Living Hell in Haiti

Summary

History As It Happens: "Living Hell in Haiti" – Episode Summary

Released on July 25, 2025 | Host: Martin DeCaro | Guest: Keith Mines

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1. Introduction to Haiti's Current Crisis

In the episode titled "Living Hell in Haiti," host Martin DeCaro delves into the escalating turmoil gripping Haiti. Between October 1, 2024, and June 30, 2025, the nation witnessed a staggering 4,864 killings. Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital, has fallen under the near-total control of criminal gangs, with estimates suggesting that 90% of the city is now governed by these factions. This overwhelming dominance by gangs has plunged Haiti into what many describe as a living hell, characterized by rampant violence, widespread fear, and a collapsing state infrastructure.

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2. The Rise and Dominance of Gangs in Port-au-Prince

At the heart of Haiti's chaos is Jimmy Cherizier, infamously known as Barbecue, who leads one of the most powerful and ruthless gangs in Port-au-Prince. These gangs have not only seized control of major trade routes but have also established parallel governance structures, effectively sidelining the official government. Their operations extend beyond simple extortion and kidnapping; they exert control over essential services, leading to soaring prices for staples like cooking fuel and rice.

Keith Mines (Timestamp: [19:39]) elaborates on the nature of these gangs:

"They depend on territorial control to do what they want to do, which is basically extortion and kidnapping... they've carved up the capital into these little fiefdoms."

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3. International and U.S. Response: An Insufficient Safety Net

Despite the dire situation, international assistance remains tepid. A United Nations-backed mission led by Kenyan police, initially envisioned with 2,500 personnel, remains severely understaffed—operational with only 40% of the intended force. The mission's limited capacity hampers its effectiveness in combating the well-armed gangs.

Martin DeCaro highlights the plight:

"The UN backed mission led by Kenyan police did arrive in Haiti last year to help quell gang violence. But the mission remains understaffed and underfunded."

Keith Mines (Timestamp: [14:07]) attributes this shortfall to broader global reductions in peacekeeping efforts:

"They had a very robust mission up until 2017... but the first Trump administration reduced peacekeeping operations globally... Haiti was more dependent on what the UN was providing."

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4. Historical U.S. Interventions in Haiti

The U.S. has a long and contentious history of intervention in Haiti. From the early 20th century, when American Marines occupied Haiti (1915-1934) ostensibly to prevent anarchy, to the 1994 intervention under President Bill Clinton aimed at reinstating President Jean Bertrand Aristide, the U.S. has frequently intervened in Haitian affairs. These interventions have often been driven by a mix of humanitarian concerns and geopolitical interests, though their long-term effectiveness remains questionable.

Keith Mines reflects on past interventions:

"President Wilson said the invasion was an attempt to prevent anarchy. In reality, the Wilson administration was protecting U.S. assets in the area..."

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5. Current U.S. Policies Under the Trump Administration

In the current political climate, the Trump administration exhibits a markedly different approach towards Haiti. There is a pronounced reluctance to re-engage militarily, coupled with aggressive immigration policies that threaten to deport hundreds of thousands of Haitian asylum seekers back to a nation in chaos.

Keith Mines (Timestamp: [11:34]) critiques the administration's stance:

"The administration inherited a program that the previous administration had been doing... they've now turned around and they've tried to start returning Haitian migrants back to their country."

This shift reflects a broader "America First" agenda, prioritizing domestic concerns over international humanitarian obligations.

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6. The Shutdown of the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) and Its Implications

Earlier in the year, the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP), led by Elon Musk, was abruptly shut down. Founded in 1984 with the mission of conflict avoidance and post-conflict stabilization, USIP had been actively involved in Haiti through programs focused on national dialogue and governmental support. The closure of USIP has left a void in the strategic approach to fostering stability in Haiti.

Keith Mines (Timestamp: [08:09]) laments the loss:

"USIP was... trying to seek ways to avoid conflict... supporting the Haitian government to do it for them. But... they'll go in and just do things themselves rather than supporting the Haitian government."

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7. The Role and Operations of Gangs in Haiti

The gangs operating in Haiti are not merely criminal enterprises; they have entrenched themselves as de facto authorities within their territories. Their reliance on extortion and kidnapping for revenue creation differentiates them from drug-driven gangs like those in Colombia. This model leads to comprehensive control over local economies and essential services, further destabilizing the nation.

Keith Mines (Timestamp: [19:39]) explains:

"The gangs are worse than in most countries because they depend on territorial control... they've carved up the capital into these little fiefdoms."

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8. U.S. Reputation and Historical Resentment in Haiti

Haiti's historical grievances towards the United States, stemming from interventions and support for oppressive regimes like that of Duvalier, persistently color contemporary perceptions. These sentiments create a complex backdrop for any potential U.S. involvement, fostering skepticism and resentment among Haitians.

Keith Mines (Timestamp: [30:12]) observes:

"The United States wouldn't have anything to do with Haiti because we were afraid of what that said about our own slaves."

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9. Potential Solutions: Military Intervention vs. Support for Haitian Institutions

The dialogue between DeCaro and Mines navigates the precarious balance between potential U.S. military intervention and bolstering Haitian governmental institutions. While some advocate for direct intervention to restore order, others emphasize the necessity of strengthening local governance and security forces to ensure sustainable stability.

Keith Mines (Timestamp: [22:05]) advocates for non-military support:

"We need to change the model and really reinforce the government... train and equip a new police force... support the Haitian government rather than always fund private entities."

Conversely, contemplating the severe disarray, the conversation acknowledges that without significant change, options remain limited and fraught with challenges.

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10. The Future Outlook: Navigating a Path Forward

As Haiti teeters on the brink of becoming a failed state, the episode underscores the urgent need for a reevaluation of international strategies. The limitations of past interventions, combined with current geopolitical hesitations, present a complex puzzle in addressing the nation's multifaceted crises. The potential role of private security contractors, enhanced training for Haitian forces, and a renewed focus on supporting Haitian institutions emerge as critical considerations for future actions.

Keith Mines (Timestamp: [36:42]) emphasizes:

"We need to fund the government rather than always fund private entities... recreate this model where advisors rather than doers, funders of the government rather than always private entities."

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Conclusion

"Living Hell in Haiti" offers a comprehensive exploration of the nation's current turmoil, rooted in historical grievances and exacerbated by ineffective international responses. Through the insights of former U.S. Army Special Forces and Foreign Service veteran Keith Mines, the episode highlights the complexities of intervention, the dire state of governmental institutions, and the relentless grip of criminal gangs. As Haiti faces an uncertain future, the dialogue calls for innovative and sustainable approaches to restore stability and empower its people.

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Notable Quotes:

• Keith Mines ([02:16]):

  "There's one real key thing in the model that I think has just gone wrong... they're going in and just doing things themselves rather than supporting the Haitian government."

• Martin DeCaro ([16:58]):

  "There's no will anywhere to do something about this. Not that it's an easy thing to intervene in, but no."

• Keith Mines ([22:05]):

  "We're going to have to continue to support the Haitian government... the government's got to get this monopoly on the use of force."

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For more insights and detailed discussions, subscribe to Martin DeCaro's newsletter at historyasithappens.com or follow on Substack.

Transcript

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[Martin DeCaro]

History as it happens. July 25, 2025. Living hell in Haiti.

[Keith Mines]

Between 1 October 2024 and 30 June.

[Martin DeCaro]

This year, the total number of killings.

[Keith Mines]

Across Haiti was 4864.

[Martin DeCaro]

Jimmy Charizia, universally referred to here as Barbecue, is the head of one of the most powerful gangs in Port au Prince.

[Advertiser]

Attacking airports, police stations, the presidential palace, even pr.

[Martin DeCaro]

All the access roads are taken by armed groups. They're suffocating Haiti's capital and waging war on the police within it.

[Keith Mines]

Hundreds of thousands living in the US under asylum may soon be sent back to a country in chaos.

[Martin DeCaro]

Haiti is on a brink of becoming a failed state. A Caribbean Nation of nearly 12 million people is trapped in eternal crisis. Its capital controlled by gangs, its people desperate for food and terrorized by thousands of murders and kidnappings. Yet the world is offering Haiti little help. That's next as we report history as it happens. I'm Martin DeCaro.

[Keith Mines]

Humanitarian groups, religious groups have been trying to help Haiti for a very long time. There's one real key thing in the model that I think has just gone wrong and that is that they'll go in and just do things themselves rather than supporting the Haitian government to do it for them. But I think there's a humanitarian element to this that we shouldn't be dismissive of. The migration part is also, I think, something at relatively low cost. I think you could have a new plan that would reset the conditions within Haiti. And I think it also, it makes us look a little bit weak in my mind to our adversaries that we've got this island two hour plane ride from Miami that is collapsing.

[Martin DeCaro]

Gangs have gained near total control of the Haitian capital and authorities are unable to stop escalating violence. An estimated 90% of the capital, Port au Prince, is now under control of criminal groups who are expanding attacks not only into surrounding areas, but beyond, into previously peaceful areas. According to the UN Southern Haiti, which until recently was insulated from the violence, has seen a sharp increase in gang related incidents, said a UN Official. These opening sentences of an Associated Press article are very depressing. But unsurprising because Haiti has been trapped in a living hell for years. A multinational force that was supposed to have 2,500 troops is undermanned and outgunned by the gangs. And there's almost no appetite anywhere in the world to intervene in Haiti to restore order. In fact, the Trump administration's now threatening to deport Haitians who sought refuge in the United States back to their collapsing, hungry country. You know, there was a time when the US Wouldn't hesitate to send in the Marines. The United States occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934.

[Keith Mines]

Having suffered a succession of weak presidents and almost continuous civil wars. Haiti is now on brink of bankruptcy.

[Historical Narrator]

And laws of the land have been.

[Keith Mines]

Virtually lost in chaos of island wide anarchy. And then in 1915, United States Marines land in Haiti to battle Haitian bandits threatening destruction of American properties.

[Martin DeCaro]

President Wilson said the invasion was an attempt to prevent anarchy. In reality, the Wilson administration was protecting U.S. assets in the area and stopping a possible German invasion, according to the State Department's online archive. More recently, President Bill Clinton in 1994 invaded Haiti to return President Jean Bertrand Aristide to power.

[Historical Narrator]

This agreement only came because of the credible and imminent threat of the multinational force. In fact, it was signed after Haiti received evidence that paratroopers from our 82nd Airborne Division based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina had begun to load up to begin the invasion.

[Martin DeCaro]

A decade later, US Forces were in Haiti again, this time to escort Aristide out of the country in the face of popular unrest. With his misrule.

[Keith Mines]

It'S to avoid the.

[Martin DeCaro]

Bloodbath that he accepted to leave office before his mandate, before the end of his mandate. We're going to talk about this history and more with Keith Mines in a moment. But as mentioned today, no one in Washington is talking about sending American soldiers to Haiti. Whether or not that would be wise, Haiti is in desperate need of some outside assistance. It is a question of what form that assistance might take. Writing in the New York Times in 2021, after the assassination of President Jovenel Moise, which was a major event in the country's death spiral, Haiti expert Amy Wolent said Haiti was never able to shake off the foreign yoke, except, one might argue, during the darkest days of the Duvalier regime. Over the years, it's been at the mercy of the United States, of course, and of the Inter American Development bank, the World bank, the Organization of American States, and, and the United nations, which deployed a peacekeeping force there from 2004 to 2017. Yet Haiti has ended up just as poor and unstable as ever, if not more so. Haiti's problems cannot be solved by U.S. intervention, said Amy Woollens four years ago. The United States no longer has the standing, the stomach, or even the desire to impose its vision on Haiti. The best option right now for the United States is to wait and watch and listen not just to the usual suspects, but also to a broad new generation of Haitian democrats who can responsibly begin to move toward a more workable Haitian polity. Again, that was written four years ago. Well, today Haiti's next generation of democratic leaders are waiting to lead their country as soon as the gangs either agree or are forced to put down their arms. Keith Mines recently retired after a 38 year public service career in the US Army, Special Forces, the Foreign Service, and as Vice President for Latin America at the US Institute of Peace. He managed programs in Haiti and ran the Haiti Working Group in Washington. He served in Haiti from 1995 to 1997. He is the author of why Nation Building Matters, Political Consolidation, Building Security Forces and Economic Development in Failed and Fragile States. Keith Meins appeared on the podcast last year to talk about his book. Our conversation next History is defined by.

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[Martin DeCaro]

Keith Mines, welcome back to the podcast.

[Keith Mines]

Thanks, it's good to be here.

[Martin DeCaro]

So you were in Haiti as a diplomat in the mid-1990s after the restoration of democracy. We're going to talk about your experience there, as well as recent events, current events in Haiti. But first, just a word about the US Institute of Peace where you were in charge of the Latin American department, if you will. The Department of Government Efficiency, run by Elon Musk, shut down USIP unceremoniously earlier this year. Briefly, what happened and why is this a loss for our country?

[Keith Mines]

USIP was founded in 1984 through the vision of certain members of Congress that had fought in the Second World War and in Korea. And their idea was, you know, we spend an awful lot of our national resources on defense and on war making. But let's shift a very small amount, and I mean very small, to an institute that would be independent of the government but funded by Congress that would have the mission of trying to seek ways to avoid conflict. And then when nations come out of conflict, to help keep them out of conflict. It's a mix of research, analysis, convenings, which are quite effective, and then field programs. So we had five years that we worked on Haiti. We did a mix of all of those. We convened quite frequently at our headquarters when there was Haitian visitors or others. We had field programs that covered national dialogue and different kinds of dialogue programs, which was something super effective and important because one of the weaknesses with the Haitian government is an inability to listen to its people. So we take a very broad look at how one considers conflict. But if there's conflict in a nation, it could be because of lack of religious freedom. It could be because of, again, lack of dialogue. Citizens are not part of their government. So there's a whole wide range of things that USIP has worked on.

[Martin DeCaro]

So when you say things like convenings or field programs, that is getting experts into the country on the ground, getting people together in a conflict or who had been in conflict and getting them to talk.

[Keith Mines]

Correct. That's kind of the bread and butter of. Of the institute. We're active all over the world, or we're active all over the world. It was on the hit list, I guess, initially for the Doge team, which I think came out of the Heritage found work on who to come.

[Martin DeCaro]

Bizarre. I don't understand it. It doesn't make any sense. I just had Michael Kimmage on the show, the historian who was the director of the Kennan Institute at the Wilson Center. The Wilson center did not have a large federal budget. Well, Keith, I'm sorry about that. And hopefully, whatever you do next. Now, you've been doing this a long time. You're probably closer to retirement than the start of your career is what I'm trying to say.

[Keith Mines]

So, yeah, I actually am retired now, so I've got the freedom to write and speak a little bit more openly and so don't need to worry too much about that.

[Martin DeCaro]

Retired from everything. Okay. Yeah, we were in Special Forces, which what you told me when we last spoke. You're talking about your time in Grenada, that massive conflict where the United States under Ronald Reagan saved the Caribbean from the monstrosity of Soviet communism. I'm being sarcastic, but a couple of years ago, we did discuss Haiti. Haiti was in the throes of a terrible internal crisis, and it is still in the throes of a terrible internal crisis. Probably worse now than we last addressed this topic a couple of years back. We're in mid-2025, six months into Donald Trump's new term. His administration, as we've been discussing, has cut foreign aid programs, seems opposed on principle to the idea of foreign aid because it will hamper an America first agenda. But what happens in Haiti has always mattered to Washington because, well, for instance, migration. When Haiti is going to hell, people leave the country and come here. Is Haiti on any list of priorities right now in this administration? Is the administration doing anything to try to restore order there?

[Keith Mines]

Well, the administration inherited a program that the previous administration had been doing, which was support for a multinational security support mission led by Kenya. So there was some support on the security side. They inherited kind of a migration policy which they've now turned around and they've tried to start returning Haitian migrants back to their country. I think the big question of migration, it's the same one that they faced in Central America. Do you try to work on what they call the root causes of migration and try to improve the living conditions in the countries that have high levels of migrants, or do you just try to quarantine those countries by not allowing the migrants up and if they get up, by turning them around and sending them back? So we obviously are more in the quarantine aspect of things than we have been in the past, but.

[Martin DeCaro]

Well, the current administration is hostile to Haitian immigrants. You'll remember Donald Trump claimed that they are eating people's pets somewhere. But go ahead.

[Keith Mines]

Under Clinton, you had the same kind of huge question. There was just massive numbers of Haitians that were leaving the country because of the military dictatorship that had expelled Aristide. And the decision then was to do a massive effort to turn that around by improving conditions in Haiti, by restoring democracy and all the rest. Now that's obvious. We know that's not going to happen now by any administration on either side of the aisle. There's not going to be a U.S. boots on the ground intervention, we can assume, although even that, you know, you wonder George Bush came in famously saying no nation building and then ended up doing the two biggest nation buildings since World War II.

[Martin DeCaro]

Well, the UN did approve that multinational force. Right. But it's, it's really not there in force. An Associated Press article from earlier this month. A UN Backed mission led by Kenyan police did arrive in Haiti last year to help quell gang violence. But the mission remains understaffed and underfunded with only about 40% of the 2,500 personnel originally envisioned. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres proposal in February to have the UN provide drones Fuel, ground and air transportation and other non lethal support to the Kenya led mission has languished in the council. In response to the gangs, the UN says there's been a rapid growth in the number and activities of private security companies and vigilante self defense groups with some trying to protect their communities while others act illegally and collude with the gangs. Those are the people who control 90% of the Capitol. Can you tell us why the UN mission isn't up to 100% staffing yet?

[Keith Mines]

They had a very robust mission up until 2017 and the first Trump administration reduced peacekeeping operations globally similar to what they've done now with aid and other foreign assistance kinds of programs. So they reduced that globally. I don't think Haiti was singled out, but it got hit harder than most because the country was more dependent on what the UN was providing, which was largely in the area of security. They had mentors and advisors for the police and the army that were out, out in the field with them. And that's something I just can't stress enough that in Haiti you've got a very young police force constantly. It's just never quite evolved. I was with Ray Kelly in the 90s when he was the police commissioner, the Sibpol commissioner that brought together an international coalition of police advisors. And he said, you know, when I was leading the nypd, he said I had third generation cops. My wife's from Staten island, she'll tell you all about this too. I mean, you know, households that have been doing policing in New York City forever. And he said, you know, I'm here with police that have never done any of this and they've never seen it done. The notion that you can just train a police officer in Haiti and put them out on the street and hope for the best is really not good. So we've had periods where we have had this robust train and advise mission for the Haitian police and it's really made a difference. That was cut in 2017 and the rest kind of started to unravel with the Petro Caribe scandal in 2018 and the country really started to unravel.

[Martin DeCaro]

But what about this current force that was supposed to be there? Why isn't that fully staffed?

[Keith Mines]

It's a UN approved mission, but it's a Kenyan led mission with some arm twisting by the United States. There just weren't any countries that have stepped forward to do much. El Salvador has got a helicopter unit, Jamaica's got a handful.

[Martin DeCaro]

Is because no one wants to get involved in this living hell. Is that why? Because they might have to open fire on gangs.

[Keith Mines]

Well, that. And they're afraid they're going to take casualties themselves. The Kenyans have taken two casualties today, but they've only done that by being super cautious. And so I think most countries were just afraid if they took casualties it would be politically unsustainable. But you know, the Brazils, the Argentinas, the Chiles, the countries that normally would staff a hemispheric mission like this are just not willing to do it. Now, the UN wanted to say, look, let us at least provide some of the equipment and the technical support that would help to embolden this mss. But that got tied up in UN politics and China and Russia and they just couldn't quite get that together. That would have been helpful, but frankly, with the low numbers, it was supposed to be 2,500. It's 1,000 is all that they have. So with that, there's only so much they can do.

[Martin DeCaro]

There's no will anywhere to do something about this. Not that it's an easy thing to intervene in, but no.

[Keith Mines]

And some, you know, some countries felt like we did this before, we kind of paid our dues. Brazil was very, very on the ground in the 2010s. You know, others have done it. But there's, there's, to me, what's a really negative myth. You know, people feel like we've done this before and nothing ever works in Haiti. And if you look at it realistically, there have been periods when, when things have gotten a lot better. You didn't hear about Haiti for years. At a time when things were going okay, they weren't great, but they were adequate. And that was usually, again, you can pretty much tie that to the level of positive international interaction. And again to me, mainly that issue of the advisors to the police and some advisors in the government that are just there to help shore up these very inexperienced individuals to do better.

[Martin DeCaro]

Well, now an estimated 90% of the capital, Port au Prince, is under the control of criminal groups who are expanding attacks not only into surrounding areas, but beyond, into previously peaceful areas. The state's authority to govern is rapidly shrinking. As gang control expands with cascading effects. Criminal groups are stepping into the vacuum left by the absence or limited delivery of public services and are establishing parallel governance structures. Gang control of major trade routes has paralyzed legal commerce, leading to soaring prices for cooking fuel and rice, which is Haiti's staple food. So there's no central government?

[Keith Mines]

Well, there's a government on paper. I mean, it does have ministries. There's a Transitional Presidential council, the TPC on the presidential side, and then there's a prime minister that they've appointed with ministries. So it's a fragile government. The Transitional Presidential Council is what covers the presidency, but none of it's very effective. The last time we spoke, I remember it was just before they appointed the Transitional Presidential Council. And I was kind of hopeful about that because it was a model they'd used before in 2004 to get the country to an election. So we were hopeful that was going to come together, and it just hasn't. It's been a year of really ineffective governance. So there is a government. I don't think we can say that it's completely collapsed. They have diplomatic representation. There's an ambassador here in Washington, very effective, Leonel de la Tour. And they've got a lot of good people, but it just doesn't cohere. It doesn't come together well.

[Martin DeCaro]

It sounds like they control the building where they meet every day and maybe the sidewalk outside it and nothing more. Who are these gangs? Who is fighting in Haiti? Before we connected here, we were chatting on the phone the other day. You said that there have been thousands of murders or hundreds of murders. What's going on? Who are these people?

[Keith Mines]

The statistics are really off the charts. 5,000 murders last year. So, you know, one of the most violent places in the world right now, the gangs are. And it's important, I think, to understand this, that they're worse than in most countries because they depend on territorial control to do what they want to do, which is basically extortion and kidnapping. So if they were just running drugs, which there's a little bit of that, but if they were just running drugs up some corridor, they'd want the quarter, they'd want the police to leave them alone, and, you know, that's where they would get all their money. You know, Colombia was like that, and it went through some dark times. But, you know, Medellin never lost control. Kali never lost control. They just had these gangs that were pushing drugs up through the country and out in the countryside. This is different. These guys don't have another way to make money other than kidnappings and extortion. So they want to control the roads so they can extort on the roads. That limits the amount of food moving and medical and everything else. And then they want to control all the Port au Prince, and they've done it. They've just carved it up into these little fiefdoms. And you're in your fiefdom, you Kidnap whoever happens into your. Your area, you extort from all the local businesses, and that's how they. They make money. So it's just a very toxic model that they've fallen into.

[Martin DeCaro]

So they're like illegal business enterprises, or is there some kind of ideology? Are they revolutionaries, or is it just simply extortion and kidnapping? And power for power's sake, Right?

[Keith Mines]

Most of it is power for power's sake. I mean, they have started to talk about this guy Barbecue, that everybody likes to talk about. He's, you know, he is posits himself as a revolutionary. The government's totally ineffective. I could govern better than this. I want to be a part of any decision making. So he has posited himself as a guy that could govern or help govern or whatever.

[Martin DeCaro]

He's not responsible for all the violence sweeping across Haiti's capital. But beyond, no doubt, he's at the center of it.

[Keith Mines]

His fighters are never far away.

[Martin DeCaro]

Jimmy Cherizia, universally referred to here as.

[Keith Mines]

Barbecue, is the head of one of the most powerful.

[Advertiser]

The man at the center of it all, G9 gang leader Jimmy Cherizier, also known as Barbecue, one of Haiti's most notorious and ruthless gang leaders. Now one of the most powerful men.

[Keith Mines]

You know, they could collapse the government in a minute, of course. So that much is true.

[Martin DeCaro]

So what is their aim here? What is the.

[Keith Mines]

Well, until now, I think they haven't wanted to do that.

[Martin DeCaro]

They don't want to run the country. They just want to run their fiefdoms.

[Keith Mines]

They're very much against each other. So there's also, I think, a question they kind of in some way may keep each other in check. Where, you know, if they're going to march on the palace, well, who does that? And who's in charge? And who do we leave in charge when it's over? If they march on the palace tomorrow and the government collapses and you have Somalia in 1991, it wouldn't surprise me, but it also wouldn't surprise me if a year from now, we're still talking about gangs that are running this show with a very ineffective government.

[Martin DeCaro]

So sounds like you would need a division of U.S. marines to restore order. I'm not saying that should happen. Just saying the extent of the disorder there is severe. Before we get to US Intervention and that history. Why should Americans care about what's happening in Haiti right now?

[Keith Mines]

There's a couple of reasons that I would point to. None of them are off the charts compelling. And I think we need to recognize the relative place of Haiti in US Priorities, not just current administration priorities, but in general. The humanitarian part of it, I think is something that we should be a little bit more attuned to. One of my, in my church, one of our leaders once said, you know, we're all about self sufficiency and trying to put people in a position where they can take care of their own homes and families and, and whatnot. But he said there's a certain level below which no human being should fall. Humanitarian groups, religious groups, have been trying to help Haiti for a very long time. There's one real key thing in the model that I think has just gone wrong, and that is that they'll go in and just do things themselves rather than supporting the Haitian government to do it for them. But I think there's a humanitarian element to this that we shouldn't be dismissive of. The migration part is also, I think, something at relatively low cost. I think you could have a new plan that would reset the conditions within Haiti. And I think it also, it makes us look a little bit weak in my mind to our adversaries that we've got this island, 2 hour plane ride from Miami that is collapsing to just show that the United States is capable and it wouldn't necessarily require our boots on the ground. This is, we can talk about this, but that's, I think there's ways to do it without an intervention.

[Martin DeCaro]

So what are the origins of this current crisis, would you say? Maybe 2018, 2019, for instance? I'll read briefly from an article here. March 2018, Venezuela stopped oil exports to Haiti. That set off a chain reaction of fuel shortages there. And then that summer, the Haitian government halted fuel subsidies and that led to price increases as high as 50%. Protests began and they continued into 2019, often with violent, at times deadly clashes between demonstrators and police. By the summer of 19, the country went on lockdown, which lasted for two and a half months. And in 2021, the assassination of the president Jovenel Moise and I would tackle.

[Keith Mines]

On the front end of that 2017, before any of this even got started, the reduction in the UN mission, because I think we can't underestimate what that was doing to induce or provide stability in the country. And then the Petro Caribe, that was when Venezuela finally realized we can't keep giving these lavish subsidies to random countries in the Caribbean. So they withdrew the subsidies. There was an economic component of that, but there was also a huge political component of that in that people realized at some point in those years the Petro Caribe money. So you had subsidies to Haitian gas that gave them really cheap gas. But you also had this just runaway corruption scandal where something like $1.5 billion was siphoned off from that program. People were just incensed with that as well. So the riots and the protests and everything else just really started to unravel the country. It was a period of weak leadership already. After the departure of Preval the second time, it was just a succession of very weak governments.

[Martin DeCaro]

This is a country that has always struggled with. Well, they had dictatorship at one point, Papa Doc Duvalier, so maybe it was stable under him. But I was going to say stability, independence, political and economic. That is Haiti's history. You know, an imposed dependency from when the French returned to demand debt payments to pay for France leaving as the colonial overlord after the Haitian war of Independence in the early 1800s. I mean, that's part of what got Aristide in trouble in the early 2000s when he demanded reparations back from France. Give us our money back. Yeah, I do want to talk about that history, but. Well, we can talk about it now, because this question deals with it a little bit. Haiti is obviously a disaster right now, but the idea of sending in US Forces at one point, that was almost a given, but now it is not. What has changed over the past, say, 25 years?

[Keith Mines]

It all goes to the frustration over how things came out in Afghanistan and Iraq. You know, if you think about it, we had one small intervention in 2004. It was in the middle of those two wars. And the administration, Bush administration didn't blink. They sent down a small force, got a coalition together and kind of restored, such as it was, order to the country. That's a very controversial thing because some thought that Aristide should have been left alone. We kind of helped escort him off the island. That's a whole nother story, but not kind of.

[Martin DeCaro]

I mean, he did go on a US Plane, but, yeah, we can get into that.

[Keith Mines]

But there's a question about whether he realized himself that he was about to get taken over by another gang and maybe killed, too. And maybe killed. In any event, we weren't afraid of that small intervention. That was enough. The gangs have gotten very powerful. Now. They're very well armed. And I think anyone intervening realizes that it's going to be both harder and possibly more violent. But I will say this as well, you hear this from most Haitians is when the United States shows up in some configuration, it usually puts people in a different place, and no other country can really do that. So this leads us to the question of private security contractors. And that's another can of worms and another question that's a little bit controversial. I'm kind of more in favor of that as a tool than many because I think we're going to end up in more and more places like this where it's the only option. There's not a UN option, there's not a US option, there's no other coalition that'll take it on.

[Martin DeCaro]

Well, who are these private armies? Who would hire them and who would they answer to?

[Keith Mines]

Yeah, the Haitian government has actually hired a small contingent itself.

[Martin DeCaro]

Okay.

[Keith Mines]

You know, again, I think if you look at it objectively, they got a bad rap in Iraq because of the Fordo Square massacre, which was bad. But you know, frankly, compared to lined up with what a lot of our own forces did, I don't know that you can dismiss that as an idea just based on that. I had 250 military or private security contractors when I was a senior civilian representative in northern Afghanistan from 12 to 13. We never had a single incident of any kind. They were under very good control, very good leadership, very well trained. The Americans were mostly ex seals or Delta Special Forces or Rangers and you know, really good discipline. And so, I mean, there's a way I think you can make that work. We had another very creative program that I was, I bumped up against in Darfur and that's actually more similar, I think, to what we're talking about here, where the AU had taken on this mission of blanketing Darfur with its forces. So it had 10 or so base camps all through Darfur and they were there as observers and to keep the ceasefire going and things like that. Very effective model. But every one of the units got an American advisor and the American advisor was just there to provide technical advice and to help with planning, with intel, with operations. You know, just coming from a planning background that maybe some of these other forces didn't have. So I think that's more what we're talking about and that that's been done in Haiti a number of times. The first intervention in the 90s, we went around to all the police forces in the United States and basically asked them to provide their Creole speaking police officers. So they were all released from their police force. They came into their own contingent that was managed by DynCorp at the time, one of the contractors and you know, they had their Dyncor uniform, they had an American flag on it. But they were the ones that really, I think got the police in that period from. From 96 to 98 to 99 to a much better place.

[Martin DeCaro]

What's the US reputation like in Haiti today? Because we can go back decades to when the US Supported the right wing dictatorship of Duvalier. Aristide won the first presidential election. George H.W. bush was president at the time, and I don't think he was a fan of Aristide. And Aristide was toppled and had to be restored by a US military intervention under Bill Clinton in 1990. Is that history front of mind for people today in Haiti? Would they welcome a US Intervention to restore order? We know it's not going to happen, but I'm just trying to get a sense of what is the US Reputation in the country now, given all this complex history, because as you know, Keith, and this is something that we've discussed on past episodes of the podcast, there are some Americans who are just simply opposed to any US Intervention anywhere. They say it's US Imperialism, and we have no business doing that because it risks alienating the people of that country. And then we eventually impose our will and we never leave. You know, I think there might be times where US Intervention is necessary if it is in our interests. Maybe Haiti is one such situation, but we also don't want to see another Mogadishu here, which is probably what would happen if the US Marines showed up. Maybe not. I don't know. I don't really know a lot about these gangs. You know more about them, them than I do. This is a very long question, my friend. So why don't we go back to the first part of it and is the US Liked in Haiti today?

[Keith Mines]

I think it's a little bit mixed, but not that mixed. And I think right now what I get from all the Haitians that I interact with is they are ready for a level of assistance, accompaniment or even intervention. They just recognize they've kind of run out of options and they don't see, I think, another way. So I think they would welcome a full US intervention. I think they would again also be open to these other private military contractors or others that could do the job without, you know, without the official US imprimatur, but that would show up. As Americans, people say this and I had incidents when I was there in, in the 90s where, you know, those creole speaking American SIPOL officers could do things. And the Canadians used to tell me that, they said, you know, for whatever it's worth, you know, we speak French, we can kind of get by, but your guys are the ones that really can turn things around in a city, in a town, in a village. So I think there is something about Americans, we do have this huge diaspora here that I think also would be willing security conditions being open to it would be willing to do a lot more. I think there's a lot of people that institutions, agencies, all sorts of things that want to do more and they just don't know what to do. And the conditions are not right for them to do much of anything. We've really got this time to do to change the model and really reinforce the government. There was a great statistic that Paul Farmer used to share the great humanitarian that was all about Haiti. He was. There was one of the leaders, of course, after the earthquake, when Haiti had more attention than it knew what to do with. And he said, you know, when it was all over, 99% of assistance went into private entities. 1% went to the government. And there was a very good article actually a few months ago in Christianity Today that was. That talked about the evangelicals and others, humanitarians that go down to Haiti and basically produce and create a parallel system of education, of infrastructure, of health. This author was recognizing, you know, that model just has failed because it's so tenuous. We've never strengthened the government itself. So I think in. And if we were to have a different model, advisors rather than doers, funders of the government rather than funders always of private entities, things that could start pulling in. There's actually a lot of really good, well trained security people that are in the private sector right now. You don't want to strip them out because companies will get taken over, but certainly to figure some way out that that talent and that skill can be for the government. It's a very Hobbesian kind of situation. But the government's got to get this monopoly on the use of force because.

[Martin DeCaro]

As you say, there is a government there. There's no president, but there's a transitional council. There are government ministers. So there are people who are ready to be in charge if the security situation would improve. But what about the gangs? I mean, how many people are we talking about here? It sounds like it's in the tens of thousands. They would have to agree to put down their guns and go home. Right?

[Keith Mines]

Well, there's going to have to be an element of coercive force that's going to. It's going to start with that, and it's going to start with counterforce to the gangs going in and literally taking over their territory by force. And we had a very good Study that was done by Vonda Felbab Brown of Brookings. She cut away to USIP long enough to do a study of the gangs and of the different strategies. One of them was the high value target strategy versus the territorial strategy, she called it. And it was a very clean picture that you can go after the leaders forever. We kind of learned this in Colombia and some other places, and there will always be somebody else to take their place. So there's actually, by one count, I think it was G Talk or one of the organizations counted something like 200 deaths now of gang members from drones. So drones are getting in the business right now as well. There's no change at all in what goes on on the Port au Prince. It just knocked off one guy and somebody else takes over. But with the territorial strategy, it basically is going in and retaking. Not just going in and then leaving, but retaking a whole district, bringing in all the functions of government, education, health, taking care of the refugees, and then building that security in that zone without leaving. That's what. There just aren't the numbers to do. The Haitian.

[Martin DeCaro]

It would take a sustained. Well, I was going to say occupation.

[Keith Mines]

The question is, how much of that could you do with a vast, much enlarged train and equip program for the Haitian police and the army? The army's been completely ignored. The army's about 1200 people. The police are 9000 on the rolls, of whom they say 3000 or even 2000 are the only effectives. So the numbers are just not there. The gangs have got them wildly outnumbered, outbound, everything else. But we come in with a foreign force that really can't do that much. It's just the model may be all wrong. The model of, you know what, if you train 10,000, 20,000 Haitian young men and women to be a new police force, a new army, that finally gave the state the capacity to do this. We haven't done that yet. We've done it piecemeal.

[Martin DeCaro]

Maybe there are no good outcomes here. Last thing about Aristide and the US Reputation there. Aristide did win the first election in the early 1990s, as I mentioned, he was toppled. The Clinton administration invaded Haiti to restore his presidency and restore order. He left politics after his term ended because you could not have consecutive terms. Talking about Jean Bertrand Aristide, he formed a new political party and then he returned to politics, winning an election in 2000 that had charges of election fraud. There were calls for new or runoff elections, but the results were declared official and Aristide was inaugurated in February 2001, a month after George W. Bush. But his rule became unpopular. And then there was a full scale rebellion, not unlike today. You can read stories about gangs closing in on the presidential palace. So the story goes, Keith, that U.S. diplomats, U.S. officials with a security detail showed up to Aristide's office, if you will, and told him, listen, you have to leave or you might be killed. We're not going to defend you from the gangs coming in. This is the story. And he was put on a plane, his phone was taken away. And he shows up in the Central African Republic against his will, leading to charges in the U.S. congress. I remember Maxine Waters saying this, that he was kidnapped by the United States.

[Jean Bertrand Aristide]

But essentially the story is that he felt that he'd been kidnapped. He called it a coup d'. Etat. He said that he was told that if he did not leave and leave immediately, he would be killed and many Haitians would be killed. And he felt he was forced to go. There was an airplane waiting for him at the airport and they put him on the plane without telling him where he was going. There were French officers on the plane and they made a couple of stops and then he ended up in Central Africa Republic. And he was just dropped there. And no contact was made with him since that time by the United States government or the State department. For some 15 days. He was there not knowing whether he would ever be able to leave or what his future would hold.

[Martin DeCaro]

What's the truth?

[Keith Mines]

There's two completely different narratives on this, and I honestly don't know. I think I was in Iraq when all this was going on. But the narratives are. That's the one that you just expressed is the one where he was effectively kidnapped by the United States, taken to Africa. And then the other one is that he was governing so chaotically. Aristide. The one thing I would say that I do have personal experience with is even when I was there, he was very quick to go. Again, this goes to that perennial problem. He was very quick to go outside his own institutions and round up a gang. And he had his own, like, private.

[Martin DeCaro]

Armies who were causing hell.

[Keith Mines]

Well, private armies and then also just stirring up the people. That's what he was really good at. But there was the foyer killing. This goes way back, but it shows you where he, his head and heart was in some of this stuff. Hoyer was a cousin of his that was killed in the fall of 95. And he gave this speech which we ended up on the receiving end up because we were driving with our family somewhere and we got accosted by a gang. So we actually had personal experience with this, but he just went on the air and he said, go up into the, into the big houses of the big people and take their weapons. And you know, he just stirred up a gang rather than, okay, we're going to work with the police, we're going to get to the bottom of this killing. He was very quick to do that in both of his administrations and I think the second administration, it just got out of control. I mean, again, rather than using the institutions of government, he himself rounded up a gang, got them to try to fight his enemies. The counter narrative of he was on his last leg is very, very well documented by several journalists that were on the ground at the time. You know, I, I tend to go with them because I think it just made more sense. And again, having a bit of personal experience with the way he did these things, I, I tend to accept that that was probably the direction it was going and it was leading to such chaos in the country that, you know, they needed a fresh start. They got that fresh start too. They had a council of sages that came in, got them to the next election.

[Martin DeCaro]

Haiti continued to be a democracy after, after this.

[Keith Mines]

Again, it was kind of non democratic way of getting back to democracy. I guess we've done that a couple times. But, but it was, yeah, but it, you know, they never gave up on elections. They've had trouble with elections. There's some structural things too that you always have to keep in mind. The, the toggle between the president and the prime minister has never gone well. Their electoral system is really difficult because of the plethora of parties. They end up with dozens of parties. So there's still some real structural issues that are in play, which by the way, part of the work that's been done very effectively by the OAS and the UN and others has been to try to help with constitutional reform. NDI was doing that as well. I don't know if their guys survived that cut. The cuts are not from ndi, but.

[Martin DeCaro]

NDI is National Democratic Institute, part of.

[Keith Mines]

The architecture that was founded by, in the Reagan administration to try to help, help with transitions to democracy, to try to promote democracy abroad. So they've had some very effective experts that have been helping Haiti with its constitutional reform. It's a Haitian issue, of course, but you know, there's people that have done this in other countries. There's a lot of expertise that can be helpful and the Haitians are quite open to that. Yeah, there's a whole constitutional array of issues as well. All these things, once you get back to basic stability, the election, the constitutional reform, security sector reform, there's a whole lot of things that can start to take off again. They were slowly grinding forward, and I think people that dismissed the whole project are not being completely fair. Judicial reform was also grinding forward, but it had a long ways to go. The other thing that people have to remember was the depredations of the Duvalier administration. He completely leveled civil society, leveled any freedom of speech, any freedom of assembly. So the country, I think, came at the democratic project in a much worse place than anywhere else in the hemisphere.

[Martin DeCaro]

Chile, and our poverty as well, the grinding poverty.

[Keith Mines]

And they also came at it very isolated, which I always point to as well, that they've had a 200 and whatever it is, 20 years now of isolation from pretty much everybody. They didn't have any other, any community of nations they really belonged to, which created a very fascinating and interesting culture.

[Martin DeCaro]

But, well, didn't colonial powers punish Haiti because Haiti became independent from them and so did we.

[Keith Mines]

The United States wouldn't have anything to do with Haiti because we were afraid of what that said about our own slaves. So we didn't have anything to do with Haiti until after the civil war. So that's six decades with the French out down there exacting reparations, the United States cutting them off. The Dominicans not sure what to do with them because they didn't speak Spanish. I mean, it's been the rest of the Caribbean, English speaking, you know, they've been really alone. And I don't think, it's not making excuses, but it's just the reality of.

[Martin DeCaro]

Their history and the earthquake in 2010. But you were saying that prior to this 2017, 2018, 2019 series of events, Haiti appeared to be on the right path.

[Keith Mines]

Leading up to the earthquake. It was really on the right path. That was the second PRVAL administration. PRVAL was pretty good leader. An earthquake came, wiped everything out. Then they started over again. And then that period from the earthquake up until the collapse, so about a decade it was up and down, but it was manageable, it was functional. There was nothing like what we have, what we had after the assassination of Moise in 21. So you had a 10 year period. It wasn't great. You can go back into all the problems, political and otherwise, that were going on, but kind of they kind of muddled through. You know, there was a, an element of getting through it and then hoping for that next good leader that would maybe get through the next election.

[Historical Narrator]

Seven months ago, a brutal military regime ruled Haiti, beating and torturing and murdering its citizens. Now the Haitian people are moving from a dark night of fear to a new day of freedom. You and all those who have served since last September helped to make that happen. Seven months ago, thousands of migrants were streaming out of Haiti. Now tens of thousands of Haitians have come home. Home to start to build a better life for themselves and their fellow countrymen and women. You helped to make that happen. Seven months ago, the world wondered whether the United States could summon the will to protect democracy in this hemisphere. Now the world knows once again that the United States will honor its commitments and stand up for freedom.

[Martin DeCaro]

On the next episode of History as it Happens, Reconsidering the Cold War again. Historian Vladislav Zubok has written a new book, the World of the Cold War. He had a lot to say, a lot to get off his chest, and it has me thinking about the ways we got the Cold War wrong. All that and more. If Vladis Zubak and Sergey Radchenko next New episodes every Tuesday and Friday. My newsletter every Friday. Sign [e-mail] or just go to Substack and search for History as it happens. Sam.