‘A criminal economy’: How US arms fuel deadly gang violence in Haiti | Armed Groups News

In Haiti, weapons smuggling is compounded by several domestic factors, from a lack of functioning state institutions to rampant corruption and ties between gangs, politicians and businessmen.

The country ranked 172 out of 180 countries last year on Transparency International’s corruption index — one of the lowest scores in the world. And the Haitian National Police is under-resourced and only counts a few thousand officers.

“Weapons come into Haiti like you can bring in a bag of rice from abroad, like you can bring in a pair of sneakers,” Youdeline Cherizard, a Haitian criminologist, told Al Jazeera.

“I have to add that it’s a huge economic sector. It’s a criminal economy that works well.”

According to the 2023 UNODC report, while handguns sell for around $400 to $500 in the US, they can be resold in Haiti for as much as $10,000, depending on demand.

Cherizard explained that, while Haiti has laws regulating firearm possession in its 1987 constitution and later decrees (PDF), neither the judiciary nor law enforcement nor any government ministries have been able to control their spread.

“It is this delay of the judicial system and the police in controlling firearms that gradually increases the permissiveness, and permissiveness has become the norm,” she said.

She also noted that authorities have complicit in firearms trafficking. Customs officials, for instance, have been accused of helping armed groups get weapons that are shipped to Haiti.

Businessmen and politicians also have been implicated and profited from the flow of firearms, according to Haitian rights groups.

In one example, in late July 2022, the National Human Rights Defense Network (RNDDH) reported on a seizure of weapons and ammunition in Port-de-Paix, on Haiti’s northwestern coast, that arrived via ship from Florida (PDF).

A man accused of being involved in the trafficking scheme, as well as the ship’s owner, were arrested. But shortly thereafter, they were ordered to be released. RNDDH said it received information that they were freed after more than $200,000 was paid out to several members of the judiciary.

A former Haitian official also hinted at the involvement of prominent members of society in weapons trafficking.

Speaking to the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank at a popular bar in an upscale part of Port-au-Prince in December 2023, the unnamed official said: “People who collaborate with them hang out right here.”

“They are the ones who live between legality and illegality, who make contacts with the banks, who help bring in weapons.”