By: Insight Crime
March 5, 2024
As Haiti continues to make headlines amid struggles to control crime and insecurity, a new book traces the roots of the institutional weaknesses that have aided the growth and entrenchment of criminal organizations.
In the book, “Aid State: Elite Panic, Disaster Capitalism, and the Battle to Control Haiti,” author Jake Johnston argues foreign governments, multilateral bodies, and non-governmental organizations have played a key role in the collapse of Haiti’s institutions.
Johnston contends that decades of foreign intervention in Haiti have warped the country’s institutions so they serve the interests of international benefactors and favored local elites, while ignoring the concerns of the vast majority of Haitians.
“It’s a pushback on the idea or concept of Haiti as a failed state,” said Johnston, who has tracked the country for years as a researcher at the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
The book, published in January, comes as US and Haitian authorities attempt to firm up support for a Kenya-led international security mission in the Caribbean nation, which saw a huge increase in criminal violence last year. US and Haitian authorities are also continuing to advance judicial cases related to the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.
InSight Crime spoke with Johnston about the relationship between organized crime and Haiti’s “aid state,” and how the country might address its ongoing security crisis.
InSight Crime (IC): How does the “aid state” interact with organized crime in Haiti?
Johnston: The two interact in any number of ways. But one example is the outsourcing of elections. The international community largely turned elections into boxes to check, totally divorced from any actual democracy. One of the big implications of that has been a lot of pretty nefarious actors winning political office in very low turnout votes. Actors could use violence and intimidation as a means to secure office. But it all takes place with the support of the international community, whose overriding priority was stability over democracy.
IC: We often see examples in Latin America and the Caribbean of criminal groups arising in a context of weak institutions and poor governance. How has this dynamic played out in Haiti?
Johnston: There are huge parts of the country that are entirely divorced from the state. There aren’t public services. There’s a total disconnect. So, initially these groups really were about giving some voice to communities that were underrepresented. The only way you could get a seat at the table was to organize these groups. Over time, these groups increasingly started to pick up arms. One of the big catalysts was the politicization of the police. This caused a lot of elite business folks to start funding armed groups.
IC: What is the role of drug trafficking in Haiti’s “aid state”?
Johnston: Drug trafficking really is a huge part of the story, and it’s one that’s often totally ignored. It’s well known that elite families are involved in drug trafficking. But it’s been allowed to continue because it’s rather contained, and it’s easier to know the players and use it to your advantage than to actually disrupt these networks. But by tolerating it to the extent that it’s been tolerated, not following up on cases, it’s had a really detrimental impact over time.
IC: What can we learn about organized crime in Haiti from looking at the investigations and criminal cases related to the assassination of Moïse in the United States?
Johnston: The biggest thing to keep in mind about the US investigation is that their intention is not to unwrap the whodunit of the assassination or discover the mastermind. It’s a really narrow case involving a select group of actors with very concrete ties to South Florida. I don’t think waiting around for the US investigation to give us these big answers makes any sense. Another issue is the secrecy with which it’s taking place, with the United States citing national security concerns.
IC: What about the Haitian investigations, including the one that led to the recent indictment of Moïse’s widow, Martine Moïse, among others?
Johnston: The case in Haiti has been plagued from the very beginning by politicization and by threats and intimidation. And it looks like the main witness that the judge is relying upon is Joseph Felix Badio, who has a reputation as a total fabulist, and who is close with current Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who is totally exonerated in this indictment. So it’s impossible not to see it as a further politicization of the process.
IC: What are some potential solutions to Haiti’s crime and security problems?
Johnston: This relates to bigger questions I raise in the book about how we actually give money to Haiti. We talk a lot about our support to the police, but we never give money directly to the police. We give money to third parties who provide training or provide equipment, but we don’t actually just give money to the police. So there are different ways that we could be doing this that I think could be going a lot better.
There’s not going to be a solution to the security crisis without a political solution. And that can’t happen unless there is a refoundation of the Haitian state that is actually representative of the Haitian people.
IC: How optimistic are you that this refoundation can actually happen?
Johnston: What we’re seeing now is a fight over what comes next. The people who have had power are going to use violence to try to keep power. But it also provides an opportunity to actually build something new. I’m pretty optimistic in the sense that the current situation is failing for everybody. So the optimism is just that people will understand that it is actually in all of their best interests to do something different. Because right now, everyone’s just shooting themselves in the foot.
*This interview has been edited for length and clarity.