Criminal violence and gang influence in Haiti have grown throughout the year, reflecting its descent into political chaos as the government continues struggling to consolidate authority. Many of the country’s political seats remain vacant, including the presidency, after the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. Haiti has not held a presidential election since 2016 or parliamentary elections since 2019, resulting in a government that has lacked convincing leadership for years. As a result of the lack of authority, gang influence has surged since Moïse’s death, leading to escalating conflicts as the government attempts to retain its power and establish order. Haitian security forces have tried to quell gang activity, but its political institutions are insufficient, leading to persistent security issues. Corruption and inefficiency mar the justice system, the police force faces dropping morale and desertion, and the healthcare system is unable to provide accessible care to many citizens.

Unable to deal with the threat of gangs alone, Haiti has turned to international support in its fight, and the United Nations authorized a Gang Suppression Force (G.S.F.) to support Haitian security forces in September. While G.S.F. is not yet entirely organized, it aims to replace the Kenyan-led Multinational Security Support, a force intended to support and train Haitian police, but which failed due to understaffing, lack of funds, and other issues. The G.S.F. plans to have over 5,000 troops, compared to 1,000 from the M.S.S., and it is also authorized to act independently of the Haitian police. Whether the G.S.F. proves to be successful will remain to be seen until its deployment. It has a tall task as gangs control nearly 90% of the capital city, Port-au-Prince, according to the U.N.

While the international community has made efforts to support Haiti’s security forces, none of them have fostered lasting peace in the nation. Nations have sent humanitarian aid, troops, and money, but Haiti remains a broken country without a stable governmental system. This dysfunction is not surprising, as there has been minimal effort to build Haiti’s institutions, and it has struggled to maintain reliable democratic processes. Since gaining independence, Haiti has endured authoritarian regimes, coups, suspended elections, and political assassinations, demonstrating how inherently broken Haiti’s political system is. While gang activity continues threatening the country’s stability, many of Haiti’s woes come from its weak institutions as well.

The United Nations began peacekeeping missions in Haiti in 1994, restoring the country’s first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, to power after a coup in 1991, but these missions relied on security-heavy approaches. Peacekeeping forces helped rebuild the police force and establish a sense of justice, but instability persisted as another coup deposed Aristide in 2004. Later presidents faced cases of extreme opposition, corruption, and authoritarianism that resulted in protests, political violence, and the assassination of Moïse in 2021. The continuous unrest in Haiti does not just come from its gangs, but its government as well, which is why limited operations have had little success.

If international efforts hope to foster lasting peace in Haiti, they must not just neutralize gangs; they must tackle the country’s historically unreliable political system as well. Actions such as the U.N.’s peacekeeping missions, formation of the M.S.S., and aid shipments have helped some pieces of Haitian society, but have not created a sustainable political system. As a result, many of Haiti’s governmental issues caused its long history of coups, presidential overreach, and other dysfunction. Several of the gangs that threaten Haiti today, for example, were hired by politicians looking to achieve their goals through force. Notably, Haiti’s largest gang alliance, the G9, received significant support for Moïse’s administration before his death and is now one of the greatest threats to Haitian security. The nation has a history of arming civilians for political purposes dating back to the 1950s, carrying a dangerous precedent that has led to Haiti’s current gang problem.

The gang violence in Haiti today is a symptom of its failed political system, and solutions must establish credible, fair, and free democratic institutions instead of just quelling gang activities. Using military peacekeeping forces such as the G.S.F. to restore order in Haiti is only the first step of the process; the next is assisting and monitoring the Haitian government in governing the country. The United Nations, as well as the United States and other countries, should monitor Haitian elections to ensure that they are free of fraud and corruption, charges that have caused strife in Haiti’s past elections. This would foster much-needed trust in the Haitian system and promote peace as the country learns how to have peaceful transitions of power.

Along with facilitating elections, efforts to support Haitian democracy should include strengthening its judiciary, which is currently hampered by corrupt justices, poor prison conditions, and understaffed courts. International organizations like the United Nations or foreign ones like the American Bar Association could offer training to investigators, prosecutors, and judges to build a reliable and efficient justice system with public trust. The resulting judiciary would provide a counterbalance to Haiti’s executive branch and allow the government to hold speedy and fair trials, alleviating the backlog of people currently awaiting trial in Haiti.

Not all factors that contribute to Haiti’s instability are political, however. Centered along a tectonic fault line and within the hurricane belt, Haiti’s geographic positioning makes it especially vulnerable to natural disasters. Earthquakes, hurricanes, dry spells, and more have exacerbated Haiti’s political issues by devastating its physical and political infrastructure, eroding public trust in the government, which has failed to adequately provide relief services. International collaboration to build resilient infrastructure, like roads, drainage canals, and dams in Haiti, would relieve strain on the government to rebuild, as Haiti would require fewer repairs after natural disasters.

Haiti’s history of criminal violence and gang activity is historically tied to its government, dating back to the 1950s, when Haitian President François Duvalier formed a paramilitary secret police force. Loyal to Duvalier alone, the Tonton Macoute terrorized Haitian citizens and consolidated Duvalier’s authority, setting a precedent of leaders forming paramilitary forces in Haiti. The remnants of these forces still threaten Haiti today in the form of gangs, now working to take power from the country’s fallen government. The results have been devastating, killing tens of thousands of people, displacing over a million more, and pushing the government to the brink of collapse. Haiti needs international aid to restore peace in its borders, not just by punishing the rogue gangs but by rehabilitating the system that led to their creation in the first place.