The worst period of violence in Haiti recent history has resulted from the power vacuum left by President Jovenel Mose’s murder in July 2021. The capital Port-au-Prince’s degree of insecurity has “reached levels comparable to countries in armed conflict,” the UN Secretary-General recently warned. Homicides increased by more than 30% in 2022 compared to the previous year, with approximately 2,200 individuals dying as a result.
From 93 to 163, there were 75% more female murders. 2023 might turn out to be even deadlier than it was in April when gang violence steadily increased and claimed over 600 lives. In the first three months of the year, there were about 400 documented occurrences of kidnapping, an increase of 72% from 2022.
The majority of this violence can be linked to gang activity, which has become more powerful and territorial. While they were formerly restricted to the slums of large cities, they now hold authority over 80% of Port-au-Prince, which is home to almost three million people, as well as the key entry points to the capital. Frequent freight truck hijackings and two blockades of Haiti’s main oil terminal by gangs in the area of the city’s principal ports have had disastrous consequences for a nation with a very unreliable electrical system.
In addition to disrupting supply chains and raising transportation costs, gang domination over significant portions of roadways has also depleted supplies of basic goods and boosted food prices for an already impoverished populace. Presently, over half of Haitians are regarded as food insecure. The majority of the 165,000 people who are internally displaced in the nation have left their homes due to gang violence. The gangs have also established themselves outside of Port-au-Prince, particularly in the Artibonite Valley, an agricultural region just north of the city that is crucial for the nation’s food supply.
Along the conflict lines separating the areas of competing gangs, violence frequently reaches its peak levels. A rival gang coalition, the Gpèp, controls the Brooklyn neighbourhood in Cité Soleil, a slum to the north of the capital, and snipers from that coalition frequently open fire indiscriminately at residents there. The single remaining road into this neighbourhood has also been intermittently closed by the G9, which prevents residents from getting to work and school, hinders the removal of rubbish that enters the region from the capital, and stops the flow of food and water. In the autumn of 2022, cholera returned due to the deadly confluence of waste and a lack of potable water.
A number of circumstances have made it possible for gangs to take control of Haiti. In the past, gangs have developed strong relationships with influential politicians and corporate leaders who have provided them with resources, weapons, and legal protection. But while the gangs have gotten better at extortion and abduction for ransom, they have also grown much more self-sufficient and spend less time and effort advancing the goals of their former patrons. As gangs have gained more autonomy, they have tried to increase their power and income by enforcing their dominance over the communities from whom they steal resources. State institutions seldom ever serve as a deterrent to crime; many of them were already lacking in funding and real power at the time of Mose’s murder and have since gotten considerably weaker. As a result, gangs have increased their predation with minimal opposition.
By forming alliances with other armed groups in recent years, gangs have also become more powerful. As a result, there are currently seven major coalitions vying for domination across the nation. These gang coalitions target people more and more as they grow, punishing individuals seen to be working with rival organizations and terrorizing locals by kidnapping, extorting money, and charging unauthorized tolls on the roads. Armed groups have been burning bodies in public view, mutilating and killing people, and plundering and torching homes. In order to control the local populace, gangs also frequently engage in systematic collective rape of women, girls, and LGBTQI+ individuals.
Bwa Kale, which means “peeled wood” in Haitian Creole, refers to the self-defence organizations that have sprung up in response to the country’s gang violence. The term was originally used by protesters in 2022 during large-scale demonstrations against interim Prime Minister Ariel Henry. It is now used to denote a populist movement aimed at stopping gangs from occupying local areas. The rise of vigilantism began on April 24, when word spread that gang members planned to launch a massive attack on Port-au-Prince. In Canapé-Vert, a neighbourhood on the southern edge of the capital, where several people were carrying firearms, allegedly for gang purposes, the police stopped a minibus as fear spread. The story quickly spread, and a throng formed around the alleged gang members. While some of them were still alive, the crowd stoned them and lit them on fire, murdering thirteen of them.
The attack’s video went viral on social media and appears to have sparked copycat violence since, over the next few days, numerous lynchings were reported in various parts of the capital. As a result of these incidents, as well as the news of Ti Makak’s death as a prominent gang boss the same day, more and more people formed vigilante organizations to protect themselves from gang attacks in their neighbourhoods. International organizations only counted 164 lynchings and mob executions of purported gang members in April.
Although the Bwa Kale movement has recently drawn notice from around the world, vigilantism has a long history in Haiti. For decades, there have been organizations known as “vigilance brigades”; they typically become active during times of political unrest or following natural disasters in response to the perceived incapacity of state security services to protect residents. Between 2012 and 2015, when the nation was dealing with the effects of Hurricane Sandy as well as a cholera outbreak, a UN assessment identified approximately 500 lynchings. According to the UN Human Rights Office, there were 75 instances of vigilante attacks in the first three months of 2023 alone, even before the latest rise. The call for citizens to withdraw was not always made by politicians and civil society organizations. In fact, the justice minister mentioned constitutional provisions allowing people to defend themselves in cases of theft and robbery in a press release issued in early March. Two weeks later, 18 Haitian civil society organizations urged people to form self-defence groups to stop gangs from capturing more territory.
Young volunteers seem to make up the majority of vigilante organizations, which are now poorly organized. Although some of these organizations interact with one another, sources tell Crisis Group that there is no proof of either a vertical chain of command directing actions or of systematic coordination between brigades in various neighbourhoods. Members are in charge of establishing checkpoints in key areas outside of towns or districts where they have built barriers. To ensure that no armed individuals enter the area while they are watching, they check identification documents and pat people down as they enter and exit. These brigades conduct patrols in groups of over a dozen people and enforce informal curfews that inhabitants have agreed to. Their members are not paid in any official capacity, although locals frequently give them food, machetes, and cigarettes.
Vigilantes and state security personnel have occasionally worked together informally. In order to combat gangs, police leaders embrace what they refer to as a “marriage” between the public and the force. According to sources reached by Crisis Group, current or former police officers who reside in the neighbourhoods protected by the self-defence brigades have occasionally casually joined the vigilance rounds and given the groups permission to use their firearms. However, a more organized collaboration between vigilantes and the force has so far been hampered by lingering mistrust of the police.
In some places, civilians have teamed up with armed organizations to ward off certain gangs. For instance, villagers have backed a gang coalition led by Ti Mépris in communities all throughout the Artibonite Valley while they battled rival gangs like Gran Grif, Kokorat San Ras, and lesser ones who were attempting to encroach on their territory. Officials claim that because there are no police presence in the area, the residents have little choice but to join forces with the organizations commanded by Ti Mépris, who they feel will defend them against attacks by other gangs.
