Police for peace

“Haiti’s police has suffered a great deal in the past due to political influence, there was a great deal of pressure exerted over it, it was under a lot of criticism between 2003 and 2004. Now, since 2006, we have a new team, we have a new vision”. The words are from Fritz Jean, Inspector-General of Haiti’s National Police Force, as he spoke to Comunidad Segura on a visit to attend a Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) Seminar held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The new police he describes has been graduating 500 new officers every six months, and they are young and sprightly, “much more dynamic” in the view of Fritz Jean. The fresh blood, made up in the majority of young men between 18 and 25, go to Haiti’s National Police School for four months of training before they go out into the streets.

“Approximately 4% are females,” said Inspector Jean, “but we are training a special class to address police actions for women’s issues such as rape.” But it is still a small force, managing 32 police stations to care for a population of eight million.

And to go into the streets is no simple matter. One of the novelties in Haiti’s police is precisely that they have begun to take part in city life, to take care of traffic, to go on motorized patrol. Sporting white shirts as part of their uniform, they want to become accepted by city life. There are, however, areas still off limits in this country emerging from the armed conflict that raged until so recently.

Gruesome deaths

According to Chief Inspector Fritz Jean, public security in Haiti is a process that involves much more than the new police school graduates. It means acting in concert with the United Nations Stabilization Mission, the Minustah, and the CNDDR, Haiti’s National Council for Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration.

“With the presence of the Minustah and the action of the CNDDR we have seen a measure of peace but our greatest challenge is to be able to penetrate in areas dominated by armed groups. The Minustah has helped us to carry out a number of large actions,” said the Inspector.

This was particularly clear with the wave of kidnappings that plagued Haiti over 2004 and 2005 as the nation’s schools reopened their doors. “By ourselves we did not have the training to be able to dismantle the groups behind the kidnappings; this was possible once we could coordinate with the Minustah.”

Private businesses and armed outlaws

There are areas in Haiti as yet off limits to police action. “We lost 85 police officers between 2005 and 2007, most of them were killed in the shantytowns, some of them had gruesome deaths, they were burned alive.” These are areas that Fritz describes as without any presence of the state whatsoever, there is no electricity, hardly any water, “sometimes we want to go in, but we simply cannot.”

The places most difficult to police are where armed conflict is still alive, with what the Chief Inspector describes as political clashes. Among them he cites Cité Soleil, Martissant, Gonaives, Cap Haitien, and Petit Goave.

The joint efforts against the wave of kidnappings lead to the creation of Security Councils made up of the police, the CNDDR, the mayor, and judicial authorities. “Thanks to these councils we were able to recover 350 firearms and thousands of ammunition.”

Freeing deportees as violence prevention

Out of the three stages of the post-conflict procedure known as DDR, the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of combatants into civilian life, Haitian police takes active part in the disarmament process.

Haitian citizens are allowed to carry weapons, and that includes guns for hunting. According to Fritz Jean, the police are in charge of disarming those with illegal weapons. The apprehended guns are photographed and then transferred to the National DDR Commission for storage. And the disarmament process extends to non-combatants:

“Only recently have we realized that the guns are not only to be found in gang controlled areas but that an important source of guns in Haiti are private business owners, supermarket owners, shop keepers. They have resorted to employing armed outlaws to protect their businesses. As they enter the disarmament process, they increasingly ask that the police step in to provide them with security,” said Fritz Jean.

Threats also come from outside. Just as illegal weapons enter the island hidden in bags of rice, deportees from the United States contribute to upset the delicate balance of post-conflict security in Haiti.

Community policing as goal

Inspector Jean recounts how jails became a revolving door for gang violence. “Deportees from the United States arrived without any money, and after spending some time in jail would go directly into the armed gangs. We decided to reverse the trend,” he said, describing the solution found was to “free them on arrival but ask them to check in every day at our police stations.”

Fritz Jean explains that many activities have been conceived as both an alternative to gang violence and to create greater contact between police and the young: “Over the past three months we have had shows with young artists for peace that work very well as talent shows. We are also organizing a basket ball championship so we can get to know the children better.”

There are in all a number of initiatives to privilege laying down guns and entering civilian life. Among these are giving legal status to craftsmen association so they can sell arts and crafts during carnival season, encouraging private businesses to become partners with these entities.

The priority for Haiti’s changing police force is to enter the communities. “What we want is to create friendly relations with local residents. We will train our officers in community policing and the idea is to establish connections through those officers that live in the communities.”  Police officers trained in these new ideas will be coming out of school this October.

From Comunidad Segura:

Haiti's Children can't wait, and interview with Njnja Fassu

When children are caught in the middle, an interview with Massimo Toschi

Read Further:

Children in Haiti’s conflict, by the United Nations