Revisiting Haiti's gangs and organized violence.
This paper explores the complicated and contentious issue of gangs in urban Haitian society, making a modest dent in the empirical research void on gangs and insurgent groups in Haiti's social and political life. This paper set out to examine whether Haiti ́s gang-related violence constitutes a "war" using criteria embedded in the Geneva Conventions and found that this question is impossible to address without establishing clear definitions and a shared vocabulary for understanding the complex motivations for urban violence.
Clearly, the narrative that has dominated the discourse on Haiti's gangs is overly simplistic. Intensive field research conducted over the past ten years in more than a dozen studies demonstrates the complexity of gang identities, roles, functions and the impact on stabilization and development activities. The role of the media, political groups, financial backers and the international community further complicates efforts to understand and address gang violence. In highlighting the scale and dimension of armed conflict, innovative research methods were used including qualitative field work with members of armed groups, which could be duplicated in other conflict settings as researchers strive to unpack how conflict tips the scale from "ordinary" violence to war.
This paper finds that Haiti's armed groups are heterogeneous and despite similarities among the rank and file membership, motivation and relationships – both personal and historic – play a large role in motivating individuals to be active with and
within armed groups. Differentiating between groups is key for policy makers and development workers alike as the motivation and relationships influence both the success of community violence reduction efforts, as well as the success of security and policing efforts. The lines between groups are not always easy to distinguish and in the past, misunderstandings about the political affiliation, financial backing and access to resources of particular gangs has hampered stabilization and development efforts.
The paper also notes that the perceptions, functions and activities of armed groups change over time in Haiti. Efforts to establish democratic governance and the presence of foreign peacekeepers have had a profound impact on the development of gang violence in urban Haiti, with membership in gangs and other armed groups increasing during times of government repression. It is important to note the shift in how armed groups are viewed by residents and development workers as well as also how they viewed themselves. The use of generic and all-encompassing concepts such as "gangs" may obscure rather than reveal underlying motivations.
Armed groups in Haiti have comparatively sophisticated understandings of the basic rules of war, even if not described as such. Indeed, there are established understandings about the use of force, proportionately, authority structures and other factors. The experience of such groups in Haiti forces us to revisit our understandings of "tipping points" from conflict to war. Indeed, there are many insights from the Haiti experience that may apply more broadly to other settings described as "other forms of violence".
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