Exactly one year ago, Haiti was shaken by another earthquake of several that have hit the country, situated on a complex network of tectonic plates and fault lines. In addition to being the deadliest since the catastrophic 2010 earthquake — more than 2,100 were killed and thousands more injured and homeless — the 2021 earthquake hit the Caribbean country at a particularly troubled time.
An accumulation of ills that included the Covid pandemic, the passage of tropical cyclones, a political crisis that culminated in the assassination of the president, the shortage of fuel and electricity and the resurgence of violent conflicts between gangs made Haiti an extremely dangerous and stressful life for its residents.
It is what the head of the OAS (Organization of American States) called the “worst of the worlds”, in a statement on the 8th in which he makes a rare self-criticism of the role of the international community in the Haitian crisis.
According to the note of the secretary general Luis Almagro, this situation is “a direct result of the actions of the endogenous forces of the country and of the international community”, whose presence for 20 years “was not able to facilitate the construction of a single institution” and was ” one of the strongest and most manifest failures ever implemented” in external cooperation.
The international community withdrew from Haiti, continues Almagro, leaving behind “chaos, destruction, violence”, and today “trying to make believe that a completely endogenous solution can prosper”.
In addition to the OAS, other institutions have released reports and notes on the worsening situation in Haiti, from Human Rights Watch to United Nations bodies — Brazilian Vice President Hamilton Mourão, for example, released a statement last month on behalf of of the UN Security Council, expressing concern about the sexual slavery and other abuses suffered by the Haitian population.
But the concrete presence of the international community on Haitian territory does not come close to what was recorded at other times, such as during the MINUSTAH Peace Mission, from 2004 to 2017, and after the 2010 earthquake.
“From 2011, 2012, many institutions began to leave, either because they went there to provide more punctual help, or because the sources of funding were decreasing”, recalls Brazilian anthropologist Pedro Braum, from Viva Rio, an NGO that works in Haiti since 2004. “Some did not leave, but they reduced operations, focused on other regions of the world. Today, for example, everyone turns their eyes to the War in Ukraine, everything is concentrated there. Haiti no longer has the importance ever had. There is an almost abandonment of the country.”
Braum, who lived in Port-au-Prince for about 14 years — he returned at the end of 2021, but should soon return to the country to work on the NGO’s actions —, says he still notices a breakdown on the part of some institutions due to the complexity of humanitarian work. over there. “I perceive fatigue, a tiredness of many organizations in the face of the difficulty of working in Haiti. For the local population, this is a tragedy.
According to the anthropologist, many people who were left homeless by the 2021 earthquake have still not been able to return home. But the great movement of internally displaced people in the country today is that of those fleeing not from the effects of natural disasters, but from the clashes of the gangs that dominate the slums of the Haitian capital.
“There are camps for people displaced because of the violence, some receiving humanitarian aid from foreign agencies or the Haitian government, others without any help at all. There are videos that show lines of people leaving with bags on their heads at times of greater confrontation”, he reports.
According to the Brazilian, who researched the action of Haitian gangs – locally called “bases” for his doctorate, the conflicts worsened from 2018 onwards, with the deepening of the economic and political crises in the country.
Last month, the topic returned to the international news after a violent battle between rival groups in the Cité Soleil region, on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, left more than 470 victims, including dead, wounded and missing.
“It was almost a trench war inside the favela,” says Braum. “There has always been this confrontation in the streets, even during the presence of UN troops, but from 2018 onwards it got worse. continues, also pointing to an expansion of these groups to other cities and access roads away from Port-au-Prince, some in rural areas.
Controlling just 2 kilometers of the national highway in Martissant, a suburb of the capital, these gangs gained power over the flow of goods to half the country, according to AFP. And since June 2021, armed groups have controlled the only paved road that leads to southern Haiti.
This dispute over territories – and for the money that comes from extorting merchants, among other criminal activities – is linked to the political dimension of these gangs. Congregated in federations, the “bases” have strong connections with leaders and political parties, which add aspirations for national power to their local interests.
Hostage to instability, the population lives a stressful day-to-day, with difficulty getting around, buying food or taking their children to school. Many dream of migrating, but the world is more closed to Haitians and it has been increasingly difficult to obtain visas and even transport to leave the country.
“This is all very frustrating,” says Braum. “There are people and political groups trying to improve the country, but this repetition of tragedies generates great tiredness in the population.”
