By Kristina Fried and Sasha Filippova
Kristina Fried, Staff Attorney at the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH), and Sasha Filippova, Senior Staff Attorney at IJDH. IJDH is a solidarity organization that works closely with its sister organization, the Haiti-based Bureau des Avocats Internationaux, to drive systemic change in Haiti by helping Haitian activists and grassroots groups enforce their internationally-recognized human rights.
With the deployment of Kenyan police officers to lead an intervention in Haiti blocked for now, the international community has an important opportunity to reorient its policy on Haiti away from a foreign intervention that has almost no chance of bringing stability to the country, and toward support for a Haitian-led transition to democracy. Haiti remains in deep crisis marked by a devastating humanitarian situation; ever-worsening insecurity; and institutionalized corruption, impunity, and collusion with armed groups. At the root of this crisis is state capture by corrupt, repressive actors propped up through consistent international support. The international community, with the U.S. government playing an outsized role, presents the Kenya-led mission as the necessary solution to Haiti’s challenges. But Haitian human rights and civic leaders have consistently argued that what Haiti really needs is not another foreign intervention, but for international actors to stop propping up undemocratic, illegitimate regimes and start standing in solidarity with Haitians trying to reclaim their democracy.
Haiti’s crisis, which fundamentally revolves around a deliberate capture and disruption of democratic government, has developed deep security, humanitarian, and economic dimensions. The humanitarian and economic situation is catastrophic, while the violence – already at levels associated with armed conflicts since at least February 2023 – has increased. The number of people killed due to violence by armed groups more than doubled in the last year, from 2,183 in 2022 to at least 4,789 people in 2023, according to the UN. The number of kidnappings also increased, from 1,359 in 2022 to at least 2,951 from January to November 2023. The impacts on the Haitian population are devastating, and include sharply increased internal displacement and migration.
Driving this worsening human rights catastrophe is a governance crisis characterized by entrenched impunity, government misconduct, and political violence carried out by armed groups. Haiti has no officials who were elected to their office, from President to small-town mayor, and is run by a Prime Minister installed by the international community. Recent UN reports document extensive evidence of corruption; government complicity with illicit arms trafficking from the United States into Haiti; and collusion among armed groups and government officials, including police officers. Institutionalized impunity for these and other human rights abuses have further propelled Haiti’s intersecting crises.
These challenges are the product of over a decade of misrule by corrupt and repressive actors affiliated with the Pati Ayisyen Tèt Kale (PHTK), who have deliberately dismantled Haiti’s democratic structures and accountability mechanisms, all propped up by the international community. Long-time PHTK ally de facto Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who is kept in power through international support even as Haitians continue to protest his misrule, is the latest iteration. It is this persistent international support that impedes a democratic transition in Haiti by effectively removing any incentive for Henry to engage in meaningful dialogue with civil society and political actors mobilizing toward a consensus on the way forward. Haitian-American elected officials echo this sentiment: in a September 22 letter, the National Haitian-American Elected Officials Network (NHAEON) and FANM in Action urged President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to “[cease propping] up the corrupt government and allow the emergence of a consensus transitional government with the legitimacy to decide how the international community can contribute.” A December 19 letter from six U.S. Senators similarly called on President Biden to “commit to reengaging with the civil society-led process for creating a transitional government in Haiti, without granting Ariel Henry or PHTK a de facto veto over a new transitional government.”
The concerted international push for a foreign intervention in Haiti is a direct manifestation of this support. In October 2023, the UN Security Council authorized a foreign, Kenya-led, non-UN intervention at the request of Haiti’s corrupt, repressive, illegitimate regime. Kenya’s offer to lead came after months of U.S. government pressure to find a country willing to head the intervention. On January 26, Kenya’s High Court blocked Kenya’s proposed role as unconstitutional, ruling that the Kenyan government may not deploy Kenyan police officers extra-territorially without a “reciprocal agreement” with the host country. Kenya’s President William Ruto immediately vowed to appeal the decision and has separately made statements indicating he believes he can repackage the mission to resolve the court’s constitutional concerns. The United States government has also reiterated its commitment to seeing the intervention through, despite the ruling.
International actors’ continued efforts to push through an intervention and dogged support for Haiti’s de facto regime are especially troubling in the face of serious continued Haitian opposition and reflect a fundamental disregard for Haitian self-determination. Virtually every Haitian organization that has issued a statement on the intervention is opposed to yet another foreign military presence in Haiti on the grounds that it is illegal, risks entrenching Henry’s undemocratic rule further while exposing Haitians to yet more abuses by international actors, and is unlikely to sustainably confront Haiti’s crisis. An August 21 letter by Haitian civil society and human rights organizations to African countries warned that a “foreign military intervention at the behest and for the benefit of an illegitimate, corrupt, and repressive de facto regime is perverse and liable to cause great harm. . . [and] will certainly not bring long-term stability to Haiti.” Compounding concerns about the proposed intervention is the troubling record of human rights abuses by Kenyan police, who also do not speak Haitian Creole or French and are not familiar with the region. The Bureau des Avocats Internationaux, Haiti’s leading human rights legal organization, warned that any CARICOM support for the intervention “would violate CARICOM’s democratic principles, betray Haitians’ centuries-long struggle for democracy and sovereignty, and implicate CARICOM in attacks against civilians exercising their basic human rights.”
Now, the Court’s decision offers the international community a critical chance to change course on Haiti, and start acting on its stated commitment to promoting the rule of law and supporting Haitian-led solutions. The first step is to stop marginalizing Haitian civil society and human rights advocates in discussions around human rights and governance in Haiti, and to start listening to them instead. Their demands are clear: if the international community is serious about doing right by Haiti, it must stop propping up the corrupt, repressive actors responsible for Haiti’s current crisis, not impose yet another foreign intervention that will only entrench the undemocratic status quo.
To learn more, read the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti’s full update on the human rights situation in Haiti from June through November 2023 at https://www.ijdh.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/IJDH-HRU-Dec.-2023-12.11-FINAL.pdf.
