Haiti Facing Its Security Mirages: When History and Institutional Vacuum Dictate the Crisis

What solutions for security in Haiti? Several politicians and intellectuals have expressed their positions and offered their analyses on the phenomenon of insecurity currently in the country. This Saturday, August 23, 2025, on Radio Télé Métropole, the debates highlighted a dilemma that far exceeds the technical question of security in Haiti: state failure, dependence on international actors, and the persistent difficulty in conceiving an endogenous solution. The speeches by Colonel Himmler Rébu and Dr. Renand Armstrong Charlot during the ANALIZ program revealed two converging lines of analysis: the rejection of imported military mirages and the call for national ownership, nourished by history and collective memory. To these two voices, we must add that of Professor James Boyard, an expert in international relations, who insists on the need to move beyond piecemeal approaches and to conceive a global and sustainable strategy. Armed Illusions and Structural Incompetence Questioned about the possibility of deploying foreign paramilitary groups to combat gangs in Haiti, Colonel Himmler Rébu, a former military officer, was categorical: « Se de bagay illusoire, opsyon stipid, sou papye li ineficas. » This concise statement reflects a deep conviction: the idea of foreign armed intervention, especially outside an institutional framework, does not address the complexity of the Haitian problem. According to him, it demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of internal dynamics. Rébu goes further by pinpointing the core of the problem: « il y a un vacuum. Un vide sur l’organisation de de l’état. Rien n’est géré ni dirigé ». The security crisis would therefore not primarily be a crisis of military means, but a crisis of competence and vision. In this logic, the first step should have been a national dialogue with the concerned actors, including young people enrolled in gangs, to analyze the situation and build a concerted plan. Rébu thus brings back to the center of the debate an often-obscured truth: the war against gangs cannot be won solely by arms, but by a combined political, social, and security strategy. The Historical Specter and the Reproduction of Colonial Patterns For his part, Dr. Renand Armstrong Charlot adopts a different, yet complementary, angle. While admitting his lack of technical expertise in the military field, he emphasizes common sense and, above all, the lessons of history. His warning is clear: « Le pays risque de basculer dans un problème encore plus grave. » To support his point, he invokes a powerful historical analogy: the Berlin Conference (1884-1885) where European colonial powers divided Africa by drawing arbitrary borders, without any consultation of the peoples concerned. For Charlot, Haitian current events dangerously resonate with this precedent: « Se pratikman menm bagay la yap fè ak nou jodi a, di yap réfléchi sou solution pwoblèm yo pou nou, san nou. » This parallel highlights a continuity: Haiti, despite its status as the first independent Black Republic, is still treated as an object of international management. With each crisis, solutions are discussed in foreign chanceries, rarely with an anchoring in popular sovereignty. Renand also invokes the memory of former President Leslie François Manigat, who denounced « la volonté d’être esclaves » (the will to be slaves), to illustrate the tendency of Haitian elites to surrender, consciously or unconsciously, to foreign influence instead of forging strategic autonomy. James Boyard's Warning: Towards a Global Strategy It is in this context that the voice of Professor James Boyard, divisional commissioner of the PNH, brings an essential strategic dimension. According to him: « Qu’elle émane du Conseil de sécurité des Nations unies, de l’OEA ou d’un acteur privé, aucune mesure visant la crise de sécurité en Haïti ne pourrait être DURABLE si elle n’inclut pas une solution GLOBALE, intégrant des mesures militaro-policières (6 mois), de stabilisation (18 mois) et de consolidation (5 ans). » This statement, with its methodological clarity, highlights an undeniable fact: Haiti cannot settle for « express solutions » or « security crackdowns ». Any sustainable approach must combine security urgency (military-police), the medium term (institutional and social stabilization), and the long term (political, economic, and democratic consolidation). Boyard thus provides the missing link in the interventions of Rébu and Charlot: a crisis exit architecture. If Rébu denounces the incompetence of leaders and Charlot recalls the lessons of history, Boyard shows the way: the necessity of global, progressive, and inclusive planning. A Triple Critique and a Triple Demand Rébu, Charlot, and Boyard, despite their different approaches, converge on the same demand. Rébu denounces illusion and incompetence. Charlot warns against the reproduction of colonial logics and calls for patriotic gathering. Boyard structures a roadmap where urgency must be articulated with the long term. In summary, they invite us to move beyond the « foreign firefighter » logic to reconnect with national lucidity and historical responsibility. Between Military Mirage and Historical Responsibility The statements cited in this article, enriched by James Boyard's remarks, offered a rare moment of lucidity. They each, in their own way, deconstructed the mirage of an imported military solution and showed that Haiti's salvation lies neither in haste nor in blind delegation to international actors. Their common diagnosis is unequivocal: without global, inclusive, and sovereign planning, foreign interventions, whether armed or diplomatic, will only prolong the cycle of failure and dependence. In other words, the real question is not who will come to save Haiti, but whether Haiti will finally agree to save itself.