‘The Wild West’: Desperation is rampant in Haiti as gangs, vigilantes spread

This article is published in association with United Nations.

With armed gangs expanding their influence, self-defence groups morphing into gang-like entities and public officials acting with impunity, Haiti is slowly becoming something like the Wild West, according to William O’Neill, the UN’s designated expert on human rights for the Caribbean island nation.  

And if you ask Mr. O’Neill what is creating conditions akin to the Wild West, the answer is desperation. With over 1.3 million Haitians displaced and half of the country going hungry, desperation is not some abstract idea in Haiti — it is a lived reality.  

Nevertheless, Mr. O’Neill remains hopeful that the devastation in Haiti can be stopped — if only the world is willing to commit to it.  

UN News: Have you ever met a gang leader or someone in a gang? What  pushed them to join gangs?

William O’Neill: I have never met a gang leader. I have met some young boys who were in a gang, who had been arrested by the police.  

© OHCHR/Marion Mondain

William O’Neill (right), the UN’s designated expert on the human rights situation in Haiti talks to a Haitian police officer in Port-au-Prince.

One of the boys we interviewed was about 12, and he was a street child. His family had abandoned him. He was living on his wits, stealing, begging. And at one point, a gang member approached him and said, “We’ll give you a hot meal a day. We’ll give you some money every week, but you’re going to be a lookout.” 

The boy did that for several months, until the police caught on and then they arrested him. The others we interviewed had similar stories of deep poverty, total lack of options and lack of hope. The gangs in many areas — believe it or not — present something that looks good.

UN News: The most recent report on human rights had many heart wrenching examples. What is it like for people to live with brutal violence hanging over their heads?

Mr. O’Neill: It’s hell on earth. Every day I’m getting information, and people describe to me just how horrible it is. It’s like a mafia, a criminal mafia that lives off the population. 

I’ve never seen anything like it. The impact of violence on economic, social and cultural rights — in addition to the right to life, the right to bodily integrity and the right to access to food, health care, clean water, shelter, education — have all been severely compromised. 

© UNICEF/Ralph Tedy Erol

Thousands of families continue to flee their homes in Port-au-Prince due to gang-related violence.

UN News: When you have conversations with people in Port-au-Prince, what do you say to them when they’re going through “hell on earth?”  

Mr. O’Neill: That’s one of the frustrating parts of our work. The humanitarian people sometimes have a bag of rice to give them, which I don’t. It’s hard. We say how important it is to portray what really is happening. Part of it is the advocacy role, so that we can convey to the policymakers this is what’s really happening.  

At some point, we hope that the perpetrators will face justice. But we can’t make false promises. We say it’s important to set the record straight and for fighting impunity, which is one of the biggest problems in Haiti. It’s often been the case that people have gotten away with murder, and a country can’t survive like that.  

UN News: The report singled out the public prosecutor in Miragoâne as someone who killed upwards of 80 people with total “impunity.” Is that eroding trust in the government?

Mr. O’Neill: Perversely, the population takes the opposite view — he’s extremely popular. He is seen as standing up to the gangs, as keeping people “safe.”  

I have raised his case with two different ministers of justice in my visits. I said, “You can’t have this. You can’t have a prosecutor who’s executing people.” And they nod their heads, they say they know about it, but because he is so popular, people are afraid to confront him.  

Why is he popular? It’s because the institutions have failed. It’s this vicious cycle that as long as the institutions are still so weak, you have the Wild West like in old American movies, where the sheriff is the judge, jury and executioner, all in one. And that’s why you also have the self-defence groups.  

© UNOCHA/Giles Clarke

Barricades preventing the flow of traffic are regularly erected in Port-au-Prince

UN News: Are the self-defence groups also popular?  

Mr. O’Neill: It depends. The groups are quite controversial. In some cases, the groups start acting like gangs — they will demand money and get very violent. If you’re a young man that they don’t recognize and have a tattoo or don’t have ID, they will kill the person on the spot and burn the body.  

UN News: The report also noted that the security forces are using drones more and more to target the gangs. Why has the government started using drones now?  

Mr. O’Neill: Desperation again — the gang leaders are ensconced in very well protected, well guarded areas. It’s physically very hard for an under-resourced national police and Kenyan led multinational force to actually grab a gang leader.  

© UNICEF/Roger LeMoyne and U.S. CDC

Gang leaders are entrenched in dense urban areas.

Human rights problems are quite serious with this approach. Haiti is not technically an armed conflict. Police are only allowed to use deadly force in very limited circumstances when their own lives are in danger, where a third party’s life is in danger or they have no other option.  

And that’s a problem — the gang leader, throughout his tenure as a gang leader, is posing a threat, but at that moment, is he threatening the police officer or a third party? And are there other methods you could still try that are not lethal?  

I find it hard to see where you meet those conditions with these drones. They call them kamikaze drones. They just send them in, and they hope that when it explodes, it kills a gang leader.

UN News: Is there hope for Haiti’s future?  

Mr. O’Neill: Haiti is not a lost cause. It’s doable. Not easy, if it were easy, it would have happened by now. But the Security Council has identified three key steps — a multinational force that’s fully equipped, sanctions and stopping the flow of weapons from the United States.  

WFP/Theresa Piorr

UN agencies continue to provide life-saving humanitarian aid in Haiti.

And if you did all those three things at once, with robustness, you would be able to overcome the gangs fairly quickly because they’re not popular. The people hate them.  

When I look at Sudan or Gaza or Ukraine, I sometimes just throw up my hands. But in Haiti, we can really do this if we just do what’s already authorized by the Security Council.