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Abstract
Confronted by non-conventional non-state military forces enjoying high – but very localized – social legitimacy, the United Nations Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) struggled between 2004 and 2007 to embed the use of force in a larger strategy of state consolidation. The article explores the confrontations between MINUSTAH and unconventional armed groups in Haiti during this period. It traces MINUSTAH’s operations against criminal gangs, and the resulting process of strategic learning. It explores how tactical innovations allowed MINUSTAH to defeat the gangs, but also highlights that the larger political objective – breaking the connection between the gangs and Haiti’s political-business elite – remained unarticulated and elusive – and perhaps ultimately unfeasible, given the necessity of Haitian state consent for continued UN operations in the country. In a final post-script the article reflects on the return of the gangs after the earthquake of 12 January 2010, and what it signals about the limited impact of tactical force on the presence and power of political-criminal networks.
Notes
1 Rupert Smith, The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World (London: Allen Lane 2005), 12.
2 See generally Sebastian Einsiedel and David Malone, ‘Haiti’, in David Malone (ed.), The United Nations Security Council: From the Cold War to the 21st Century (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner 2004), 467–82; David M. Malone, Decision-Making in the UN Security Council: The Case of Haiti 1990–1997 (Oxford: Clarendon 1998); Chetan Kumar, Building Peace in Haiti (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner/International Peace Academy 1998).
3 Smith, The Utility of Force, 329, see generally 328–30.
4 On this notion see Patrick Chabal and Jean-Pascal Daloz, Africa Works: Disorder as a Political Instrument (Oxford, London and Bloomington: International African Institute, in association with James Currey 1999).
5 See generally Robert Fatton Jr, Haiti’s Predatory Republic: The Unending Transition to Democracy (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner 2002); Michel Rolph-Trouillot, Haiti – State Against Nation: The Origins and Legacy of Duvalierism (New York: Monthly Review Press 1990); and Robert Debs Heinl Jr, Nancy Gordon Heinl, and Michael Heinl, Written in Blood (Boston: UP of America 1996).
6 On the political instrumentalization of disorder, see especially Chabal and Daloz, Africa Works. On Haiti as a ‘protection competition’ see James Cockayne, ‘‘Winning Haiti’s Protection Competition: Organized Crime and Peace Operations Past, Present and Future’, International Peacekeeping 16/1 (2009), 77–99. See also Jennifer Peirce, ‘Protection from Whom? Stabilization and Coercive Rule in Haiti’, Paterson Review 8(Fall 2007), 96–112.
7 Michael Dziedzic and Robert M. Perito, Haiti: Confronting the Gangs of Port-au-Prince, Special Report 208, Sept. 2008, United States Institute of Peace, <www.usip.org/publications/haiti-confronting-the-gangs-port-au-prince>, 1.
8 See ‘2 Haiti leaders are focus of drug inquiry’, New York Times, 23 July 1994.
9 On the sanctions, see generally Richard Garfield, The Impact of Economic Sanctions on Health and Well-Being, Relief and Rehabilitation Network Paper No. 31 (London: Overseas Development Institute Nov. 1999).
10 Eirin Mobekk, ‘International Involvement in Restructuring and Creating Security Forces: The Case of Haiti’, Small Wars and Insurgencies 12/3 (2001), 97–114. On Iraq, see Phil Williams, ‘Illicit Markets, Weak States, and Violence: Iraq and Mexico’, Crime, Law, and Social Change 52/3 (2009), 323–36.
11 Almost one fifth of the PNH had been dismissed by Nov. 1999 for corruption, drug offenses and human rights abuses: Einsiedel and Malone, ‘Haiti’, 476; Johanna Mendelson-Forman, ‘Security Sector Reform in Haiti’, International Peacekeeping. 13/1 (2006), 14–27, at 23; Mobekk, ‘International Involvement in Restructuring and Creating Security Forces’, 103.
12 On Aristide’s rule as a patronage system see Henry F. Carey, ‘Militarization Without Civil War: The Security Dilemma and Regime Consolidation in Haiti’, Civil Wars 7/4 (2005), 346–9.
13 Louis-Alexandre Berg, ‘Crime, Politics and Violence in Post-Earthquake Haiti’, United States Institute for Peace, Peacebrief No. 58, 28 Sept. 2010, 2.
14 Mendelson-Forman, ‘Security Sector Reform in Haiti’; Sebastian von Einsiedel and David M. Malone, ‘Peace and Democracy for Haiti: A UN Mission Impossible?’, International Relations 20/2 (June 2006), 153–73, at 163; Robert Muggah, ‘Securing Haiti’s Transition: Reviewing Human Insecurity and the Prospects for Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration’, Small Arms Survey Occasional Paper 14 (2005), 71, fn 31.
15 Muggah, ‘Securing Haiti’s Transition’, 6.
16 See Mendelson-Forman, ‘Security Sector Reform in Haiti’, 22; author’s interviews with MINUSTAH officials, 2007.
17 See Clara James, ‘The Raboteau Revolt: Aristide’s Political Machine’, Z Magazine 15/12 (Dec. 2002).
18 On the role of networks of ex-FAd’H and PNH in the violence in 2004 and after, see International Crisis Group, Consolidating Stability in Haiti, Latin America/Caribbean Briefing No. 21, 18 July 2007, 4.
19 See generally Peter Dailey, ‘Haiti: the fall of the house of Aristide’, New York Review of Books, 13 March 2003, 41–7; compare Amy Goodman (ed.), Getting Haiti Right This Time: The US and The Coup (Read and Resist) (Monroe, ME: Common Courage 2004).
20 For example, in 2007–08, Haiti’s revenues were expected to be just short of US$400 million, not accounting for overseas development aid. MINUSTAH’s budget for the same period was over US$535 million.
21 See Cockayne, ‘Winning Haiti’s Protection Competition’; and see A. Walter Dorn, ‘Intelligence-led Peacekeeping: The United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), 2006–07’, Intelligence and National Security 24/6 (2009), 805–35, specifically 808, 812.
22 Dziedzic and Perito, Haiti, 2.
23 Robert Muggah, Securing Haiti’s Transition, xvi.
24 See for example Thomas M. Griffin, Esq., Haiti: Human Rights Investigation, November 11–21, 2004, Center for the Study of Human Rights, Univ. of Miami School of Law, <www.law.miami.edu/cshr/CSHR_Report_02082005_v2.pdf>; and see International Crisis Group, ‘Haiti: Security and the Reintegration of the State’, Latin America/Caribbean Briefing No. 12, 20 Oct. 2006, p.5.
25 Berg, ‘Crime, Politics and Violence’, 2; see also Dziedzic and Perito, Haiti, 1. For further evidence of the gangs’ involvement in drug trafficking, see US Department of State, ‘Haiti: Dread Wilme Killed; HNP More Active’, Cable from US Embassy Port au Prince to State Department Headquarters, 6 July 2005. Cable Number: Port au Prince 001796. Confidential. Source: Freedom of Information Act release (2005-05-081) to Keith Yearman, <www.cod.edu/people/faculty/yearman/Cite_Soleil/Port_au_Prince_001796_06July2005.pdf>.
26 Peirce, ‘Protection from Whom?’, 101.
27 See Dorn, ‘Intelligence-led Peacekeeping’, 817, citing MINUSTAH, ‘After Action Report on Operation ‘‘Jauru Sudamericano’’’, unpublished and undated but likely to be 1 March 2007, p.19.
28 ‘United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH): Morts lors de l’Opération du 6 Juillet 2005 à Cité Soleil’ in ‘Summary of cases transmitted to Governments and replies received’, Report of the Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, UN Doc. E/CN.4/2006/53/Add.1, 325. See also UN, Report of the Secretary-General on Haiti, UN Doc. S/2004/300, 16 April 2004, para. 31, acknowledging the political-criminal nexus in the PNH.
29 UN, ‘Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti’, UN Doc. S/2004/908, 18 Nov. 2004, para. 7.
30 Ibid., para. 14.
31 Though exactly how much is disputed: see Muggah, ‘Securing Haiti’s Transition’; and see Athena Kolbe and Royce Hutson, ‘Human Rights Abuse and Other Criminal Violations in Port-au-Prince: a Random Survey of Households’, The Lancet, No. 368, 31 Aug. 2006, 864–73.
32 See Reports of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, UN Docs. S/2005/124 (25 Feb. 2005), S/2005/313 (13 May 2005), S/2005/631 (6 Oct. 2005).
33 Guy Hammond, ‘Saving Port-au-Prince: United Nations Efforts to Stem Violence against Civilians in Haiti (2006-2007)’, unpublished manuscript, on file with the author. Compare International Crisis Group, ‘A New Chance for Haiti’, Latin America/Caribbean Report No. 10, 18 Nov. 2004, 18.
34 Author’s private communications with former MINUSTAH officials, July 2007.
35 Griffin, Haiti: Human Rights Investigation, 22.
36 ‘UN peacekeepers storm Haiti slum’, BBC News, 15 Dec. 2004.
37 See UN, ‘United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH): Morts lors de l’Opération du 6 Juillet 2005 à Cité Soleil’ in Report of the Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Addendum, Summary of cases transmitted to Governments and replies received, UN Doc. E/CN.4/2006/53/Add.1, 27 March 2006, 322–33.
38 See US Department of State, ‘Brazil Shows Backbone in Bel Air.’ Cable from US Embassy Port au Prince to State Department Headquarters, 1 Aug. 2005. Cable Number: Port au Prince 001964. Confidential. Source: Freedom of Information Act release (2005-05-081) to Keith Yearman, <www.cod.edu/people/faculty/yearman/cite_soleil/Port_au_Prince_001964_01August2005.pdf>.
39 See UN, Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, UN Doc. S/2005/313,13 May 2005, paras. 12–18.
40 This account is compiled from UN Secretary-General’s reports, the author’s private communications with former MINUSTAH military commanders and UN human rights officials (2007, 2010), and Colum Lynch, ‘UN peacekeeping more assertive, creating risk for civilians’, Washington Post, 15 Aug. 2005.
41 See for example ‘Growing Evidence of a Massacre by UN Occupation Forces in Port-au-Prince Neighborhood of Cite Soleil: Summary of Findings of the US Labor and Human Rights Delegation to Haiti’, Global Research, 14 July 2005, <www.globalresearch.ca/PrintArticle.php?articleId1/46934>.
42 UN, Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, UN Doc. S/2005/631, 6 Oct. 2005.
43 Dorn, ‘Intelligence-led Peacekeeping’, 813.
44 See Dziedzic and Perito, Haiti.
45 US Department of State, ‘Haiti Post-Dread Wilme: MINUSTAH Takes off the Pressure’, Cable from US Embassy Port au Prince to State Department Headquarters, 12 July 2005. Cable Number: Port au Prince 001829. Confidential. Source: Freedom of Information Act release (2005-05-081) to Keith Yearman, <www.cod.edu/people/faculty/yearman/Cite_Soleil/Port_au_Prince_001829_12July2005.pdf>.
46 See ‘Haiti’, in Center on International Cooperation, Annual Review of Global Peace Operations (New York: Center on International Cooperation/Lynne Rienner 2007), 67–8.
47 Dorn, ‘Intelligence-led Peacekeeping’, 813; author’s private communications with former MINUSTAH officials, 2010.
48 Radio Kiskeya, 10 Aug. 2006. And see ‘Surrender or die, Haiti tells armed gangs’, The Globe and Mail, 11 Aug. 2006, <www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060811.WORLDREPORT11-6/TPStory/International4>.
49 Dziedzic and Perito, Haiti, 3.
50 Author’s private communications with former MINUSTAH officials, 2007, 2010. One interesting analysis suggests that the shift in tactics has more to do with international politics than decisions by the Haitian or MINUSTAH leadership. According to this analysis, Brazilian military commanders were reluctant to engage in overly robust peace operations in Haiti while President Lula’s political position was weak at home, fearing that it would arouse domestic resentment, given ongoing gang concerns closer to home. After Lula’s hand was strengthened in late 2006, this analysis suggests, the barriers to Brazilian offensive operations were removed. A new Brazilian force commander arrived in early 2007, and the tactics changed. See for example Desmond Molloy, ‘DDR: A Shifting Paradigm and the Scholar/Practitioner Gap’, Pearson Peacekeeping Centre, Occasional Paper 1, 2008, p.8. While this analysis finds some support in recently released US cables (see below), it belies the preparations for offensive operations that MINUSTAH appears to have been undertaking throughout 2006, and the offensive efforts of the Brazilian Battalion in Bel Air in 2005.
51 Author’s interviews in Port-au-Prince, 2007.
52 Dziedzic and Perito, Haiti, 3.
53 See ‘Haiti’, in Center on International Cooperation, Annual Review of Global Peace Operations, 70.
54 Dziedzic and Perito, Haiti, 3.
55 Dorn, ‘Intelligence-led Peacekeeping’, 818; Dziedzic and Perito, Haiti, 4. Dziedzic and Perito argue that earlier operations by the Sri Lankan contingent in Martissant during Nov. 2009 had served as a ‘trial run’.
56 The APC was recovered three days later and the machine gun shortly thereafter. Fortunately, the gangs were not able to use the machine gun because the Russian electronics proved too sophisticated. The sniper rifle was recovered only on 21 March. Dorn, ‘Intelligence-led Peacekeeping’, 814, note 16, citing ‘DFC [Deputy Force Commander] Uruguayan After Action Report on Op Lot Nivo’, undated MINUSTAH document.
57 Dorn, ‘Intelligence-led Peacekeeping’, 815, 818; Hammond, ‘Saving Port-au-Prince’, 14.
58 Dorn, ‘Intelligence-led Peacekeeping’, 814.
59 Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, UN Doc. S/2007/503, 22 Aug. 2007, para. 22. For a full list of the operations, see Dorn, ‘Intelligence-led Peacekeeping’, Table 2, 818.
60 UNSG’s report 22 Aug. 2007, para. 22.
61 Hammond, ‘Saving Port-au-Prince’, 14; author’s interviews, 2010.
62 Dorn, ‘Intelligence-led Peacekeeping’, 826.
63 Hammond, ‘Saving Port-au-Prince’, 14.
64 Author’s interviews, 2010; Hammond, ‘Saving Port-au-Prince’, 15; Dorn, ‘Intelligence-led Peacekeeping’, 814.
65 Dorn, ‘Intelligence-led Peacekeeping’, 828.
66 Hammond, ‘Saving Port-au-Prince’, 14.
67 This section draws on Dorn, ‘Intelligence-led Peacekeeping’, 815–16, as well as the author’s confidential interviews (2007, 2010) with former MINUSTAH military and civilian officials.
68 Dziedzic and Perito, Haiti, 5 recount the same story – but describe it as occurring a full month earlier, during Operation ‘Blue House’.
69 Dorn, ‘Intelligence-led Peacekeeping’, 816–17; author’s interviews, 2010.
70 Ibid. In the account of Dziedzic and Perito (Haiti) it was not MINUSTAH FPUs but the PNH which moved in at this point.
71 Dorn, ‘Intelligence-led Peacekeeping’, 807.
72 Hammond, ‘Saving Port-au-Prince’, 11.
73 Ibid.
74 The following section draws on the author’s private interviews (2007, 2010), and Dorn, ‘Intelligence-led Peacekeeping’, 830–3.
75 Dziedzic and Perito, Haiti, 8.
76 Dorn, ‘Intelligence-led Peacekeeping’, 830.
77 Cockayne, ‘Winning Haiti’s Protection Competition’; Hammond, ‘Saving Port-au-Prince’, 13; Dorn, ‘Intelligence-led Peacekeeping’, 827, 830.
78 Hammond, ‘Saving Port-au-Prince’, 11.
79 Ibid.; Dorn, ‘Intelligence-led Peacekeeping’, 826. On CARVER see US Army Field Manual FM 34–36, Special Operations Forces Intelligence and Electronic Warfare Operations’, Appendix D ‘(Target Analysis Process)’, Department of the Army, Washington DC, 30 Sept. 1991, <http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm34-36/appd.htm4>.
80 Dorn, ‘Intelligence-led Peacekeeping’, 823.
81 Ibid., 824.
82 Ibid.
83 Ibid., 826.
84 Ibid., 832–3.
85 Ibid., 829; Dziedzic and Perito, Haiti, 8.
86 Cockayne, ‘Winning Haiti’s Protection Competition’; author’s private communications from former MINUSTAH officials, 2007, 2010; Dorn, ‘Intelligence-led Peacekeeping’, 823. UN International Children’s Emergency Fund and UN Development Programme.
87 Author’s interviews, 2010; Dorn, ‘Intelligence-led Peacekeeping’, 830.
88 Dorn, ‘Intelligence-led Peacekeeping’, 831.
89 Smith, The Utility of Force, 327–8.
90 See further James Cockayne and Adam Lupel, ‘Conclusion: From Iron Fist to Invisible Hand – Peace Operations, Organized Crime and Intelligent International Law Enforcement’, International Peacekeeping 16/1 (2009), 151–68.
91 Dziedzic and Perito, Haiti, 9.
92 Dorn, ‘Intelligence-led Peacekeeping’, 822–3. Leaks eventually led to MINUSTAH providing operational information to the PNH only at the last minute – or even insisting that PNH personnel hand over their cellphones before receiving targeting information: ibid.; Hammond, ‘Saving Port-au-Prince’, 17.
93 Author’s private communications with former JMAC officials, 2007, 2010.
94 See Victoria K. Holt and Alix J. Boucher, ‘Framing the Issue: UN Responses to Corruption and Criminal Networks in Post-Conflict Settings’, International Peacekeeping 16/1 (2009), 20–32.
95 UNSC PRST/4/2010, 24 Feb. 2010.
96 Author’s private communication with former JMAC official, 2010.
97 Dorn, ‘Intelligence-led Peacekeeping’, 823–4.
98 Ibid., 828–9.
99 See United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), DPKO Policy Directive: Joint Operations Centres and Joint Mission Analysis Centres, Ref. POL/2006/3000/4, 1 July 2006 (New York: United Nations Citation2006). See generally Philip Shetler-Jones, ‘Intelligence in Integrated UN Peacekeeping Missions: The Joint Mission Analysis Centre’, International Peacekeeping 15/4 (Aug. 2008), 517–27; and Bassey Ekpe, ‘The Intelligence Assets of the United Nations: Sources, Methods, and Implications’, International Journal of Intelligence and Counter Intelligence 20/3 (Sept. 2007), 377–400.
100 Dziedzic and Perito, Haiti, 5–6.
101 See UN Doc. S/2006/592, para. 49.
102 ‘Human Rights Groups Dispute Civilian Casualty Numbers from July 6 MINUSTAH Raid’, Cable from US Embassy Port au Prince to State Department Headquarters, 26 July 2005. Cable Number: Port au Prince 001919. Confidential. Source: Freedom of Information Act release (2005-05-081) to Keith Yearman, <www.cod.edu/people/faculty/yearman/cite_soleil/Port_au_Prince_001919_26July2005.pdf>.
103 Author’s private communications with MINUSTAH officials, 2007, 2010; see also Hammond, ‘Saving Port-au-Prince’, 11, 16; Dorn, ‘Intelligence-led Peacekeeping’, 816.
104 Author’s private communications with MINUSTAH officials, 2007, 2010; see also Hammond, ‘Saving Port-au-Prince’, 16.
105 Author’s interviews, 2007; see also Hammond, ‘Saving Port-au-Prince’, 17–18.
106 See Robert Muggah, ‘Great Expectations: (Dis)integrated DDR in Sudan and Haiti’, Overseas Development Institute – Humanitarian Practice Network, 31 March 2007; Mobekk, ‘International Involvement in Restructuring and Creating Security Forces’, 17–20; and Univ. of Bradford, ‘Desk Review: Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) and Human Security in Haiti’, Centre for International Cooperation and Security, July 2008. For an insider’s view see Molloy, ‘DDR: A Shifting Paradigm’. See further US Department of State, ‘UN Shifts Focus From Disarmament to Violence Reduction’, Cable from US Embassy Port au Prince to State Department Headquarters, 10 Aug. 10, 2005. Cable Number: Port au Prince 002032. Confidential. Source: Freedom of Information Act release (2005-05-081) to Keith Yearman, <www.cod.edu/people/faculty/yearman/cite_soleil/Port_au_Prince_002032_10August2005.pdf>.
107 MINUSTAH, ‘Re-Orienting DDR to Community Violence Reduction in Haiti’ (Sept. 2007), 6, <www.unddr.org/documents.php?doc=1183>. See also MINUSTAH, The Integrated DDR Section UNDP – MINUSTAH: Third Quarterly Draft Report July-Aug.-Sept. 2006, <http://unddr.org/docs/3rd_Quarterly_Report_2006_version_3.pdf>.
108 Robert Muggah, ‘The Effects of Stabilisation on Humanitarian Action in Haiti’, Disasters 34/S3 (2010), S444–63, at S449.
109 Molloy, ‘DDR: A Shifting Paradigm’, 7–8.
110 Smith, The Utility of Force, 277–8.
111 Berg, ‘Crime, Politics and Violence’, 1.
112 Ibid., 2.
113 Ibid.
114 Ibid.
115 Author’s interviews with MINUSTAH officials, 2010; compare UN, Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, UN Doc. S/2010/446, 1 Sept. 2010, paras. 8–9.
116 See generally James Cockayne and Adam Lupel (eds), Peace Operations and Organized Crime: Enemies or Allies? (London: Routledge 2011).
117 See James Cockayne, ‘Strengthening Mediation to Deal with Criminal Agendas’, Oslo Forum Paper No. 002, Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, Geneva, Nov. 2013.
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James Cockayne
James Cockayne is Head of Office at the United Nations for the United Nations University. His research and practice focuses on strategic responses to non-state armed groups, international security and international law.