INTERVIEW/Robert Muggah

There are very big words present in Haiti’s recent history, revolution, poverty, natural disasters, gangs, dictators, soldiers in foreign fatigues. But things are not so simple. According to Small Arms Survey Director of Research Robert Muggah, (photo) there are a many misconceptions about Haiti that need to be quickly revised, and the time for that is now, with the mounting pressure for reconstruction after the 12th of January earthquake left so much of the country a shambles, and before new threats materialize with the coming rains.

Robert Muggah, a small arms specialist and development consultant and a Principle of the SecDev Group in Canada, has been doing research on Haiti for a number of years, and he begins by undoing what would be most obvious. "Haiti is not a post conflict situation, rather it presents a confounding case of ‘no war/no peace’”. He reminds us that after a harsh period, gang violence was receding, its violence rates at or well below Latin American levels.

“Reports of violence prior to the quake were exaggerated,” said Muggah. Haiti’s gangs, for example, are “much more complex than allowed for”, and improperly understood, instead, in a nation where 70 percent of the population are under the age of 30 “young men have been stigmatized”. In the Port-au-Prince areas of Carrefour through the IBSA and in Bel Air’s Peace Drums Viva Rio initiative, he stresses, some of these groups have engaged in social work, novel initiatives like these should not go unnoticed.

Haitian society is also not necessarily defined by what it does not have, according to Muggah, a lot of daily life is built in networks that often resolves problems without recourse to official institutions, such as, for example, the police.

The MINUSTAH and Haitian police have in Muggah’s view had an important role in guaranteeing security, but they are also based on assumptions about conflict created by outsiders and given an institutional foundations in Haiti today. In this exclusive interview given to Comunidad Segura, he tells us of the importance of social initiatives in Haiti. Muggah champions the idea of a 700,000 strong national civic service corps made up of youth, and especially women. You've seen the pictures of the catastrophe, now is the chance to hear what a researcher has to say:

Haiti has been described as a post-conflict scenario, and the quake did not spare the United Nations Stabilization Mission, nor the National DDR Commission, the nascent Haiti police force. How would you describe the security situation?

I think the dynamics of armed violence in Haiti are frequently misrepresented by the outside media and even security specialists. Though fragile and affected by chronic violence, Haiti was never actually seized by an "armed conflict" in 2003-2004 or otherwise. There were never clearly defined warring parties with political aspirations of taking over the state apparatus. There were not pitched battles, clashes or attacks between state and non-state forces. Rather, there were a wide array of groups - some more armed than others - with competing objectives that intermittently colluded with, or threatened, the institutions and functions of the Haitian state. It follows, then, that Haiti should not be classified as "post-conflict", however that classification is defined. Rather, Haiti presents a confounding case of "no war/no-peace".

But it has been noted for urban violence…

Yes, between 2003 and 2007, Port-au-Prince and some other larger cities faced a situation of generalized violence, particularly in the poor urban and peri-urban sprawl and shantytowns such as Cité Soleil, Bel Air, Martissant, Carrefour and elsewhere. Some of the perpetrators of violence included elements of the state security forces - including former Haitian soldiers and paramilitary elements. Others included politicized militants and gangs, themselves connected to wider networks of social actors. Still more "violence entrepreneurs" included criminal gangs, either loosely federated or acting autonomously. It should be noted, however, that the incidence of violence was probably on par with (or even below) the Latin American and Caribbean average.

2004 marked a change in Haiti’s relation with the outside world, what happened?

What happened from 2004 onwards was the superimposition of "conflict" and "post-conflict" characteristics by outsiders - with all the assumptions that this entails. The deployment of a muscular UN Stabilization Mission (MINUSTAH) mission and associated international police-keepers, the development of a UN Security Council mandated architecture for disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) in 2004, and the creation of the National DDR commission ensured that these assumptions were grounded in an institutional bedrock. And while DDR soon gave way to "community security" and "community violence reduction" programmes (supported by the US/IOM, MINUSTAH, and Brazil/Canada), the notion that Haiti was in the grips of warfare seemed to persist. More optimistically, the security situation seemed to have improved considerably from about 2006 onwards (with backing from Preval/more aggressive MINUSTAH intervention).

How have Haitians responded to the security threat?

In response to the present security situation, it should be stressed that reports of violence before and after the January 12 2010 earthquake were greatly exaggerated. And while there are ominous signs of some reorganization of certain gangs, the relative order and stability in the weeks after the quake suggested a remarkable level of restraint and resilience on the part of Haitians. Much has been written already on the grass-roots response and mutual support networks of Haitian associations and individuals. As a side note, it is worth mentioning that this situation mirrors almost perfectly that of the east coast of Sri Lanka after the 2004 tsunami - a place where I have spent considerable time over the years. Also impressive given the circumstances, MINUSTAH and some elements of Haiti's police force (estimated at 9,000 men - more than 10 per cent of which were killed during the quake) were relatively swiftly back on the job. I know that MINUSTAH's Brazilian contingents also kicked into high gear on the logistical organization front, and morale is high.

Haiti's insecurity has been described as gang violence, or as gang violence associated to political violence, how serious is this concern in Haiti now?

To be sure, the incidence of gang-related violence is hardly new. Haiti has long experienced violence inflicted by militants and militarized youth. The infamous Ton Ton Macoutes of the Duvalier dictatorships included hardened soldiers and thugs who terrorized Haiti's population. In the power vacuum following Jean-Claude (Baby Doc), Duvalier's 1986 departure, armed groups affiliated with various political factions organized themselves throughout the country. Some trafficked arms, people or drugs, while others set up protection rackets in their local communities or served as mercenaries for those seeking political power.

What is wrong about how ‘gangs’ are seen in Haiti?

Haiti's typically been described as affected by serious gang violence, this is true. The history, organisational characteristics and social morphology of gangs in Haiti are in fact much more complex than is often represented. In 2009, "gangs" in a strict sense of course existed - that is, groups of predatory young males loosely connected by social and symbolic ties. However, in most cases, what were described as gangs were in fact clusters of young (frequently unemployed) males with connections to a complex social network of political, faith-based, and social leaders. With some 70 per cent of the population under 30 - at least half of them between 15-29 - in 2009, it was no wonder that young men have become progressively stigmatized.

Not unlike other situations across Latin America and the Caribbean, the response to gangs in Haiti has tended to be aggressive and even repressive. This is not to say that MINUSTAH and Haitian police-led enforcement operations were not necessary - to the contrary. But the so-called "disarm or die" campaigns launched from 2006 and onwards (including against the so-called "Operation Baghdad") gathered considerably more media attention than the more subtle voluntary-based work pursued by the likes of the IBSA-supported gang and canal-clearing projects in Carrefour, Viva Rio's "tambour de paix" work in Bel Air, MINUSTAH CVR work in various urban and rural areas, USAID and IOM's stabilization efforts in Cité Soleil and the dozens of Haitian NGOs across the capital and other cities.

Nevertheless, since the January 2010 earthquake, international commentators have started to attribute the chaos and acts of banditry to predatory "gangs" and "warlords." Recalling the violence inflicted by competing gangs over the past decade, reporters are lumping together desperate (and in some cases armed) survivors with hardened (and possibly convicted) gang leaders. There are growing concerns from international actors that what began as a trickle of violence could become a "flood".

What should the international community keep in mind now, as they prepare to resume operations in Haiti?

As the UN and the international community gear up for yet another major stabilization and reconstruction operation in Haiti, they would do well to learn the lessons of the past. At a minimum, they should recall that these "gangs" are in fact highly differentiated groups spread throughout the city. A small handful are de facto private armies for wealthy elite. In Cité Soleil, gangs are ostensibly connected to crime while in Bel Air, gangs were often mobilized around political ends.

Paradoxically, gang violence appeared to be receding before the earthquake struck. A successful democratic election in 2006 ushered in a new president, René Preval, who clearly sought a departure from the violent repression and human rights violations committed by those preceding him. The changing political tide convinced some politically motivated gangs to fade away. Taken together, the changed political environment coupled with stabilization interventions generated impressive returns. By one estimate, homicide rates plummeted to between 14 and 17 per 100,000. While high in comparison to a typical Canadian city, these rates are about one third of those reported in Kingston, Jamaica, or Rio de Janeiro.

You and your colleague Bob Maguire have been active in proposing the idea of a national civic service corps for Haitian youths; could you tell us more about this?

The 7m earthquake created a monumental catastrophe. Although Haitians and their partners will need to respond with sensitivity, monumental solutions are also necessary. A national civic service corps made up 700,000 young Haitians is one possibility. This is less than 10 per cent of the population, but 700,000 for a 7m disaster has a strong symbolic resonance. Of course, any such service would need to start with pilots (say 700 or 7,000), and would require huge investment and oversight, but it could be done.

The idea of a national civic service corps made up of youth (especially women) in Haiti is hardly new. The Haitian government was discussing it a few years ago. In fact, USAID and others were exploring the possibility in the 1970s but it was considered to "radical" and avant guard at the time. Bob Maguire and I recently wrote a piece in the LA Times and Christian Science Monitor about resurrecting the idea. It seems to have some resonance in multilateral and bilateral circles.

There are a whole range of reasons why a civic service corps makes sense. Any one who works in Haiti knows that its youth are a wellspring of creativity, talent and potential. They can and should play a central role in the country’s recovery and reconstruction. They are a major resource waiting to be tapped. It is equally clear that they are stifled by a lack of meaningful opportunities. The good news is that Haiti already has an enabling environment to get a civic service corps off the ground. Article 52 of the Haitian Constitution commits citizens to national service.

Paying for these servicemen and women would be a way to deliver aid…

A civic service corps will be an expedient form of transferring capital to those needing it most. As was the case with such US New Deal programs as the Work Progress Administration (WPA) and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), wages paid to corps members will inject badly needed liquidity into local economies and stimulate recovery from the bottom-up.

A civic service corps will restore faith in Haitian public institutions. During the past decades, the state provided few services to Haitians, particularly outside of the capital. Predatory officials, gangs and shady middle men routinely filled the gap. A civic service corps, wearing the Haitian colors will show that the government is serious about renewing the social contract.

Have there been previous experiments in this respect?

In terms of coordination and development, a national program can draw on the invaluable experiences of past or on-going efforts to mobilize youth in Haiti, including the work of the Brazilian non-governmental agency Viva Rio and their creation of youth brigades in Haiti’s slums. Before the earthquake, Viva Rio and Brazilian UN peace-keepers ‘skilled-up’ hundreds of Haitian youth, including former gang members. This approach can be scaled-up in urban and rural areas.

Brazil's national plan for public security and citizenship, for example, promotes civic activities for poor youth that have made a big difference in major metropolitan centers, keeping many youngsters out of crime. Around the world, there are successful instances of social mobilization rebuilding a country.  A civic service corps – a New Deal for Haiti – can become another one.

Many countries already assisting Haiti, including the European Union, Brazil, the US, Canada, Cuba and China, have extensive experience mobilizing youth programs to positive effect. They could provide advice and support to the Haitian government, which would be at the helm of their country’s national program. It is obvious that the intervention would require huge budgetary support and oversight, careful administration and human resource management and considerable training, but we think it’s feasible.

People often talk of Haiti and Port-au-Prince as if one were synonymous to the other. What gets lost when we fail to make that distinction?

It's true that most attention is focused on Port-au-Prince - the capital - at the expense of most of the rest of Haiti. Commentators often talk of the "Republic of Port-au-Prince". It is fair to say that a good many non-Haitian visitors to the country often don't get much further than Pietonville (a wealthy neighborhood), much less Port-au-Prince. It is also the case that most of Haiti's major political, economic and social institutions are based in the capital, along with some 2-2.5 million people.

At the same time it is worth recalling that Haiti is not the rural agrarian society it once was. In the twenty first century, the split was more 70 per cent urban to 30 per cent rural. There was a major process of rural-urban migration initiated in the late 1960s and 1970s when Haiti's industrialization policies were being promoted as a process of Taiwanisation. Cité Soleil, for example, was to be a massive "labor pool" made up of the erstwhile rural poor. As expectations grew, more and more people flooded into the city and generated an ever greater strain on its already limited and poorly resourced services.

Some commentators now talk of the need to "rebalance" Haiti's demographics. That is, to begin a process of deconcentrating the population of major urban centres such as Port-au-Prince, Gonaives, Cap Haitian and Jacmel, and reversing the migration of populations. This would require major investments in rural areas - and a rethinking of the outside world's engagement with the Republic of Port-au-Prince.

Some said there is “nothing to rebuild” such was the scale of damage from the quake. Seismologists have even suggested it might be better to move the capital north to safer ground. Is this even conceivable from the point of view of Haitians?

It is true that Haiti has gone through an unprecedented disaster. The facts are well known. The political center - the national palace, ministries, mayor’s office and other crucial infrastructure collapsed. Virtually all public and private schools, hospitals, clinics and community centres were destroyed. Notwithstanding initial efforts to clear rubble and relaunch informal markets, the physical outlay of the city and periphery has been profoundly affected. What is more, with an estimated 200,000 or more dead - from the wealthiest to the poorest - the society has suffered a collective trauma of the highest order. Some people - most notably Haitian Ministers - talk not of beginning at zero, but beginning below zero.

It is also important to remember the dire state of Port-au-Prince and elsewhere before January 12th 2010. Some urbanists reported that owing to the absence of building codes and appropriate building materials, about 70 per cent of all homes were unsafe. Line services for the medium and lower classes were virtually non-existent. A household survey that we supported in Port-au-Prince’s downtown before the disaster found that just one in five residents had access to piped water. Slightly over half had sporadic access to electricity. Virtually no one turned to the police to report crime or for protection. In virtually all sectors, Haitians relied on informal providers and their own networks.

But we should not limit our understanding of Haiti's present situation to physical infrastructure and public/private institutions alone. Notwithstanding political turbulence since independence in 1804 (including 30 political coups and 20 constitutions), crippling economic conditions and major natural disasters (that are exacerbated by systemic vulnerability), Haitians have demonstrated a remarkable resilience and capacity to rebuild. They were the first to respond and rebuild - and these stories were widely circulated. They have extraordinary social networks - including a Diaspora that sends upwards USD1 billion in remittances a year. They will be rebuilding from below zero, but do they have any other choice at this stage?

The Haitian peacekeeping operations were described, prior to the quake, as a lab. A lab of Latin American cooperation among security forces, for example. The expression comes up again after the quake. Is it useful in any way?

The suggestion that peacekeeping and stabilization operations in Haiti are an "experiment" to test out Brazilian and other Latin American capacities is a bit of stretch. It is true that Latin American donors - Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia Cuba, and Uruguay (among others) - were playing an important role in MINUSTAH and related social welfare interventions before the earthquake. There is considerable discussion in the security and development communities about how this was enhancing regional cooperation and stimulating the transfer of "southern" social technologies.

The idea of describing this cooperation in purely instrumental terms seems a bit too simplistic. There are a host of reasons why these countries are engaging - ranging from self-interested geopolitics to pure humanitarian impulse. These are similar in many ways to the reasons why others - typically OECD donor states - engage in Haiti. It is the case, however, that notwithstanding the considerable costs associated with fielding military and civilian support, Latin American engagement in Haiti has enhanced intra and inter-regional dialogue and exchange.

It many be worth noting that there are some actors that had consciously described certain interventions in Haiti in these experimental terms. The US, for example, supported a USD20m Haitian Stabilization Initiative in Cité Soleil from 2007 onwards. This involved support from the US Department of Defense, US State Department and USAID, together with the International Organization for Migration, to promote community policing, quick impact projects, and the restoration of the rule of law. In this case, Cite Soleil was described by some as a "testing grounds" for US-led efforts in other theatres, including Afghanistan and Iraq.

Why is Haiti so young?

With a population of 9 million, the mean age is 20.2 and we've got about 4.29 people under 18. But Haiti's population pyramid is not dissimilar to many other lower-income countries. It is the combination of high birth rates, high death rates in infancy and childhood, and lowered old age life expectancy. In typical upper-income countries you have less of a pyramidal shape owing to reduced numbers of children born and reduced death rates at all ages up to old age.

Why should Haiti not have its own army?

The role of the Haitian army is very controversial. It was really set up in earnest by the US during their occupation of Haiti from about 1915 to 1934. It had historic ties with the US, inevitably. But it was during the Papa and Baby Doc Duvalier years that the army was rapidly politicized and corrupted. It is difficult to overstate the damages inflicted by the army on all walks of life in the country - from Haiti's liberal intellectuals to its poorer rural residents. Due to its legacy of terror inflicted on middle and lower-class Haitians, the army was of course the first institution disbanded by former President Aristide. This was done, I believe, by Presidential Decree, but their existence was nevertheless still enshrined in the Constitution.

In fact, there is considerable debate about the role of the armed forces in Haiti, but it is highly politicized. Notwithstanding a US-supported DDR programme in the mid-1990s, many senior officers but also rank and file refused to accept that the army was no longer a lawful institution. DDR was then described by US Generals as an unmitigated disaster partly because Haitian soldiers refused to accept that they were no longer entitled to salaries and pensions. Moreover, the elite, including former serving military, continued to insist on the tremendous benefits associated with maintaining the armed forces and preserving an unequal status quo.

It is useful to recall that a good number of members of the "former" armed forces (FADH) were prominent among the group that eventually contributed to the ouster of former President Aristide in 2004. In fact, one of the reasons a second DDR program was proposed in 2005 was because of the perceived threat of former Haitian soldiers at the time. Some in the Haitian DDR Commission eventually established also saw internationally-sanctioned DDR as a means of redressing past grievances, since the Constitutional issues were still considered "live".