why Emmanuel Macron's attack on Haiti adds fuel to the fire

According to the Élysée, Emmanuel Macron was responding to the questioning of a Haitian who questioned the role of France in the sad situation into which his country is finding itself. We unfortunately have the sad habit of seeing bad news come from Haiti, but the news that has followed one another since November 11 is indeed particularly worrying: 150 dead, 92 injured, more than 20,000 displaced people forced to flee certain areas. from the capital, Port-au-Prince, over which the influence of gangs has further extended after the latest clashes; they now control 85% of the city.

“This is not just a new wave of insecurity, it is a dramatic escalation that shows no sign of appeasement,” warned Miroslav Jenca, UN under-secretary general in charge of the Americas, on Wednesday. the Security Council.

1 The context

Haiti, 12 million inhabitants, is one of the poorest countries in the world. The first black republic in the Americas, which won its independence in 1804, suffers from natural disasters – recurring cyclones and earthquakes – and political crises. The country, which never recovered from the deadliest earthquake in its history, in 2010, with its 300,000 deaths and a million homeless people, has no longer had a president since the assassination of the incumbent. in 2021 and has not had an election since 2016.

The weakness of the executive has allowed the emergence of criminal gangs subjecting the capital to all forms of violence and looting. The UN estimates that of the 1,233 murders recorded in Haiti between July and September 2024, gangs are responsible for 47% (and law enforcement for 45%).

Port-au-Prince, thus deprived of commercial flights, also saw the UN suspend its humanitarian flights to redirect them to Cap Haïtien airport, in the north of the country.

In February 2024, they formed an alliance called “Viv Ansanm” (Living Together), which overthrew Prime Minister Ariel Henry. Since April, a presidential transition council (CPT) bringing together, without a popular mandate, the different political components, has ensured executive power.

2 The spark

At the origin of the new outbreak of violence which began on November 11, the dismissal, the day before, of Prime Minister Gary Conille, in office for barely five months. He was unable to overcome the gangs, who have been carrying out attacks for months in Port-au-Prince, and on November 14 took control of a strategic district of the capital. This led to the flight of an exhausted population who were often already living in makeshift housing. In four days, 20,000 people left their homes, bringing the number of displaced people in the country to 700,000.

On November 11, the same day that the new Prime Minister appointed by the CPT, Alix Didier Fils-Aimé, was sworn in, shots from armed gangs targeted three planes on the tarmac of the Port-au-Prince airport, which closed. Leading the next day to the decision of the FAA, the American civil aviation regulator, to prohibit American companies from serving the country. Port-au-Prince, thus deprived of commercial flights, also saw the UN suspend its humanitarian flights to redirect them to Cap Haitien airport, in the north of the country.

Add to this that on Wednesday Doctors Without Borders (MSF) suspended its activities, reporting increased threats from law enforcement against its staff and attacks on certain ambulances. On November 11, two patients died in one of these attacks.

On Tuesday, November 19, the gangs launched an offensive on several sectors of the capital, and the police, with the help of civilian self-defense groups, killed several dozen of these militiamen. We witnessed scenes of lynching and bodies were burned in the street. One of the gang leaders, who launched this attack via an appeal on social networks, Jimmy Chérisier, alias “Barbecue”, demanded the resignation of the Presidential Transitional Council.

“The isolation of Port-au-Prince amplifies an already disastrous humanitarian situation,” said Grégoire Goodstein, responsible for Haiti for the International Organization for Migration, in a press release. “Our ability to provide aid is reaching its limits. Without immediate international support, the suffering will worsen exponentially,” he warned.

3 The international response

The power in place in Haiti, increasingly fragile, does not seem to be able to overcome the gangs. He calls for transforming the multinational humanitarian security support mission already in place into a UN force, but which has only deployed 400 police officers, mostly Kenyans, out of the 2,500 expected over the past year.

Peacekeepers are not there to “fight crime in urban areas or save a dysfunctional state”, Russia told the UN Security Council

A US-backed appeal to the UN Security Council, where it faces opposition from Russia and China. The role of peacekeepers “is to maintain peace, not to fight crime in urban areas or to save a dysfunctional state plunged into national conflict”, commented Russian deputy ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy, while his Chinese counterpart recalled unfortunate precedents of UN interventions in Haiti, such as the deployment of soldiers who had spread cholera there, causing an epidemic which killed more than 10,000 people.