Columbia International Affairs Online
CIAO DATE: 8/5/2007
CONSOLIDATING STABILITY IN HAITI
2007 July
Abstract
Haiti’s security and stability remain fragile. President René Préval has endorsed national policies for security, police, justice and prison reform, but a weak state and decades, if not centuries, of institutional abandonment, make implementation slow, difficult and uneven. His first real success has been the dismantling of the toughest gangs in Port-au-Prince, but for this to be sustainable a community-friendly Haitian National Police (HNP) needs to be built under the security umbrella provided by the UN peacekeepers (MINUSTAH), infrastructure and economic opportunity must appear in the capital’s poor neighbourhoods, and comparable recovery and reconstruction have to be extended across the country.
Post-conflict and transitional assistance is only starting to trickle into the capital, whose communes have still not perceived the start of a new era. Likewise, donor and government coordination is not yet efficient: in Cité Soleil, one of the main areas wrested from the gangs, vital time has been wasted in prolonged negotiations about where and when the HNP would establish its permanent presence. The majority of the most-wanted gang members have been killed or arrested but some have already paid their way out of prison or been replaced by younger, no less violent lieutenants, and others are in hiding. More than a dozen private incidents of revenge, including lynchings, have occurred in Cité Soleil since January 2007. Disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) and other community violence reduction programs have been too slow. Peacebuilding initiatives are required that bring income, community services and hope to these communities quickly.
