After more than two years of fighting against the gangs that have laid siege to the country, the Haitian government has resorted to hiring private military contractors. Blackwater founder Erik Prince is reportedly sending up to 150 former military officers to assist the government in reestablishing security.
Haitians’ frustration over the failure of international allies and the United Nations to effectively respond to the collapse of their state is understandable. But the contracting of mercenaries is—at best—risky for Haiti. It also sets a dangerous precedent for the future of international peacekeeping and security. The crisis overwhelming Haiti is a microcosm of the failures of the current global system and the challenges of coordinating effective peacekeeping responses outside the United Nations. In this era of fraying multilateralism, what is the right answer, not just for Haiti but for future humanitarian crises?
Haiti has been in turmoil for some time. Even before the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse—allegedly by Colombian mercenaries hired by Haitian rivals, though the events and ultimate responsibility remain unclear—the country was suffering a vacuum of government. A political struggle among successors to Moïse ensued. The eventual winner, Ariel Henry, found even his placeholder status cut short when, in April 2024, a coalition of criminal gangs in the capital of Port-au-Prince laid siege to the airport and prevented him from returning to the country.
In an attempt to patch together a working government, and in hopes of laying the path for an international peacekeeping mission, the Caribbean Community (Caricom) negotiated the creation of a Transitional Presidential Council (TPC) in April 2024. Intended to reflect the different political and business sectors of the country, the TPC has become paralyzed by charges of corruption and political intrigue, and in early November—less than six months after he was chosen—Garry Conille, a well-respected Haitian diplomat and former prime minister, was sacked from its presidency.
While Haiti has long suffered from a weak, ineffective state, the rise of a working coalition of gangs called the G9 signals a new era of hopelessness and international risk. G9 leaders, including its head, Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier, have expressed their political ambitions and insisted that it will dictate the terms of any future resolution.
Today, those gangs control roughly 90 percent of the capital and have shut down its airport. They continue to expand their control over rural areas of the country, funding their operations through extortion and drug and human trafficking. A steady stream of sophisticated weapons purchased in the United States and smuggled into the country feeds their violence. Last year, the gangs were responsible for the deaths of more than 5,600 people, and already in the first quarter of 2025, more than 1,600 people have been killed. The violence has displaced more than half a million people, and the gangs’ control over supply routes outside Port-au-Prince has choked off humanitarian assistance and critical supplies, leaving more than half the country malnourished.
This state collapse and bloodletting have occurred under a U.N. Security Council resolution to provide security support to the troubled nation. That plan, approved in October 2023, was a half-measure, a cobbled-together Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission after China and Russia, both veto powers, blocked a resolution for a broader U.N. peacekeeping mission. At the time—given that the U.N. was hobbled by the intransigence of two of its permanent Security Council members—it seemed an innovative, workable fix. It isn’t.
Despite positioning themselves as the new leaders of the global south, Russia and China seem more than content to continue to block a workable U.N. resolution aimed at alleviating the suffering of Haitian citizens if it means allowing a crisis 831 miles off the U.S. coast to fester and worsen.
A formal U.N. peacekeeping mission would have drawn from U.N. dues to pay for the projected $600 million task. It also would have fielded the traditional U.N. blue helmets to reestablish the necessary security that would allow humanitarian and development assistance to save lives and rebuild the country. Instead, the October 2023 U.N.-approved solution forced diplomats to seek voluntary contributions, both in terms of finance and security.
But the U.N. trust fund raised only $110 million in voluntary contributions, including $15 million from the United States (which also contributed $300 million to a parallel fund for materiel and originally pledged $100 million), $63 million from Canada, and a paltry $8 million from France (though France did contribute $2 million more to other funds for Haiti).
Early this year, the Trump administration grudgingly followed through on the financial commitment to the mission held over its predecessor. A Security Council vote on renewing the MSS mission is scheduled for October, and U.S. support—now uncertain—is key.
Meanwhile, unable to draw on the formal organization of U.N. peacekeeping forces, the MSS mission is forced to rely on ad hoc commitments from different countries to supply resources and boots on the ground.
Originally, Kenya agreed to supply 1,000 police officers, with promises of other contributions from West African and Central American countries as well as from Caricom. Today, there are just Kenyan 800 police officers—not soldiers—in Haiti, outgunned and outmanned by brutal Haitian gangs. The presence of those police officers is broadly welcome, but—mostly locked down in their Port-au-Prince barracks—they are not yet backed by sufficient boots on the ground from Central America, the Caribbean, or African partners.
Brazil, Argentina, and Chile, which had once supplied U.N. troops under a past peacekeeping mission, have avoided stepping up to commit funds or troops. In the case of Brazil, this stance is rumored to stem in part from domestic political reasons: Brazilian officers who once served in Haiti became allies of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s opponent and predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, and supported the former president’s Jan. 8, 2023, alleged coup attempt.
China and Russia’s geostrategic cynicism should give pause to leaders of the global south. There is a slight hope that this passive stance may be beginning to change. In a meeting of Latin American and Caribbean states with China in May, the final declaration committed attendees to finding a resolution to Haiti’s security and development crisis.
Left unanswered, other than a vague claim that the signatories will work with the U.N. and the international community, is how. Reportedly, China’s resistance to a Security Council-driven solution has stiffened over U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs. And any China-supported effort leaves open the question of who would provide peacekeeping troops and additional financing. There’s also the sticky matter of whether Trump would permit such a Chinese-driven mission to take place in a country just a two-hour flight from Miami.
Meanwhile, despite the BRICS bloc, led by Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, proudly declaring itself as a global south alternative to traditionally global north-led multilateral institutions, it has failed to act effectively for Haiti in over four years. So far, South Africa has failed to use its 2025 G-20 convening power to help the first Afro-descendant former slave republic.
China and Russia’s opposition in the Security Council was based on an ugly though, in part, true narrative: that past U.N. and multilateral peacekeeping missions in Haiti were failures. Past missions had their share of egregious, even disgusting, outcomes. There was the revelation that poor sanitation at a U.N. peacekeeping camp in 2010 led to the deaths of approximately 10,000 Haitians from cholera. There was also the scandal of sexual abuse and harassment by U.N. forces, later condemned by the U.N.
The story of Haiti again needing to appeal to international intervention and support is a familiar one. It reinforces the false narrative of chronic failure and the implicit fear that Haiti is a risky bet for the international community. Two modern interventions occurred in 1993-2000, under U.N. forces supported by the United States, and in 2004-17, led by Brazil. A one-and-done mindset that fixated on the holding of elections—however hastily thrown together—as an endpoint hobbled both those past interventions. Indeed, the current MSS plan was originally organized around convening an election by November 2025.
Yet what this story misses is that past U.N. missions produced results for Haitians and for multilateralism, including the creation of a professional Haitian police force, which, while struggling now, marks a significant improvement. Similarly, access to health care, education, and basic human needs improved under past interventions.
A successful international intervention in Haiti requires a number of important innovations to craft a better way forward.
First, the intervention must be driven by Haitians, led by representatives of the global south, and financed in part by the permanent members of the Security Council. We’ve seen the seeds of this under the current MSS mission.
The actions of the intervention must reflect the needs and priorities of a new, younger, and more diverse cohort of Haitian leaders. If the intervention is to be credible in their eyes, its priorities must meet their needs (e.g., personal security, justice, and jobs) and not just match the desires of external actors (e.g., stopping the flow of refugees).
It is vital that political and security leadership comes from the South. In 2004, Brazil showed that a Southern country could lead the overall military mission in Haiti, but it was the only Southern member of the Core Group established by Security Council to implement the mission’s mandate. Today, Caricom and Kenya demonstrate the potential of broader Southern leadership. Other African countries can play, for example, a critical role in brokering consensus within the Security Council.
For the Northern countries, supporting and enabling without dominating will be difficult but essential as they finance, offer intelligence, interdict drugs, end the flow of guns from the United States, take judicial action against gang leaders, and provide governance and development support.
Second, this intervention must truly be a combined operation, rigorously thought through and tightly coordinated in execution. A military intervention must be immediately followed by an effective and fair vetting and rebuilding of the Haitian National Police; credible and rapid judicial reviews of gang leaders; and secure incarceration of guilty parties. Simultaneously, economic, governance, and development actions must be put in place.
Third, there should be a realistic sequencing within an explicit generational commitment to Haiti. An initial sharp military intervention should be measured in months. Policing and other security sector support should probably be five to seven years.
Development, and in particular institution building (or rebuilding), will take a generation and should start with an initial 10-year commitment. Sustained long-term development programming will be critical to the task of empowering Haitians with the institutions they need for stability and prosperity.
The timing of credible elections within this should be up to the Haitian people themselves, but prior experience suggests that taking the time to establish security, restore the social fabric, and build trust is essential, rather than using elections as an early exit strategy.
Haiti’s situation is not unique. The World Bank notes that “poverty is increasingly concentrated in countries classified as fragile and conflict-affected situations.” This has implications for instability, criminality, and terrorism around the world. Compared with many other poor, strife-ridden countries, such as Niger, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, and Myanmar, Haiti is well positioned. It is in a good neighborhood, close to the United States, with neighbors that have a national interest in resolving the crisis.
Haiti is the most winnable of the very difficult. It could provide the opportunity to map out and prove the power of this new approach that mobilizes leadership and rallies commitments from the global south and seeks workable alternatives to the current geopolitical competition paralyzing multilateral institutions.
The post Haiti Is Burning, but There Is a Path Forward appeared first on Foreign Policy.
