoritarian moves, Moise has tightened his grip on power.  In 2019, he failed to organise parliamentary and local elections, resulting in no functioning parliament since January 2020 and no elected local government since July 2020. He installed people loyal to him in all positions of power and authority and is ruling by decree.  He recently established a secret police force, with extra-judicial powers, reporting directly to him, a move that has been condemned by local and international human rights bodies.

According to Haitian constitutional experts, the current president Jovenel Moise’s term in office ended on the 7^th of February this year.  This legal analysis is backed by Haiti’s highest judicial authority, human rights groups and the Catholic and Protestant churches. Internationally, legal scholars at Harvard, Yale and NYU’s law schools have also backed this position, as have a growing number of US congresspeople and senators.  But Moise insists he has another year in office and, so far, this position appears to have won the support of the United Nations, the Organisation of American States and the Biden administration.

“It is difficult to understand the current stance of the international community”, says Mulheir. “The UN and the US government appear to support Moise and are calling on him to hold elections.  Yet, with his track record of stalling elections and abusing the constitution, along with credible allegations of corruption and severe human rights abuses, surely global political leaders can see their support of him is untenable”.

State-sponsored violence to suppress protest and dissent

In Haiti, evidence is mounting that the state sponsors gang violence to control the people and quell opposition to an increasingly authoritarian president.  In Haiti, the once fragmented gangs of Port-au-Prince have forged an unprecedented alliance.  Under the leadership of a former police officer, Jimmy Cherizier, nicknamed ‘Barbecue’, the gangs have unleashed terrifying levels of kidnapping, murder and even massacres across the country.  Ordinary Haitians say the level of fear is of an order not seen since the Duvalier era.

Moreover, the violence is not always indiscriminate.  Gangs target communities known to protest against the president and his administration and several human rights organisations have reported coordination between senior government and security officials and the gangs.  In 2018, Cherizier led an attack in La Saline neighbourhood in Port-au-Prince.  According to the police, dozens of men, women and young children were massacred. Women were raped and set on fire, witnessed by their husbands and, at times, their children.  The United States’ Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Cherizier – a former police officer – along with two former high-ranking government officials for their roles in the massacre.

Whilst La Saline was the most horrific example, over the past two years, massacres in the poorer communities of Port-au-Prince, known for their opposition to the government, have become a semi-regular occurrence.

The Bel Air locality has been attacked several times in the past two years. According to Human Rights Watch, in a November 2019 attack on Bel Air, led by Cherizier, at least 3 people were killed, 6 wounded, and about 30 houses and 11 cars burned. Three active members of Haiti’s National Police and others off duty those days allegedly participated in the attacks with the gangs.

An even deadlier attack in August last year also appears to have been orchestrated by Cherizier.  One human rights defender said “armed gangs stormed the Bel-Air district not far from the National Palace and set dozens of houses on fire. Families were forced to flee following threats from armed gangs, with no time to gather their belongings.  At least twelve people were said to be killed during this incursion, and around thirty children were separated from their families.  We intervened to help the families who had no food or clothing.  We also attempted to reunite the separated families.  To this date, many of the victims of the massacre cannot return home.”

Although a warrant was issued for Cherizier’s arrest, he continues to operate with apparent impunity.  Haiti’s Prime Minister admitted the authorities chose not to help Bel Air massacre victims because he said sending in the police to confront the gangs involved could have resulted in “collateral victims”.

Armed gangs, working with the State, coerce children into violence and crime

A lesser reported factor is the enforced recruitment of children and young people who are coerced to carry out atrocities.  According to Georgette Mulheir, “courageous human rights defenders in Haiti have shared with us evidence of that recruitment – and the terrible implications for the vulnerable children and young people involved.”

The human rights defenders told Mulheir they have been working to achieve the release of teenagers – some as young as seventeen.  They come from areas where families live in extreme poverty and were kidnapped by gangs, then forced to take part in criminal activities.  If they refused, they were threatened that their families would be harmed. One young man refused to participate and was murdered by gang members.

Whilst the gangs are clearly involved in horrific crime, it would appear that at least some members are unwilling participants, who have been kidnapped and coerced into criminal activity.

Kidnap as a tool of state control

Whilst gang-violence in Haiti is not new, levels have leapt dramatically.  According to the Economist, in 2020, kidnappings quadrupled and murders doubled, compared with the previous year.  According to one report, kidnapping “is now endemic throughout all society, from the poorest to the richest. Opposition areas were routinely the targets for the kidnapping gangs, but now it is everywhere. Everyone is targeted and nobody is safe.  Gangs appear to act with impunity”.

“This is voter suppression on a massive scale”, says Georgette Mulheir

It is difficult in this context to understand the approach of the UN and the US government, who put considerable focus on the regime’s alleged commitment to reforming the constitution and holding elections later in the year.  But, says Mulheir, “whilst this might sound like a democratic process, the devil is in the detail.  Firstly, the regime is planning to hold a referendum on a newly-drafted constitution.  But constitutional changes cannot be made by referendum under Haitian law. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, the president issued a decree last year changing the national ID card, which citizens need if they are to vote.  Millions of Haitians have not been issued a new ID card.  If this not rectified before an illegal referendum or elections take place, millions of eligible voters will be disenfranchised.  This is voter suppression on a massive scale.”

Moreover, Georgette Mulheir tells us, the comparisons with Myanmar are striking.  In each country, an authoritarian regime uses violence to suppress protest and dissent.  Over the past few weeks in both Myanmar and Haiti, protesters have been beaten off the streets and some have been shot dead by police.  Yet the responses of the international community – and the media – are strikingly different. Whilst the UN has publicly denounced the Myanmar regime, they continue to support the administration in Haiti.

More puzzling still is the attitude of the US government, openly critical of the coup in Myanmar, but largely silent on Haiti. US congresswoman, Maxine Waters recently said: “The Biden administration’s response to Haiti’s spiralling political crisis may be motivated by wariness of entangling the U.S. in a neighbour’s affairs or adding another challenge to the Administration’s extremely full plate. But Haiti’s President Jovenel Moise appears to be taking the response as a green light to continue his assault on democracy.” Waters believes this is “threatens to entangle the United. States in a much more serious crisis.”

Mulheir agrees.  “The current situation cannot continue”, she says, “the regime has no legal mandate and has lost all legitimacy and moral authority.” She believes it is only a matter of time before the international community will have no option but to support a peaceful transition of power.

Pro-democracy activists like Georgette Mulheir pressure the UN to change course

Organisations like Defend Haiti’s Democracy have been joining forces in Haiti and internationally to put pressure on the international community to act. And they appear to be gathering some momentum. Last month, despite an anodyne and – according to DHD – inaccurate report from the Secretary General, members of the UN Security Council raised serious concerns regarding the deteriorating human rights situation and assault on democracy in Haiti.

In their own report to the Security Council members, DHD laid out a three-point plan to exit the current crisis, starting with the installation of a transitional government made up of experts.  According to the report, it will take two to three years for Haiti to register all eligible voters and organise free and fair elections. Mulheir says, “An end to violence and a restoration of the rule of law are also prerequisites.  In the current situation, there is a danger many people would refrain from voting for fear of reprisals.”

Activists in Haiti and across the diaspora who support the call for a transitional government are aware of the enormity of the challenge. But given the stance of the UN and US government continuing to offer their tacit support to the Haitian regime, there is no immediate end in sight for the embattled nation.  Activists like Georgette Mulheir say they are in it for the long haul.