Prospects for Post-Minustah Security in Haiti

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Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Athena R. Kolbe has served as an assistant professor of social work with the University of North Carolina since 2017. She received her PhD in Political Science and Social Work at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor in 2015 and holds graduate degrees in social work, theology, and political science. Dr Kolbe's professional experience includes working as a journalist, a researcher, and a clinical social worker. Dr Kolbe's areas of interest include international social work, human security, disasters, and organized armed violence.

ORCID

Athena R. Kolbe http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4170-8262

Notes

1 See Sprague-Silgado, “Global Capitalism”; Krygier, “Daily Protests are Paralyzing Haiti. Here’s Why.”

2 Schroeder, Building Security in Post-conflict States.

3 Burt, “Haiti’s Army.”

4 Haiti’s first democratically elected government was overthrown on September 28, 1991 by Haitian military officers and the Chief of the National Police, Michel François. The coup regime never transitioned to an internationally recognized or functioning government; rather they held power for three years through the use and threat of violent repression against the population. United Nations Security Council Resolution 940 (July 31, 1994) authorized a United States-led multinational force to restore democracy and on October 15, 1994 the coup regime stepped down from power and Aristide was returned to Haiti to complete his term in office.

5 Kolbe, Reintegrating Members of Armed Groups; Lemay-Hébert, “United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti.”

6 Kolbe and Muggah, “Securing the State.”

7 Ibid.; Neild, “Democratic Police Reforms”; Sweeney, “Stuck in Haiti.”

8 Mobekk, UN Peace Operations; Verner and Egset, “Social Resilience”; Neumayer, “Good Policy Can Lower Violent Crime”; Harriott, “Crime Trends in the Caribbean”; De Albuquerque and McElroy, “Tourism and Crime”; Kolbe and Hutson, “Human Rights Abuse.”

9 Hallward, “Option Zero in Haiti”; Kolbe and Hutson, “Human Rights Abuse”; Gros, “Towards a Taxonomy of Failed States”; Schulz, “Haiti”; Ehrhart and Schnabel, Security Sector Reform; Stoker and Westermann, “Expeditionary Police Advising.”

10 Donais, “Security Sector Reform”; Kolbe and Muggah, “Securing the State.”

11 Cockayne, “The Futility of Force?”; Rivard Piché, “Security Sector Reform in Haiti”; Kolbe, Reintegrating Members of Armed Groups.

12 Kolbe and Hutson, “Human Rights Abuse.”

13 Kolbe, Reintegrating Members of Armed Groups; McDougal et al., “Ammunition Leakage”; Mobekk, UN Peace Operations.

14 Kolbe and Hutson, “Human Rights Abuse”; Sprague-Silgado, “Global Capitalism”; Rivard Piché, “Security Sector Reform in Haiti.”

15 International Crisis Group, “Towards a Post-MINUSTAH Haiti.”

16 UN Security Council Resolutions 1529 (2004) and 1542 (2004) set out the mandate of MINUSTAH. Led by Brazil, Canada, the European Union, and the US and involving more than 40 countries, the large-scale deployment of international peacekeepers and police support marked an important turning point. With nearly 9,000 blue helmets and 3,000 international police deployed, the mission’s primary objectives were to ensure stability through enhancing PNH capacities, extending the rule of law through improved delivery of justice services, and rebuilding the country’s dilapidated judicial system.

17 Berry, “Non-democratic Transitions”; Carey, “Militarization without Civil War”; Chomsky, Farmer, and Goodman, Getting Haiti Right This Time; Dupuy, “From Jean-Bertrand Aristide”; Ferreiro Gómez, The Discursive Construction; Hallward, Damming the Flood; Kolbe and Hutson, “Human Rights Abuse”; Kovats-Bernat, “Factional Terror”; Macdonald, “Parachute Journalism”; Mobekk, UN Peace Operations; Sánchez Nieto, “Brazil’s Grand Design”; Soderlund, “US Network Television News”; Walby & Monaghan, “Haitian Paradox.”

18 Camilien, Reintegration of Former Soldiers; Kolbe, Reintegrating Members of Armed Groups; Kolbe and Muggah, “Securing the State”; Sprague, Paramilitarism and the Assault on Democracy.

19 Heine and Thompson, “Introduction: Haiti’s Security Challenges.”

20 Kolbe, Reintegrating Members of Armed Groups.

21 Fortin and Yves-François, “Haïti et la reforme”; Kolbe and Muggah, “Securing the State”, Kolbe, Reintegrating Members of Armed Groups.

22 Caparini and Osland, “MINUSTAH's Specialized Police Team”; Caparini and Osland, “SGBV Capacity-Building”; Joseph and Phillips, “Judicial Corruption in Haiti”; Kolbe and Muggah, “Securing the State”; Lemay-Hébert, “United Nations Stabilization Mission”; Tanner and Dupont, “Police Work.”

23 Data collected by the author as part of a larger study on policing and the reinstitution of the Armed Forces of Haiti.

24 Kolbe, HiCN Working Paper 147; Kolbe et al., “Mortality, Crime”; Kolbe and Muggah, “Haiti’s Urban Crime Wave?”; Kolbe, Muggah and Puccio, The Economic Costs of Crime; Schuller and Morales, Tectonic Shifts.

25 Michel Martelly took office on 14 May 2011. For more on police corruption during this time, see Kolbe, Muggah, and Puccio, The Economic Costs of Crime.

26 Kolbe and Muggah, “Securing the State”; Kolbe, Muggah, and Puccio, The Economic Costs of Crime; Joseph and Phillips, “Judicial Corruption in Haiti.”

27 Roth, “Human Rights Watch Annual Country Report”; Lanham et al., “‘We’re Going to Leave You’.”

28 For more on these and other recent incidents involving the PNH, see local media including Haiti Liberte, Le Nouvelliste, News Flash, and Radio Tele Ginen or visit the PNH monitoring site for the National Human Rights Defense Network (RNDDH) http://rnddh.org/en/monitoring/overview-of-monitoring-program/pnh-context/. It should be noted that on 30 November 2017, during a symposium organized by the General Inspectorate of the National Police of Haiti (IGPNH) in Port-au-Prince, which was widely broadcast on local radio stations, Michel Ange Gédéon, the Director General of the PNH, denied that abuse by police is endemic in the post-MINUSTAH period.

29 Johnson, “A UN-backed Police Force.”

30 Daugherty, “Congress Holds First Hearing on Haiti.”

31 Ibid.; Krygier, “Daily Protests are Paralyzing Haiti.”

32 Lemaire et al. “Haitian Women’s Rights Groups Demand Justice.”

33 Charles, “Mutiny Over Cooking Charcoal in Haiti Prison Led to Gang Rapes.”

34 Ibid.; Lemaire et al. “Haitian Women’s Rights Groups Demand Justice.”

35 Haitian Times, “Haiti Police Call for Right to Unionize.”

36 Freedman and Lemay-Hebert, “Jistis ak Reparasyon”; Ivers and Guillaume, “The Price of Peace?”; Lewnard et al., “Strategies to Prevent Cholera”; Wilson, “The Use of Intelligence”.

37 Kolbe, “‘It’s Not a Gift’”; Müller and Steinke, “Criminalising Encounters”; Vandenberg, “Peacekeeping, Human Trafficking.”

38 Burt, “Haiti’s Army”; International Crisis Group, “Towards a Post-MINUSTAH Haiti”; Sprague, Paramilitarism and the Assault on Democracy; Kolbe, Reintegrating Members of Armed Groups; Muggah, “The Political Economy of Statebuilding”; Schuberth, “A Transformation from Political to Criminal Violence?”

39 Daugherty, “Congress Holds First Hearing on Haiti”; Krygier, “Daily Protests are Paralyzing Haiti”; Marsh and Paultre, “Haiti's President Warns of Humanitarian Crisis.”

40 Kolbe, Reintegrating Members of Armed Groups; Schuberth, “A Transformation from Political to CriminalViolence?"

41 See, for instance, Kolbe, Reintegrating Members of Armed Groups; Muggah, “The Political Economy of Statebuilding”; and the 2017 documentary, “It Stays with You: Use of Force by UN Peacekeepers in Haiti”.