Haiti: No Future Without Foreign Intervention?

Abstract

In Haiti’s two-hundred-year history, there have been numerous international armed interventions, with cycles of peace and near-anarchy. By the early 2020s, the latter again seems likely to prevail. Although there is a strong public opposition to foreign aid, another intervention in the country’s internal affairs seems inevitable. The main question is how, and whether the international community’s largesse will serve short- or longer-term goals. The case of Haiti also provides an opportunity to assess the UN’s crisis management, which has been inextricably linked to the history of the Caribbean country since the 1990s. No meaningful progress can be expected without a thorough understanding of the past and the decisions that have gone wrong, and this study can provide a basis for doing so, from the historical facts to an examination of the questions that need to be asked about the way forward.