Robert Fatton Jr. is the Ambassador Henry J. Taylor and Mrs. Marion R. Taylor Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia where he has taught since 1981. He is the author of numerous articles and several books on the political economies of Sub-Saharan Africa and Haiti. The Haitian Studies Association awarded him the 2011 “Award for Excellence,” and the 2023 “Lifetime Achievement Award.” He was interviewed by Kevin Edmonds, Assistant Professor of Caribbean Studies at the University of Toronto and founding member of the Caribbean Solidarity Network.
There’s a great deal of history that comes into play whenever we’re discussing the situation in Haiti. If you could provide a short list of key events that helped us arrive at this point, what would they be?
The first problem is the behaviour of Haiti’s ruling class; this behaviour, however, cannot be explained without looking at the type of support that it has traditionally received from foreign forces. In the contemporary period, Haiti’s rulers would never have been in power were it not for some form of imperial intervention. In fact, in many instances Haitian rulers were “selected” by the so-called “CORE countries”—the US, France, and Canada and some lesser powers. While these rulers have some agency, it is very constrained by the hegemonic intrusions of the core countries.
Some leaders have been more adept at navigating this dependency; for example, Rene Preval who was president from 2006 to 2011, managed to have extremely good relations with the United States and both Castro’s Cuba and Cesar Chavez’s Venezuela at a time when that was unthinkable. This was a real achievement; he got significant assistance from Cuba in the health care sector and Venezuelan oil at a very reduced price; this helped Haiti’s economy breathe after years of decline. Unfortunately, the earthquake of 2010 destroyed much of Port-au-Prince’s infrastructure and plunged the country into a deep economic crisis from which it never really recovered. In the aftermath of the earthquake, the US and the other core countries imposed Structural Adjustment Programs, and favoured a form of development based on the promotion and financing of Non-Governmental Organizations to the detriment of the state and public institutions which were inevitably marginalized.
Secondly and relatedly, there is the historical reality that Haiti has been treated as a pariah nation since it declared its independence in 1804. The problem that Haiti’s founders faced was how could they revive the economy after waging the only successful slave revolution in history, when the world system was still based on the plantation economy and slavery? Not surprisingly, Haitian leaders were never able to resolve this contradiction, newly emancipated Haitians were simply not prepared to return to the harsh and brutal discipline of plantation work. This cruel dilemma prevented Haiti from generating a productive industrial economy.
Moreover, in the 19th century, Haiti was continuously subjected to military threats and economic sanctions. In fact, barely twenty years after defeating Napoleon’s army and gaining its independence, Haiti incurred the so-called French indemnity. In the face of menacing French warships, the regime of Jean-Pierre Boyer agreed to pay an indemnity of 150 million francs to France in return for its recognition of Haiti’s independence. While Boyer’s decision to pay the indemnity reflected his fear of the raw power of the French flotilla, it was also determined by the very interests he represented. Boyer and the Haitian elite feared imperial encroachments on the ownership of the land they had acquired from the defeated French slaveowners. To ensure international respect for their property, they sought France’s official recognition of Haiti’s sovereignty. Haitian rulers were thus defending their own class interests when they accepted to pay the indemnity. In addition, they assumed—and rightly so— that once France had recognized Haiti’s independence, other major powers would follow.
Paying the indemnity, however, had very harmful effects on the future development of the country. While it served the interests of the Haitian rulers, it plunged the country into a brutal spiral of payment and debt. Ultimately,
Haiti paid the French the equivalent of some $25 billion. While Haiti’s rulers accepted a very costly compromise, they knew the burden of the debt would not fall on them, but on the back of the poor Haitian peasantry. This illustrates both the chasm between privileged rulers and the poor and marginalized majority, and the former’s willingness to make all kinds of compromises and deals with imperial powers. This behaviour remains an unchanging pattern of Haitian politics.
The third major problem is that there is an opportunistic and detrimental convergence of interests between Haitian rulers and their imperial supporters to repress or contain popular struggles against the status quo. This has contributed to the further impoverishment of peasants and urban dwellers, some of whom have opted to join the gangs that have recently imposed their violent rule on 80% of the capital.
What direct role or influence does the small but powerful group of Haitian elites have on these paramilitary forces, which have seemingly filled the power vacuum in Haiti? What purpose have the paramilitaries served in limiting the space in which pro-democracy movements could organize?
Poverty and marginalization are not the sole cause of the gangs. Powerful domestic actors ranging from politicians to wealthy businessmen have funded and nurtured the gangs to defend their corporate interests and intimidate potential foes and competitors. The gangs had traditionally been used to repress grassroots organizations and discipline people into submission.
They have also engaged in systematic intimidation going as far as targeted and indiscriminate killings. Moreover, gangs were created to impose a clientelist system, especially during elections, that ensured voting for particular parties and politicians. The gangs have now acquired significant autonomy from their original sponsors. They are becoming power brokers and indeed powers unto themselves. They have also federated into a large coalition of armed men known as Viv Ansanm (Living Together). The union of the gangs and their increased autonomy from their traditional sponsors represent a qualitative shift in the political calculus in Haiti.
Far from being transformative agents, the gangs are simply violent armed men seeking easy money and terrorizing the population, and particularly the poorest sectors of society. The idea that their most visible spokesperson, Jimmy Chérizier (Barbecue), is the revolutionary he claims to embody seems to me ludicrous. They have destroyed hospitals, pharmacies, and schools that serve the poorest people in Port-au-Prince. They have caused a humanitarian crisis with some 360,000 people becoming internal refugees living in horrible camps, and over a million people on the verge of famine. This hardly resembles the work of revolutionaries. From reports from the UN and human rights organizations we know that some of the gangs, particularly Cherizier’s G9, were initially close to the PHTK, the party of Jovenel Moise and Michel Martelly, and that other gangs were funded by wealthy businessmen and politicians.
Occasionally, the gangs’ rhetoric suggests they are bent on redistributing wealth and overthrowing a corrupt system, but there is little to show that they mean it in practice; while they may give some assistance to the people under their immediate control, they demand absolute loyalty. What is characteristic of the gangs is their illicit and violent extraction of resources through looting, stealing, kidnappings, and drug as well as arm trafficking. This is not a plan that can change Haiti. It will replicate the old stuff with different faces. The armed men have no real program of development except empty revolutionary slogans. I think that some observers want to hear what they want to hear, but they do not really look at the origin of those gangs, who funded them, and who created them. These connections, it seems to me, indicate that neither the gangs nor the political and economic elites that initially funded them are in the business of transforming Haiti.
While there was no individual lead for the pro-democracy movement, which eventually removed Duvalier in 1986, it eventually coalesced around Jean-Bertrand Aristide and he was their candidate in the 1990 elections. Do you think it is possible that a similar situation may occur at this point?
At the moment I am not very optimistic about a real alternative. I don’t see a huge grassroots movement emerging like the Lavalas movement that led to the presidency of Aristide. To some extent, I think the failures of Lavalas have contributed to that disorganization and exhaustion of left-wing and reformist alternatives in Haiti. People were optimistic about the possibility of changing Haiti when Aristide became President in 1991, but after seven months he was overthrown in a bloody coup. And then, Aristide who used to be extremely vocal against “US Imperialism” and the international financial institutions, returned to power on the back of some 20,000 American marines after signing an agreement with the World Bank and the IMF! Lavalas’ radical credentials evaporated and the movement fragmented and never recovered its original energy and promise.
Now, that was three decades ago, and a new generation mobilized in the so-called Peyi-Lok (country lockdown) movement against the theft of PetroCaribe money by the government of Jovenel Moise. Peyi-Lok was a coalition of civil society organizations, popular forces, and some sectors of the educated elite and intellectuals that managed to challenge the Moise regime. After mobilizing vast number of people for waves of protests, the coalition lost its impetus and the administration of Jovenel Moise reasserted its power. Peyi-Lok illustrated the difficulties of radical change in Haiti—to put it bluntly, civil society is not going to do it, because you need to seize the levers of state power; without them significant reforms, let alone a drastic transformation of Haiti is unlikely to happen.
What is your assessment of the declaration issued in Jamaica of CARICOM international partners and Haitian stakeholders?
Well, clearly, this is a plan that has been largely fabricated by the CORE countries, the United States, France, Canada, and the CARICOM group. They received through Zoom the respective programs of seven large coalitions of Haitian political parties and civic organizations. And then these CORE countries and CARICOM “finessed” these contending programs into a single political agreement. One of the key articles of the agreement is the stipulation that the signatories must consent to the introduction of a Multinational Security Support mission into Haiti—a proposition reluctantly accepted by some of the Haitian parties. In fact, one of them withdrew from the agreement because it rejected any type of foreign intervention, but it suddenly reversed itself and accepted what it had deemed unacceptable.
After a month of difficult and acrimonious negotiations, it appears that the Haitian parties have finally reached a political agreement creating a Transitional Presidential Council. The Presidential Council will be composed of seven political coalitions with voting rights and two non-voting observer members. Its installation as the new Haitian government is awaiting its proclamation in the country’s official gazette, Le Moniteur. This will lead to the resignation of the unpopular regime of Prime Minister Ariel Henry who has been stranded in Puerto Rico for the last six weeks.
The Presidential Council has set itself an ambitious and complicated agenda; it will elect a new Prime Minister and President and then create a series of new agencies: a Security Council, a National Conference on Truth and Reconciliation, a National Constitutional Council, and a Provisional Electoral Council. The Presidential Council’s objective is to re-establish peace and security, redress the economy, reform the Constitution, and organize elections by February of 2026 when its mandate will end.
While one hopes that the Presidential Council will succeed, it will face a most difficult task. In the first place it is deeply divided along ideology and personalities. Its seven members represent political parties and factions that have fought each other for the past two decades. It is difficult to see how they will manage to run the country effectively and harmoniously. Secondly, many of the politicians comprising the Presidential Council were active members of ineffective and corrupt governments. So, why expect a different outcome from the very people responsible for the current crisis? Moreover, several other political factions not represented in the Presidential Council and opposed to any type of foreign intervention will do everything to sabotage the new political dispensation. Most critically, how will the Presidential Council deal with the armed men controlling the capital? Will it welcome the deployment of the Multinational Security Support mission, and if so, will that mission succeed in silencing their guns? Will negotiations between government and gangs be necessary and inevitable? Could an amnesty be a potential solution? The Presidential Council has yet to answer any of these questions.
Finally, if the Presidential Council manages to organize elections by February 2026, these elections should be different from those of the recent past which most Haitians deemed rigged and ultimately orchestrated by foreign powers. Haitians called them selection rather than elections. It is imperative that the international community abandon its traditional meddling role in the new elections otherwise Haiti will face another major crisis.
So, the Presidential Council will face enormous difficulties and the odds of its failure are high. I am rather pessimistic about the future, but as we know history is also full of happy surprises. While the country may seem trapped in its poverty and political crises, new grassroot forces which are not yet visible may surface and transform Haiti. For instance, the recent emergence of the Bwa Kale movement (the vigilante justice movement that fought back against the gangs) despite all its imperfections, may indicate that people are not prepared to continuously put up with being the victims of injustice.
