A transformation from political to criminal violence? Politics, organised crime and the shifting functions of Haiti's urban armed groups

Abstract

In 2004, an unlikely combination of rural insurgent groups and urban gangs fought over the fate of President Aristide and brought Haiti to the brink of civil war. Ten years on, the country is still plagued by instances of armed violence. While most policy experts and practitioners seem to agree that over the last decade, violence transformed from a political into a criminal phenomenon, scholars remain divided over the question of whether Haiti's urban armed groups should be framed as a political movement or as hardened criminals. Drawing on semi-structured interviews and overt observation conducted during six months of fieldwork in Haiti in 2013, this article argues that it is crucial to refocus the analysis on the functions gangs fulfil on behalf of their politico-criminal sponsors. In contrast to the proclaimed internal shift from political to criminal motivation, this approach suggests that the constantly changing priorities of political entrepreneurs and organised crime groups shape the nature of the violent service offered by urban armed groups. The findings of this article mirror comparable dynamics in other countries in Latin America or sub-Saharan Africa and have crucial implications for international agencies working in the urban environment and dealing with urban armed groups.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Fiona Macaulay, Owen Greene, Neil Cooper and the anonymous reviewer at CSD for helpful comments made on earlier drafts of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

Moritz Schuberth is a PhD candidate in Peace Studies at the University of Bradford. His research focuses on non-state armed groups, peace-building, state-building and urban violence He is the author of recent articles in Africa SpectrumPeace, Conflict and Development and Strategic Review for Southern Africa.

^1. I conducted 35 interviews with community leaders, religious leaders, current and former gang members, local NGOs, CSOs, peace initiatives and a number of international agencies working in communities with gang presence (Concern International, International Committee of the Red Cross, International Organisation for Migration, International Rescue Committee, Médecins Sans Frontières, USAID, Viva Rio, UNDP, UN-Habitat, UN OCHA, as well as the civilian and military sections of MINUSTAH). In order to increase the validity of the research, I triangulated the data by carrying out overt observation within informal settlements in Port-au-Prince between June and December 2013. For instance, I gave weekly English lessons in Cité Soleil to local youth and I repeatedly spent several days and nights with cultural and religious groups in Cité Soleil. However, it has to be noted that access to certain areas in Cité Soleil was more restricted from October 2013 onwards due to increasing incidents of fighting between gangs and police and between different gangs themselves.

^2. For studies that give more attention to the role of rural paramilitaries, see Hallward, Damming the Flood; Podur, Haiti's New Dictatorship; Sprague, Paramilitarism and the Assault on Democracy.

^3.Klein and Maxson, Street Gang Patterns and Policies, 4.

^4.Hagedorn, ‘Gangs in Late Modernity’, 309.

^5.Moestue and Muggah, Social Integration Ergo Stabilization, 51.

^6.Chimè is the Creole version of the French term chimère, referring ‘both to a mythical, fire-breathing demon and the French word for a wild or upsetting dream’. Deibert, Notes from the Last Testament, 95. Baz is the Creole word for base and ‘denotes moral and political communities at different scales, from a few friends to a network of cliques’. Kivland, ‘Becoming a Force in the Zone’, 677.

^7. OPs often present themselves as ‘community development-oriented groups’ and compete for funds from international agencies. See Erickson, Exploiting Inequalities, 27; Neiburg et al., Leaders in Bel Air. On baz, see also International Crisis Group, Haiti: Security; Lunde, The Violent Lifeworlds; Muggah, ‘The Political Economy of Statebuilding’.

^8. See Muggah, Securing Haiti's Transition; International Crisis Group, Spoiling Security in Haiti; Fatton Jr., Haiti's Predatory Republic; Kovats-Bernat, ‘Factional Terror’; Dupuy, The Prophet and Power.

^9. See Krause and Milliken, ‘Introduction’; Lucchi, ‘Between War and Peace’.

^10.Hazen, ‘Understanding Gangs as Armed Groups’; Rodgers and Muggah, ‘Gangs as Non-State Armed Groups’.

^11.Thrasher, The Gang.

^12.Hagedorn, ‘The Global Impact of Gangs’.

^13.Adelman, ‘Cultures of Violence’; Koonings, ‘Shadows of Violence’; Pécaut, ‘From the Banality of Violence’; Koonings and Kruijt, Societies of Fear.

^14.Pearce, ‘Perverse State Formation’, 288.

^15.Brigety and Ondiak, Haiti's Changing Tide; Muggah, ‘The Effects of Stabilisation’; Kolbe and Muggah, Haiti's Urban Crime Wave?.

^16.Kontos et al., Gangs and Society; Brotherton and Barrios, The Almighty Latin King; Brotherton, ‘Beyond Social Reproduction’.

^17.Brotherton, ‘Youth Subcultures’, 119.

^18. Interview with ICRC, Port-au-Prince, 28 November 2013.

^19.Dupuy, The Prophet and Power.

^20.Hagedorn, People and Folks.

^21.Sánchez-Jankowski, Islands in the Street, 22

^22.Padilla, The Gang as an American Enterprise, 186.

^23. Ibid, 101.

^24.Venkatesh, American Project, 108f.

^25.Brotherton and Barrios, The Almighty Latin King, 39.

^26. See Anderson, ‘Vigilantes, Violence and the Politics’; de Smedt, ‘“No Raila, No Peace!”’.

^27.Kovats-Bernat, ‘Factional Terror’, 130.

^28. On Brazil, see Leeds, ‘Cocaine and Parallel Polities’; Arias, Drugs and Democracy. On Jamaica, see Sives, ‘Changing Patrons’; Clarke, ‘Politics, Violence and Drugs’.

^29.Sullivan and Bunker, ‘Drug Cartels’; Bunker and Sullivan, ‘Integrating Feral Cities’.

^30.Sullivan, ‘Maras Morphing’.

^31.Manwaring, ‘Gangs and Coups D'Streets’, 511.

^32.Rodgers and Muggah distinguish between the ‘more localised, homegrown’ pandillas which are still the most common type of gangs in Nicaragua, and the maras which have ‘transnational roots’ and are the predominant type of gangs in the Northern Triangle (El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras). Rodgers and Muggah, ‘Gangs as Non-State Armed Groups’, 305.

^33.Rodgers, ‘Living in the Shadow of Death’. It should be noted here that Rodgers and Baird are critical of the ‘rather deterministic manner’ of Sullivan's three-generation model. Rodgers and Baird, ‘Understanding Gangs’, 6.

^34.Sullivan, ‘Maras Morphing’.

^35.Jütersonke et al., ‘Gangs, Urban Violence, and Security Interventions’; Cruz, ‘Central American Maras’; Zilberg, Space of Detention.

^36.Hagedorn, A World of Gangs, 9.

^37. Concerning Comando Vermelho, see Penglase, ‘The Bastard Child of the Dictatorship’.

^38.Rodgers, ‘Slum Wars of the 21st Century’.

^39.World Bank, World Development Report 2011.

^40. See Koonings and Kruijt, Armed Actors; Moser and McIlwaine, Encounters with Violence. Rodgers questions the validity of this proclaimed shift, arguing that ‘contemporary urban violence can in fact be seen as a structural continuation […] of the political conflicts of the past’. Rodgers, ‘Slum Wars of the 21st Century’, 950. For another critical perspective, see Pearce, ‘Perverse State Formation’.

^41.Kaldor, New and Old Wars.

^42.Berdal and Malone, Greed & Grievance; Ballentine and Sherman, The Political Economy of Armed Conflict; Collier and Hoeffler, ‘Greed and Grievance in Civil War’.

^43.Collier, ‘Rebellion as a Quasi-Criminal Activity’, 839f. While Collier's greed thesis has been criticised as reductionist in relation to armed conflicts, the model appears more suitable for explaining the involvement of gangs in criminal activities such as kidnapping and drug trafficking. Cramer, Civil War is Not a Stupid Thing, 134; Davis, ‘Non-State Armed Actors’, 222; Wallensteen, ‘Theoretical Developments’.

^44.Grävingholt et al., Development Cooperation; Harroff-Tavel, ‘Violence and Humanitarian Action’; Carpenter, ‘Civilian Protection in Mexico & Guatemala’.

^45.Suhrke, ‘The Peace in Between’, 6; Muggah, ‘Securing the Peace’.

^46.del Frate and De Martino, ‘Everyday Dangers’, 12f.

^47.Faubert, Evaluation of UNDP Assistance; Mobekk and Street, Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration; Peirce, ‘Protection from Whom?’; Mobekk, ‘MINUSTAH and the Need’; Braga, ‘MINUSTAH and the Security Environment’; Mendelson-Forman, ‘An Illusory Peace’. For the perspective that the violent period leading to Aristide's ouster in 2004 constituted indeed a civil war, see Kovats-Bernat, ‘Factional Terror’.

^48.Howard, UN Peacekeeping in Civil Wars, 5; Muggah, ‘Securing the Peace’, 227; Paris and Sisk, ‘Introduction’, 2.

^49.UNSC, ‘Resolution 1542’, 3.

^50.Faubert, Evaluation of UNDP Assistance, 12.

^51.International Crisis Group, Haiti: Security, 5.

^52.World Bank, Violence in the City; International Crisis Group, Towards a Post-MINUSTAH Haiti, 7.

^53. Interviews with current and former staff of MINUSTAH, Port-au-Prince, October and November 2013.

^54. Interview with ICRC, Port-au-Prince, 28 November 2013.

^55.del Frate and De Martino, ‘Everyday Dangers’, 9.

^56.Ramachandran, ‘Haiti: Still Waiting for Recovery’.

^57.UN, Report of the United Nations in Haiti.

^58.Willman and Marcelin, ‘“If they could make us disappear”’, 519.

^59. Interview with CVR (Community Violence Reduction) section of MINUSTAH, Port-au-Prince, 31 October 2014.

^60. Interview with reintegrated gang member, Port-au-Prince, 22 October 2013. Translated from French by author.

^61. This perspective underlines the functions of violence and downplays its more expressive aspects. See Richards, Fighting for the Rainforest; Cramer, Civil War is Not a Stupid Thing. Explicitly rejected by this school of thought are approaches that seek to explain violence as the seed of a senseless ‘new barbarism’, for instance in Kaplan, The Coming Anarchy.

^62. On violent entrepreneurs/specialists see Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia; Volkov, Violent Entrepreneurs; Tilly, The Politics of Collective Violence.

^63.Moser and Rodgers, Change, Violence and Insecurity, 35.

^64.Rodgers, ‘Gangs, Violence and Asset Building’, 180.

^65. Interview with Viva Rio, Pétion-Ville, 7 November 2013.

^66. Interview with MINUSTAH official, Port-au-Prince, 28 October 2013. Translated from French by author.

^67. This section is based on an interview with a former programme co-ordinator of MINUSTAH CVR, Pétion-Ville, 15 October 2013. On the political ambitions of gang leaders, see also Neiburg et al., Leaders in Bel Air; Erickson, Exploiting Inequalities.

^68. See also Cockayne, ‘Winning Haiti's Protection Competition’; Kemp et al., The Elephant in the Room.

^69. Interview with MINUSTAH official, Port-au-Prince, 28 October 2013. Translated from French by author.

^70. Interview with security co-ordinator of Viva Rio, Pétion-Ville, 22 October 2013. Translated from French by author.

^71. For instance Carey, ‘Militarization Without Civil War’; Becker, ‘Gangs, Netwar, and “Community Counterinsurgency”’.

^72.Fleurimond, Haïti de la Crise à l'Occupation. On the involvement in drug trafficking, see David Adams, ‘Taint of Drugs Reaching Haiti's Upper Echelons’. St. Petersburg Times, 3 April 2004.

^73.Carey, ‘Militarization Without Civil War’; Dupuy, ‘From Jean-Bertrand Aristide to Gerard Latortue’.

^74.Neiburg et al., Leaders in Bel Air.

^75. Interview with baz member, Port-au-Prince, 22 October 2013. See also Kivland, A Report on the Recent Changes; Lunde, The Violent Lifeworlds.

^76.Dupuy, The Prophet And Power; Perito, Haiti: Hope for the Future.

^77. Interview with reintegrated gang member, Port-au-Prince, 22 October 2013. Translated from French by author.

^78.Mobekk, ‘MINUSTAH and the Need’, 116.

^79. Interview with Haitian humanitarian worker, Port-au-Prince, 28 November 2013.

^80. Interview with ICRC in Haiti, Port-au-Prince, 28 November 2013.

^81.Carey, ‘Militarization Without Civil War’; Kovats-Bernat, ‘Factional Terror’, 130; Dupuy, The Prophet And Power.

^82.Griffin, Haiti Human Rights Investigation; Hallward, Damming the Flood.

^83. Interviews with Viva Rio, UNDP, ICRC, community leaders and international experts, Haiti, September and October 2013. The elections were originally scheduled for 2011 but have been postponed numerous times. At the time of my fieldwork they were due to take place in 2014 but have since been put back to 2015. The delay in the elections has led to a serious political crisis and sometimes violent confrontations between demonstrators and police.

^84. Interview with Haitian humanitarian worker, Port-au-Prince, 28 November 2013.

^85. Interview with community leader, Cité Soleil, 26 October 2013.

^86. Interview with baz member, Port-au-Prince, 22 October 2013. Translated from French by author.

^87. Conversations with residents and community leaders, Cité Soleil, September 2013.

^88. Interview with international expert, Pétion-Ville, 15 October 2013. Translated from French by author.

^89.Dupuy, ‘From Jean-Bertrand Aristide to Gerard Latortue’.

^90.Lunde, The Violent Lifeworlds.

^91.Muggah, ‘The Political Economy of Statebuilding’.

^92.Amnesty International, Haiti: Disarmament Delayed; International Crisis Group, Haiti: Prison Reform; Donais and Knorr, ‘Peacebuilding from Below’.

^93.Kovats-Bernat, ‘Factional Terror’; Mobekk, MINUSTAH: DDR and Police; Lunde, The Violent Lifeworlds.

^94.Chomsky et al., Getting Haiti Right This Time, 165; Robinson, An Unbroken Agony.

^95. Interview with reintegrated gang member, Port-au-Prince, 31 October 2013. Translated from Haitian Creole by author.

^96. Interview with Concern Worldwide, Pétion-Ville, 15 October 2013.

^97.Hammond, Saving Port-au-Prince.

^98. Interview with international expert, Pétion-Ville, 15 October 2013. Translated from French by author.

^99.International Crisis Group, Haiti: Security.

^100. A number of informants also mentioned the implication of Haitian-American deportees in kidnappings, who supposedly use gang-ruled neighbourhoods as operational bases. See also Ginger Thompson, ‘A New Scourge Afflicts Haiti: Kidnappings’. New York Times, 6 June 2005.

^101. Interview with international expert, Pétion-Ville, 15 October 2013. See also RNDDH, Affaire Brandt.

^102. Interview with CVR section of MINUSTAH, Port-au-Prince, 28 October 2013.

^103. Interview with MINUSTAH official, Port-au-Prince, 28 October 2013. Translated by author from the French ‘gang de clan familial’.

^104. Jacqueline Charles, ‘Haiti Kidnapping: Shrouded in Secrecy’. Miami Herald, 19 November 2012.

^105. See Perito and Dziedzic, Haiti: Confronting the Gangs; Cockayne, ‘Winning Haiti's Protection Competition’. It has also been argued that urban gangs and the rural paramilitaries—former enemies who brought the country to the brink of civil war in 2004—came to work together because of their shared connection to the same drug traffickers. Donais, ‘Back to Square One’.

^106.Donais, ‘Haiti and the Dilemmas’, 764.

^107.Kemp et al., The Elephant in the Room.

^108. Jacqueline Charles, ‘Suspected Kidnapper Arrested in Haiti, Opposition Senator Stopped’. Miami Herald, 8 May 2014; RNDDH, Affaire Woodly Etheard.

^109. This expression is borrowed from Bayart et al., The Criminalization of the State in Africa.

^110.Cockayne, ‘Winning Haiti's Protection Competition’.

^111.Mobekk and Street, Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration, 3.

^112. Interview with CVR section of MINUSTAH, Port-au-Prince, 31 October 2014.

^113.Perito and Dziedzic, Haiti: Confronting the Gangs; Kolbe, Revisiting Haiti's Gangs.

^114. See Mobekk, ‘MINUSTAH and the Need’; Becker, ‘Gangs, Netwar, and “Community Counterinsurgency”’. Nevertheless, most residents would prefer a reliable police force over urban gangs who act as vigilantes. The Small Arms Survey reported that 73.3 per cent of respondents agreed that ‘outlawing armed groups would make my community safer’. Kolbe and Muggah, ‘Securing the State’. The World Bank found that only 0.3 per cent of respondents would turn to a gang leader when victimised, compared to 75 per cent who would report the incident to the police. World Bank, Violence in the City.

^115.Cockayne, ‘Winning Haiti's Protection Competition’.

^116.Peirce, ‘Protection from Whom?’. See also Tilly, ‘War Making and State Making’.

^117.Hammond, Saving Port-au-Prince.

^118.Berg, Crime, Politics and Violence.

^119. Interview with MINUSTAH official, Port-au-Prince, 28 October 2013. Translated from French by author.

^120.Neiburg et al., Leaders in Bel Air.

^121. Interviews with ICRC, Viva Rio and community leaders, Port-au-Prince, October and November 2013.

^122. Interviews with Viva Rio, Pétion-Ville, October and November 2013. Tambou Lapè is essentially trying to bind urban armed groups to adhere to certain rules within their own community.

^123.Erickson, Exploiting Inequalities, 29.

^124. Interview with CVR section of MINUSTAH, Port-au-Prince, 28 October 2013.

^125. Interview with Viva Rio, Pétion-Ville, 22 October 2013. Translated from French by author.

^126. Interviews with gang members, community leaders and MINUSTAH, Port-au-Prince, October and November 2013.

^127. Interview with UNDP, Port-au-Prince, 17 October 2013. See also Roberson Alphonse, ‘A Simon-Pelé, inventaire de la terreur ordinaire’. Le Nouvelliste, 9 May 2014.

^128.Chabal and Daloz, Africa Works, 83.

^129. Ibid, 83–84.

^130. The observations described in this paragraph have been made during numerous conversations with residents in Cité Soleil. Most interlocutors held elite interests responsible for meddling in the affairs of their community and stirring up local conflicts. Concerning gang members, many deplored the violent acts of recent groups such as 117, while others justified the criminal activities of the more established baz.

^131.Dudley, ‘Drug Trafficking Organizations’; Inkster and Comolli, Drugs, Insecurity and Failed States.

^132.Rozema, ‘Urban DDR-Processes’.

^133.Guáqueta, ‘The Way Back In’; Hristov, Blood and Capital; Felbab-Brown, Shooting Up.

^134.Branch and Cheeseman, ‘Democratization, Sequencing, and State Failure’; de Smedt, “No Raila, No Peace!”.

^135.Katumanga, ‘A City Under Siege’; Gastrow, Termites at Work; Schuberth, ‘The Impact of Drug Trafficking’.