Front Burner - Inside Haiti's capital, ripped apart by gangs

Episode Date: May 24, 2024

For months, Haiti has been ravaged by out-of-control gangs, especially in the country’s capital of Port-au-Prince. But international forces are expected to arrive any day now, led by Kenya.Getting in and out of Haiti is dangerous — and for many, impossible. But CBC’s Paul Hunter managed to go inside the gang-controlled capital and tells us what life is like for Haitians struggling to escape the brutal conditions and how they feel about the looming international intervention.Help us make Front Burner even better by filling out this listener survey. 

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Thank you so much in advance. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. This week, an advanced team of forces from Kenya entered Haiti in a new push to stop the gang violence that's overtaken the country. A UN-backed police force of 2,500 officers from around the world is supposed to arrive any day now. They and Haiti's own forces will face gangs that are better armed and better organized than ever before. Those gangs have taken control of most of the capital, burning down homes and driving hundreds of thousands of people out of port-au-prince. They've killed thousands of Haitians. It is heartbreaking. Port-au-Prince. They've killed thousands of Haitians.

It is heartbreaking. Right now, the crisis in Haiti, the humanitarian crisis in Haiti, is the worst since the 2010 earthquake. It's that bad. And things need to change. It is a very dangerous situation. But this week, my colleague Paul Hunter managed to travel into Port-au-Prince. He saw the impact this is having on the lives, the health, and the basic needs of people there. And in a place still feeling the impact this is having on the lives, the health, and the basic needs of people there. And in a place still feeling the impact of decades of foreign intervention, seemingly stuck in a cycle of violence, unelected leaders, and government mismanagement, he asked Haitians how they feel about foreign forces coming in again. Paul, hi. Thank you so much for making the time to come onto the show today. Hey, Jamie. It's my pleasure. I want to start with a quick reminder about what's happened

in Haiti this year. So why is it so difficult to get inside the capital, Port-au-Prince, right now? Because of the gangs. Much of Port-au-Prince remains under the control of criminal gangs. Hundreds of people have died in the violence that forced out Haiti's prime minister earlier this year. Many are starving and desperately seeking safety. Brutal violence erupting around them every day and every night. They are effectively everywhere. I mean, 80% of the city is the number that keeps being referenced, and they own it, basically. There are all kinds of gangs. We hear about some of them and certain gang leaders like Barbecue, but there are lots of them. The city is effectively overrun by the gangs. It is lawless.

The police in uniform are targets, and critically, they control the access roads in and out. So the only way to drive into Port-au-Prince right now is to put your life at risk because you are driving through gang territory and they're brutal. So people in Port-au-Prince can't really get out, not without risking their lives. And people outside Port-au-Prince cannot drive in. risking their lives, and people outside Port-au-Prince cannot drive in. It's basically an island within an island. Talk to me a little bit more about how brutal they are. So in particular, the prominent leader known as Barbecue have claimed this is like a revolution to help the poor, and they have cast themselves almost like Robin Hood figures. But they are

unbelievably violent, right? They have been accused of mass killing, sexual violence. Yes, all of it. Kidnappings, rapes, killings. They're terrifying. And they're very well armed. I mean, they've got an arsenal, right? Barbecue is a former senior police officer. He knows what he's doing in these situations. People are terrified. People who've fled have fled for their lives because they can't stay where they lived. It's terrifying because, and like so many modern wars, if I can call it that, the gang members, they're not wearing uniforms, right? So how do you know who's who? And when you go into the neighborhoods where the gangs are, you don't know. They can see you. Can you see them?

If you live there, they know who you are. Do you know who they are? I mean, you know, a lot of the people who flee, you know, go to other places within Port-au-Prince where they think it might be a little bit safer. There are a couple of pockets in Port-au-Prince, so maybe a family in another neighborhood that is less life-threatening than the one where you live. But we met somebody at the border with the Dominican Republic. People have tried to get out of Haiti, but the Dominicans have closed the border. But we met somebody at the border who had fled because she cannot stay in Port-au-Prince. It's awful. I know that you have reported from Haiti a number of times in the past, including right after the earthquake in 2010 that killed over 200,000 people and left 30,000 families without homes. people and left 30,000 families without homes. Stories of bravery and resilience abound in this country. Arvelle Duverceau performed surgery in the open air as earthquake victims arrived with

unspeakable injuries. What kind of injuries have you seen? Amputation, amputation, amputation. I remember at the time it was some really incredible reporting, watching you. When you arrived this month and you saw what was happening in Port-au-Prince, what people's lives were like, I wonder if you could compare it to me. How did it compare? It was like triggering in a weird kind of way. I mean, you know, it looks like it did. And the poverty is overwhelming, right? People have nothing. In the face of the gangs,

with this kind of killings and kidnappings and rapes going on everywhere, Haitians in Port-au-Prince have nothing, right? They are quite literally in the face of famine. They have no food to speak of. They have no security. They have no jobs. They have no means to escape, generally speaking.

After the earthquake, it was one of these sort of sudden disasters, obviously. And everything happened all at once. sudden disasters, obviously. And everything happened all at once. And it was like a starting point to this terrible circumstance that followed as people tried to make their way out of that situation. Here it's been kind of a slow motion thing. So it's almost like when you look in the mirror and see yourself aging or not see yourself aging.

It has happened slowly. The famine has slowly grown. The gangs have slowly grown their power and increased their territory. But when I went into one of the encampments, deep in gang territory, and I looked around and I thought, this just looks like a tent encampment that I went to after the earthquake 15 years ago. And people are living here in unspeakable squalor and malnourished children and people who... We

went in with the World Food Program, United Nations, and they were handing out hot meals. And it was like, boom, everybody just swarmed the food coming in and just like grabbing at it because they have nothing, right? And that's what it was like after the earthquake. And here we are 15 years later, only on top of the fact that they don't have homes because they've been chased out of their neighborhoods by the gangs. It's like now you've got people, fellow Haitians, by the way, shooting at us is what people are saying. This is Haitians on Haitians on top of the terrible circumstance they've all been living in for, you know, generations. Yeah. It's really heartbreaking to hear you talk about children like that.

It is. But it's like you're confronted with it everywhere. Right. But it's like you're confronted with it everywhere, right? We met a woman in an encampment who told us she had fled her home in sort of deeper into Port-au-Prince. And you're in this kind of little, it's plywood structures and tents and things like that. This is Jacqueline Laurentier. I lost my home to the gangs, she says. I have five children with me.

I don't even have a tent. I sleep in the open air with my kids. And they'll wake up tomorrow in the same circumstance and next week and next month. And to look back over 15 years since the earthquake, like nothing of substance ever really seems to change there. It is heartbreaking. You mentioned that you also made it to the border with the Dominican Republic.

Can you tell me more about what was going on there, what you saw there? Sure. I mean, and I should say travel is extremely complicated because of the gangs. Yeah. I mean, even to get into Port-au-Prince ourselves, I say the roads were, you know, not accessible because of the gangs. So we had to helicopter in to Port-au-Prince on a United Nations World Food Program helicopter. It was taking aid workers. They had a couple of extra

seats. And so we flew in from Cap-Hacien, which was the only, at the time, the only airport in the country that was open to international commercial air travel. So we would have to helicopter in, you were landing at like an ad hoc landing pad in one of the less dangerous, one of those couple of pockets of relative safety. And then you're into an armored vehicle. You're not traveling in Port-au-Prince unless you're in an armored vehicle. And we had our personal protective equipment, the flak jackets and helmets and things like that. So that's how you get in and out of Port-au-Prince right now. Getting to the border, we helicoptered back to Cap-Hassien after Port-au-Prince, and we drove in what they call a soft car, a regular car, because the gangs are generally speaking confined to the Port-au-Prince area.

So we drove to the border. It was a couple of hours. You know, I met a woman there who said she fled Port-au-Prince with her kids. She had a business in Port-au-Prince. Now she's selling water roadside at this scene of chaos at the border that is closed to Haitians. I went right up to the line and there's like Dominican Republic guards standing like a foot away from Haitians who want to get in because that's where the market is. That's where things are that they don't have in Haiti. But they've shut the door. They're building a wall along the border. The president

of Dominican Republic just got reelected basically on a premise, on a promise to build a wall. They don't want any part of what's happening in Haiti coming into the Dominican Republic. And so what you have on the Haiti side is chaos and poverty and fear and effectively hopelessness because this is their world and they're stuck in it. Right. It really underscores the fact that most Haitians really have nowhere else to go. Nowhere. I mean, that's it. They're stuck there and they don't know what to do about it. I mean, what they told me was they just want their country back. They just want a life. You know, we see a lot of people arguing over the years, right,

that either the world has intervened too little or too much in Haiti, right? What did the Haitians actually tell you about international troops coming into their country this time? How do they feel about it right now? It's divided. I mean, when we were at the border, there was graffiti on the walls sort of all over the place, written in Creole, that we don't want Kenya in Haiti.

Kenya's leading the multinational forces coming in. But the people that I spoke with, it was interesting. You know, there is a long and complicated and very problematic for Haitians history of foreign interventions over the decades. And there was a tremendous wariness of foreign forces coming in and, you know, running the place. Haitians do not want that. But at the same time, they recognize that their

police are outmanned and outgunned. You know, what's happening in Port-au-Prince now, they can't fix. So there was a recognition from the people, certainly from the people that I spoke with in Cap-Hassien, at the Dominican border and in Port-au-Prince, that help is needed. Their police cannot do it. They need the help. Right. But then they say, but it's got at the end of the day, it's got to be Haitians who ultimately resolve the problem. So help Haiti, but let Haiti do it. resolve the problem. So help Haiti, but let Haiti do it. And, you know, when you talk about the multinational force coming in, anyone you talk to who's involved in that, including Canada, Canada's been heavily involved in the planning of this multinational force. We were in Jamaica a couple of weeks ago watching the Canadian forces do some training with forces from, police forces

from Bahamas and Belize and Jamaica. The language that is always used is that they are there to help Haiti's police. And while we were there in Port-au-Prince, from where we were staying up in the hills, we could see the international airport with the U.S. military cargo planes coming in and dropping off some of the gear that will be used by this multinational force. And it looked like, you know, the stuff you see in wars, like it was the big vehicles, the big military stuff. So the multinational force, when it lands, will be well equipped. Their mandate is to support Haiti's police. But the gangs are also that here's the the rub is that

the gangs are also well equipped and the games are also well organized yes exactly and and the city is a kind of one of those classic warrens of of cinder block you know a maze of roads here and there like and and the gangs do not want this force. And so it has the potential to be brutal once it gets going. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here.

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Yeah, they're on a reduced staff right now. It's still operating. We met with the ambassador. This was our first stop after we helicoptered into where we were staying. By the way, we were told no pictures of the landing pad, no video of the landing pad. Don't say where the landing pad is because they're worried gangs will find out about it. Again, just to give you a sense of what it's like there. And so we got in our armored vehicles and we went to the Canadian embassy, which is not too, too far away, maybe a half an hour drive. And something I've never seen before, which was Canadian forces, soldiers with guns drawn on the roof of a Canadian embassy. It is very highly securitized because it has to be. But it was like kind of jaw dropping.

It's like I've been to Kabul and maybe it was the same there. But I don't recall seeing soldiers on the roof with guns in front of the Canadian embassy. It was a weirdly remarkable sight. So we went in and inside spirits are fine. I mean, they're doing their job. And so they live in this little cocoon and work in this cocoon. They don't live at the embassy, but they're doing their job. I mean, Canada is a player in Haiti, right? It's important. I think everybody would agree that it's important that Canada be there and have its embassy operating, even if it's in a reduced capacity. Canada is a big player on aid to Haiti. I think it's the second biggest donor after the United States. It is a well-known entity and respected. But for the moment, it's also a fortress. And that unto itself speaks to the level of violence in Port-au-Prince. They showed us a map when we were there, showing the sort of the danger zones and the less dangerous zones, and it was all red.

There was a couple of pockets, right? It was just like darker and darker red. And then it got to black zones, which were complete no-goes. They don't go anywhere unless they're in an armored vehicle, right? But there are places, even in Port-au-Prince, that they will not go, this is the embassy staff, even in an armored vehicle. It's a complete no-go zone. Wow. You know, Paul, with this force coming in, you know, when you talk to the people in Haiti, do they have hope that this kind of cycle of destruction and bad governance that we have been talking about might be different this time around? Like, are there any real hopes that that things could improve? that things could improve. The Secretary of State, Antony Blinken of the U.S., said essentially the country is currently

on the precipice of being a failed state. There have been, in years past, numerous interventions in Haiti. Some have had some near-term effect in stabilizing things, but it's certainly true that we haven't seen a long-term stabilizing effect that's allowed the country to genuinely move forward.

And so is there hope? Do the people have hope? Yes, because, I mean, I hate to sound corny, but without hope, what do you have, right? I will say that the hope and the spirit of Haitians remains remarkable. emotional resilience, that they could stand up again after that, and that they could restart their lives in the face of a quarter million people killed within seconds. So now they have hope because they have to. For Haitians, this is their world. The resilience that they show to the nearly indescribable awfulness in which they live, be it the poverty or the violence or the corruption or whatever you want to name about the terrible things that have beset

Haiti over the years, the cholera that came after the earthquake, they hope because they have nothing else to see them through. And so when they say they welcome the incoming foreign forces, and don't get me wrong, it's not unanimous. There are those who just really see this as a thin edge of the wedge to another foreign occupation. But I will say that everyone that I spoke to said that they welcome it because they want their country back. Paul, thank you very much for this. As always, thank you. It's my pleasure, Jamie.

All right, that is all for today. FrontBurner was produced this week by Matt Alma, Ali Janes, Matt Mews, Derek Vanderwyk, and Ben Lopez-Steven. Sound design was by Matt Cameron and Marco Luciano. Music is by Joseph Chabison. Our senior producer is Elaine Chow. Our executive producer is Nick McCabe-Locos. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening to FrontBurner, and we'll talk to you on Monday.

For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.