Afghanistan, Wagner, and China: the Haiti problem

A few days ago, the United States government urged its citizens to leave the Caribbean nation of Haiti “as soon as possible”. Most (Western) governments similarly warn their citizens not to travel to Haiti, with the Dutch government recently listing a wide range of security risks when staying in the country, especially the capital Port-au-Prince. In the region, countries like Guyana and Costa Rica have repeatedly expressed their concerns about violence in Haiti. Relations with the Dominican Republic, with which Haiti shares its island, have deteriorated as Haiti is unable to keep its border region safe and prevent Haitians from seeking refuge in their neighbour country.

The recent escalation of violence is not a new development in Haiti. An already unstable political situation worsened greatly after the assassination of President Moïse in 2021. Since then, a state of lawlessness and a gradual take-over of parts of the country by gangs—including a significant part of Port-au-Prince—have led to great political and societal instability as well as suffering of the Haitian people. Those same people already suffered from the aftermath of the devastating 2010 earthquake, as well as a flailing economy that suffers from chronic inflation and, as a 2022 CEPAL report indicates, was the only economy in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) that saw a contraction of GDP.

It has become obvious that Haiti’s government is unable to combat the increasing levels of violence. Both police and military forces have been engaging in combat with gangs for years, but with little success, resulting in the gradual retreat of the state from entire parts of the country. The government has recognized its own failures and for years has asked the international community for help; in earlier decades, this was—unsuccesfully—attempted by both American and Brazilian forces, after which began a period of ‘buck-passing’ with no major powers willing to intervene in Haiti.

Now, however, Kenya has taken the lead in a new effort to organize a multinational security operation that would seek to restore peace and stability in the Caribbean nation. It is a memorable ambition. For the Kenyan president, assisting the Haitian government is a form of Pan-Africanism. Not only is it a sentiment and ideology rarely seen in such acts of diplomacy, it is also a rare example of Pan-Africanism reaching the highest levels of interstate relations or multilateral affairs when it comes to the relationship between the African continent and LAC. It can be seen as part of the trend of ‘emancipation’ of the global South and more ambitious efforts to coordinate and problem-solve within the global South, without the usually inevitable influence of the West.

Still, some have suggested that the United States should be in charge of any intervention in Haiti; a (well-meaning) contributor to Foreign Policy even suggested a collaboration with the French. Given their colonial and neocolonial histories in the Caribbean, it should be obvious that any plan in which former colonial powers not take the lead is preferable. When it comes to issues like monetary policy, as the contributor emphasizes, richer Western nations can and should play a role; similarly, they should have the ambition to aid the Haitian government by increasing foreign aid and foreign direct investment as soon as security levels increase. The security part, however, does not necessarily have to involve the West, especially when Kenya gets more international backing than the Bahamas. Fortunately, it seems that those former colonial powers, including the U.S.’ current Biden administration, acknowledge this.

Haitian security forces battle gangs in Port-au-Prince (2023).

Inherent risks

There is no risk-free scenario for any international security operation in Haiti. Not intervening can lead to the complete collapse of the Haitian security system and government and even greater suffering for Haiti’s people. But intervention brings big risks as well. It can lead to more violence if the security forces decide to employ a tactic of (too) proactively engaging with gangs in order to root them out, which is a possibility the Kenyans have not ruled out. This can fail, spiralling the conflict out of control and leading to the withdrawal of the foreign forces from the island. The operation can also succeed in diminishing the threat of gangs. But the gangs will not disappear completely, especially now that they have been embedded so deeply in Haitian society and have been entangled with the country’s politics and business. Even more, there are real concerns about the Kenyan forces, both for the size of the force that would be deployed to Haiti and the Kenyans’ history of misconduct in other international operations.

If Kenya’s operation would fail to produce immediate results, it could lead to an Afghanistan scenario. In this scenario, foreign forces are able to assist the government in taking back much control over society and bring some stability in the country. Yet the foreign forces and government do not make sufficient progress; gangs go underground or establish bases outside of government control, regularly attacking the government and foreign forces. This would mean that any withdrawal of foreign forces would risk all progress being made by the Haitian government and their foreign supporters, resulting in an inevitable long-time deployment of foreign forces on Haitian territory.

There are more risks. Some time ago, I noticed a report in Mexico’s El Economista about the situation in Haiti. Worryingly, it mentioned the possibility of the Wagner group gaining a foothold in Haiti, stepping in where other foreign actors show too much reluctance to assist the government in taking back control. Of course, this would be problematic for many reasons. Wagner actually coming to Haiti seems unlikely—most importantly, it is unlikely that the U.S. or other regional powers would allow that to happen, and the Wagner leadership of course was recently murdered—but reports like this do highlight the risks of a world community doing nothing to end the vicious cycle of violence in a state like Haiti.

Chinese Peacekeepers walk alongside local citizens in South Sudan (2016).

The China card

Finally, I am still waiting to see if the Chinese government decides to assert itself more proactively in the Haiti discussion. Being the largest provider of U.N. Peacekeeper soldiers and a big believer in both the U.N. and its peace missions, China should be a willing partner for Kenya and other countries to intervene in Haiti. It would befit China’s support for R2P (‘right to protect’), especially considering the evident support of the Haitian government for any such foreign security assistance, as well as the idea of ‘global South’ cooperation. It would seemingly also fit right into China’s new Global Security Initiative (GSI), which after all aims to “encourage joint international efforts to bring more stability and certainty to a volatile and changing era”, amongst other, similar objectives. A large contribution of China to the Haitian peace mission would potentially boost its credentials throughout the LAC region. It could also sway the Haitian government to abandon its relationship with Taiwan and establish diplomatic relations with Beijing instead.

In other words, there are quite a few advantages to a larger role in this process for China, and it will be interesting to see if Beijing makes use of the opportunity. For us, it would mean a good opportunity to see whether China is already willing to extend its security and peace projects beyond the Middle East, if it intends to extend the GSI into security problems that are perhaps more complex and volatile than those it so far has encountered in Asia, and whether it is willing to assume a greater role much closer to the United States’ southern shores than it has ever done.

What is without a doubt, however, is that the Haitian government itself is unable to solve the security crisis within its borders, and a failure of the international community to act could doom this already highly troubled state. Previous unwillingness of major regional powers to set up a multinational security force has left a vacuum for other agents to present themselves as helpers of the besieged government in Port-au-Prince. For these agents, notably the Pan-Africanist Kenyans and possibly the Chinese, the Haiti crisis might even present a big opportunity to boost their own outlook on the world.

Image references