Is a lasting peace finally possible for Haiti?

Now that a tenuous Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal has been cobbled together, will the world community finally be able to expedite the prospects for peace and security in crisis-ridden Haiti?

There is reason to be cautiously optimistic about recent developments. While things can quickly go off the rails in Haiti, there does appear to be a growing international consensus on a viable path forward.

Let’s not forget that Haiti is a country in constant crisis, unrelenting internal violence and institutional decay. It is nothing short of a humanitarian catastrophe.

There is no credible government in place, and no legitimate national elections have been held for almost a decade. The current governing authority — the so-called Transitional Presidential Council — is thoroughly inept, ineffective and woefully inadequate.

Moreover, hundreds of heavily armed gangs with unscrupulous leaders have made Haiti a veritable living hell. Large swaths of the country, especially in larger cities and towns, are under gang control, with critically important hospitals and schools shuttered.

Since the beginning of the year, more than 3,000 Haitians have been ruthlessly killed by the marauding criminal gangs — to say nothing of the widespread sexual violence against women, the seemingly unending kidnappings and the general state of fear and intimidation. And the Kenyan-led Multinational Security Support mission, comprised of 1,000 police officers and a few hundred military personnel from El Salvador, Jamaica and Belize, has been unable to secure public safety.

As a result, 1.3 million Haitians (out of a population of 11 million) have been forcibly displaced from their homes, and thus, barely able to eke out a ramshackle existence. Hunger and malnutrition have become persistent problems, along with shortages of medical supplies, electricity and water. There are fresh reports that Haitian children are even being abducted — forced to join the ranks of the vicious gangs.

One hopes that this bleak picture is about to change under a U.S.-directed “Gang Suppression Force” strategy within a United Nations (UN) Chapter VII international peace enforcement mission. Such an operation is not without considerable risk and shortfalls, but it could be the best of what are clearly a bad set of options.

With the authorization of the UN Security Council, a 12-month robustly equipped mission is set to deploy to Haiti in the coming months. It will have a force of up to 5,500 members (both military and non-military), civilian oversight by the troop-contributing countries and will operate independently of the Haitian police. Clearly, the Chapter VII designation is important. It enables the military personnel on the ground to use lethal force to achieve their objectives, and defend themselves and the local population.

In the words of Ericq Pierre, Haiti’s representative to the UN: “This force to suppress armed gangs will have the primary objective of neutralizing these terrorist organizations, disarming their militias, dismantling their networks, securing the country’s vital infrastructure and creating the conditions for the effective return of state authority across the entire territory.”

Some issues involving the peace enforcement operation are, however, in need of further clarification. Which countries will be contributing boots on the ground and how will they be funded? When exactly will this more militarized contingent and command structure begin its work? How will the civilian oversight mechanism actually work in practice? And what will happen to the Kenyan forces already there?

More significantly, what will be the specific “terms of engagement” for those participating soldiers in-country? How will they be able to distinguish between friend and foe? And under what circumstances would they be permitted to discharge their weapons in civilian areas?

These are all critically important questions for the Gang Suppression Force to figure out before actually entering Haiti. If such a mission is to have local buy-in and legitimacy, these troops cannot be seen as simply a foreign occupation force and another unruly and discredited UN “peacekeeping” force like the previous ones. Most assuredly, it does not want to be viewed as a military presence engaged in indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians or exacerbating the precarious situation on the ground. But that will be a tall order indeed, and could very well be the mission’s undoing.

There is, of course, a multitude of other ways in which the more robust UN mission could easily go sideways. Whenever you infuse military force into an already dicey situation, the chances of compounding the humanitarian disaster for Haitians increases considerably. And the last thing that this country needs right now is more death, violence and instability.

But if nothing is done about the rampaging gangs, how on earth will it be possible to ever bring relative peace to Haiti? Indeed, public security must be established first if all of the other critical elements of a functioning state are going to take root. I just hope and pray that this latest rescue operation for Haiti can end the suffering.

Peter McKenna is professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island in Charlottetown.