Rather than planning another peacekeeping mission in Haiti after the recent assassination of the Haitian president, outside actors should focus on encouraging a national accord and other domestic-led steps to stabilize the country.
The July 7 assassination of Haiti’s president, Jovenel Moïse, produced a deep political crisis in a country already beset by major challenges. This marks the latest turn in a nonstop upheaval that has engulfed the Caribbean country since 2018, when Haiti was rocked by protests against fuel price hikes and revelations of a massive government corruption scandal.
Since the departure of the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti in October 2017, the country’s security situation has worsened dramatically. Criminal gangs control about 60 percent of the country’s territory, and kidnappings and murders have skyrocketed over the past year, limiting the government’s capacity to deliver public goods. More than 13,000 Haitians are thought to have fled gang violence in the past…
