Gangs’ expansion and the pressure on public security strategies.

Gang attacks carried out far from downtown Port-au-Prince are putting immense pressure on the Haitian National Police (HNP) and Multinational Security Support (MSS) forces. Since its deployment in June 2024, the mission has faced challenges as great as the expectations it creates among the population and the importance it assumes in the eyes of the international community.

Although it is still too early to draw definitive conclusions, the MSS has not yet enabled the HNP to reverse the balance of power with the gangs. By land, the capital remains just as isolated from the rest of the country, with gangs controlling the main highways, while having driven up the cost of extortion on the transport of goods, particularly in the Canaan area, an essential passageway to the north and centre of the country. Meanwhile, the total closure of the Gressier area, a unique gateway to the south of Haiti, has isolated a third of the country, which now depends on coastal shipping for its supplies.

Figure 1 Expansion of gangs in Haiti.

Sources: Field information collected by the GI-TOC and data produced in collaboration with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime

From an operational and tactical point of view, the police and the MSS are faced with several decisions. First and foremost is their capacity — or inability — to deploy men, which has been singled out for criticism, particularly during the gang attacks on Ganthier (see story 2). Public security forces are still not in a position to deploy and maintain a constant presence in order to hold the territory. This is due to the dangerous nature of the environment, the lack of human and technical resources available to the HNP and the MSS, and the strategy adopted by the gangs, especially since March 2024, of systematically destroying public infrastructure — mainly police stations and barracks — in controlled or conquered territories. The public forces have nowhere to settle in safety.

In this context, the MSS mission and HNP are forced into offence–defence operations with gangs, without being able to occupy the terrain for more than a few days at a time. These operational shortcomings benefit the gangs, who continue to challenge public security forces. In Ganthier, for example, the gangs returned to the town several times, carrying out further expulsions of the population and extensive urban destruction. They then started to construct a double barrier wall on the national road leading to Ganthier with the aim of preventing public forces from advancing into the area. Although the HNP seems to have succeeded in intervening and destroying the encroaching wall, it remains to be seen how the situation develops, and what the gangs’ attitude will be to the public forces.

Meanwhile, media outlets have pointed to difficulties in coordinating between the HNP and the MSS mission. This is said to be due to language and communication problems, with Haitian sources complaining of Kenyans speaking English or Swahili during operations. There is also, apparently, resentment among some Haitian troops towards the foreign agents’ better living conditions and higher pay.² In this context, several sources have emphasized the importance of making efforts to better coordinate between the HNP and the MSS mission, including at the police agent level, on top of senior officer or management level.

Difficult as it may be, it is essential to build trust and collaboration between the HNP and the MSS. This is especially important at times when other countries are preparing to deploy forces to Haiti, adding to the mix of nationalities, languages and operational cultures present in the country. In terms of overall coordination of operations, it is essential that the HNP and Haitian government, embodied by Prime Minister Garry Conille in his additional role as minister of the interior, have the capacity to draw up short- and medium-term strategies, and implement them on the ground, with their partners.

This appears to have been more the case in the interior of Port-au-Prince since late August and early September. The government had made a point of launching operations against gangs in the particularly tense Solino district. These operations, carried out over several consecutive days in September, seemed to have stabilized the front against the gangs in Bel Air, in the heart of the capital. During a field visit, the GI-TOC observed that the police had created a buffer zone between Bel Air and Solino - destroying numberous houses in the process - and thus eased the pressure on Solino exerted by the criminal groups. This buffer zone did not, however, prevent stray bullets from being fired in September and October, resulting in several victims, followed by massive gang attacks on the Solino district from 17 October onwards, displacing over 5 000 people.

Finally, the HNP, the government and the MSS mission continue to be caught up in a communication war against criminal groups. Until mid-July, it was difficult to discern a coordinated communication strategy among the various public institutions, as each seemed to be pulling its own strings. This contributed to exacerbating the vacuum created by the lack of strategic communication that had existed since the previous government, and into which the gangs rushed, saturating social networks and certain media with videos and interventions by their leaders. To counter this phenomenon, the HNP, the government and the MSS mission have stepped up their communication efforts. This is a positive development. Institutional communication cannot mask or replace the victories, however modest, that the HNP and MSS need to turn the tide against the gangs, but better communication on the objectives and results of their police operations is essential to establish their legitimacy with the Haitian population.

Notes