(Photo by US-Marine Corps via Rawpixel/CC0 1.0 DEED)
Decades of domestic upheaval in the Caribbean nation of Haiti continue. Protests began in 2017 following a report detailing the misuse of $2 billion in aid funds between 2008 and 2016. Backlash against then-President Jovenel Moïse escalated in the following years, culminating in his assassination in 2021.
Against this backdrop of corruption and uncertainty in the government, non-state groups and armed gangs took greater control of the country. This has been particularly notable in the capital of Port-au-Prince, where a coalition of gangs control the vast majority of territory in the city.
Over the past several decades, billions of dollars have been pledged by the United Nations (UN) and other international donors toward peacekeeping and democratic initiatives in Haiti. Despite this, the crisis persists today due to a variety of structural factors that remain unaddressed.
At the same time, the Trump administration continues to pressure the region with deportation orders, dehumanization of Haitians, and outright threats of interference. As a result, analyzing the history and current reality of foreign intervention in Haiti is essential to understanding its continued suffering.
Haiti: A History of Foreign Intervention
Foreign intervention, particularly from France and the United States (U.S.), has intimately shaped Haiti’s history. Formerly the French colony of Saint-Domingue, economists have noted that its slave-based economy was one of the most unequal in history. The Haitian Revolution saw the island’s slave population violently overthrowing colonial authorities, proclaiming an independent Republic of Haiti in 1804.
Though they won their independence, it came at a steep cost. French authorities gave an ultimatum to the emerging republic in 1825, ordering it to pay the equivalent of between $20 and $30 billion in compensation to slave owners or be re-invaded. This debt was not paid off until 1947, significantly crippling its already fragile post-independence economy.
Struggling to pay off this massive debt, Haiti turned toward the U.S. for trade. Becoming increasingly reliant on American goods and loans to pay off debts, Haiti became a lucrative target for U.S. expansion. The U.S. invaded the island in 1915, occupying the nation for 19 years. In doing so, the occupation extracted significant wealth through the corvée system, a network of forced labour that oriented the economy around exports of sugar and other cheap crops for American profits.
France and U.S. interventions in Haiti throughout the 19th and 20th centuries were instrumental factors in stunting the country’s growth. Beyond outright intervention, both countries provided political and financial support to the Duvalier family dynasty from 1957 to 1986. Originally, to secure an anti-communist force during the Cold War, the Duvalier dictatorship killed over 30,000 Haitians and tortured many more.
Haiti’s Gangs and Government Struggle for Control
As international forces have closely shaped Haiti over the past two centuries, domestic Haitian society has changed in response. Foreign support to the Duvalier dynasty led to the rise of paramilitary groups throughout the country. Known as the tonton macoute, these armed groups initially served as a secret police for the Duvalier regime. Terrorizing dissidents and protecting their grip on power. Once the regime fell in 1986, successive administrations failed to fully disarm the tonton macoute. Eventually, they began to break off and grow into the gangs of today.
Even in the wake of the Duvalier years, governments have still been unstable in Haiti for the past 40 years. In the aftermath of Jovenel Moïse’s assassination in 2021, Haiti has been run by a ‘transitional council’ of seven unelected ministers in the span of four years. This uncertainty has only contributed to continued protests and unrest, with the country’s elections being delayed until December 2026.
The prominence of these paramilitary groups, combined with the political upheaval of the past several decades, has created the conditions for over 200 armed gangs to thrive in Haiti. Following Moïse’s assassination, the country’s gangs have launched their own ‘revolution’, uniting under an alliance called Viv Ansamn – Haitian Creole for ‘Live Together’. At the forefront of Viv Ansamn is notorious gang leader Jimmy ‘Barbecue’ Cherizier, who has long headed Haiti’s G9 collective of armed gangs.
(Photo by Voice of America via Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain)
This complex network of actors does not even begin to include internationally-linked groups. Vectus Global, an American mercenary group infamous for its war crimes in Iraq, have been sent to help with the security situation. A coalition of military operatives led by Kenya, known as the ‘Gang Suppression Force’, has also been deployed to Haiti since 2024. Despite all of these actors, few of them involve Haitian civil society or elected political representatives, pointing to the recurring theme of foreign intervention underpinning the nation’s crisis.
Inequality and Unrest in Haiti
Within this tangled web of political forces fighting for control, it is crucial to centre the civilian experience of Haiti’s crisis. Nearly two-thirds of the country’s population lives below the poverty line. According to Oxfam, the top 20% of Haitian earners control over 60% of the nation’s wealth, while the bottom 20% hold less than 1%.
This vast inequality directly affects the political landscape within Haiti. Wealthy individuals like Gilbert Biglio have been credibly accused of funding gang members in the country to protect their financial interests. Placing sanctions on individuals like Biglio, as Canada has done, is a crucial step toward reducing their negative influence.
With the government struggling to offer essential services and opportunities for its citizens, Haiti’s gangs have stepped in. This has created a situation in which the average Haitian must choose between inconsistent services offered by the government or gangs that have violently taken over their neighbourhoods.
Civic participation in the Haitian government has been almost entirely fractured by these conditions. The initial protests in 2018 were in large part due to recurring Haitian policies that favoured wealthy individuals. Through their concentration of Haitian wealth, foreign-minded interests have aggravated corruption and suffering for the average Haitian citizen. Violence and instability force Haitians to live with the day-to-day impacts with little ability to change their situation.
Learning from the Failed Solutions of the Past
As a country so clearly shaped by international forces, it is clear that international solutions are necessary. The nature of these solutions, however, is key to consider. Since the mid-1990s, the United Nations has had a relatively consistent and significant presence in the country. For its part, its mandate helped with the short-term humanitarian needs of the country, particularly after the devastating 2008 earthquake.
The UN mission has not been without its many criticisms, though. Beyond creating a cholera epidemic in the island nation, civil society groups within Haiti were sidestepped due to the favour of international NGOs. Rather than building local capacity, this course of action only widened the disconnect between the average citizen and the Haitian government.
Furthermore, while security is no doubt an important issue to resolve in the short term, critics of previous interventions have rightfully highlighted how aid has been ‘militarized’. In truth, aid has come alongside the overt deployment of military forces in Haiti.
(Photo by United Nations via Flickr/CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 DEED)
International presence and control over Haiti has been the norm rather than the exception. This has led to international donor fatigue at a time when support is crucial. As well as the justifiable anger and skepticism amongst Haitians when it comes to relying on outside help. Ultimately, these conditions, including humanitarian accomplishments, have undermined Haitian attempts at regaining sovereignty.
A Free, Sovereign Haiti Within Grasp
Haitian elites, whether government officials, business magnates, or the leaders of armed gangs, bear significant blame for creating Haiti’s situation. Corruption does not arise out of thin air. External parties bring it about when they incentivize and reward corrupt behaviour. In Haiti, foreign influence has fostered an environment where wealth remains concentrated in the hands of the few.
International actors must reconsider their future engagement with Haiti so that aid is based on long-term developmental and cooperative capacities rather than short-term, militarized solutions. The country’s future lies in the empowerment of Haitians themselves. For they have long awaited a say in the direction of their own country.
Edited by Gustavo Villela
