Piti Piti Zwazo Fè Nich Li: Why The Multinational Security Support Mission for Haiti Needs More U.S. Funding

On the night of October 2, 2024, hundreds of men, women, and children were indiscriminately killed or injured in a massacre. This violence did not occur in Gaza, Lebanon, Ukraine, or any other conflict zone that has received comprehensive news coverage. Instead, this attack—with at least 115 casualties—was carried out by the Haitian Grand Grif gang in the northwest town of Pont-Sondé. While the world’s attention has been divided across humanitarian crises, a gang war has wracked Haiti since 2020. About 300 gangs exact control over swathes of land throughout Haiti, particularly in the capital, Port-au-Prince, where they control 85% of the city. These gangs have killed 1,200 people in the past three months and internally displaced over 700,000 Haitians. In addition to their violence, gangs have exacerbated existing issues––driving farmers from nearly 7,500 acres of agricultural land while about half of the country faces acute hunger.

The United States and the international community have taken steps to address the current Haitian crisis. These include implementing a United Nations arms embargo on October 18, 2024, to stop weaponry from reaching Haitian gangs. Further, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned the leader of the Grand Grif gang. In 2023, the United Nations authorized the Kenyan-led Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission, and the United States became the mission’s largest financier and material provider. However, with Haiti experiencing the highest levels of violence in decades and only limited successes from the small Kenyan-led MSS force, the United States must provide greater resources to stabilize the crisis.

While the United States should be spurred to action on humanitarian grounds alone, increasing support for the ongoing MSS mission is in the United States’ geostrategic interest. With Russia and the People’s Republic of China pressuring the U.S.-led international order through anti-Western military conflicts like the Russo-Ukrainian War and the expansion of competing international organizations like BRICS+, the United States must demonstrate its continued ability to lead multilateral efforts to solve global crises. Failure to mitigate the ongoing insecurity in Haiti diminishes the international credibility of the United States. Allies and partners may question whether the United States can still solve global crises, especially if it cannot address a crisis within its hemisphere. 

It is incumbent upon the United States to fund the MSS mission as regional actors like the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) do not have the necessary financial or material resources available to sustain the effort. Meanwhile, Canada, the second largest funder of the MSS mission, can only pledge a third of what the United States provides. While multilateral action is necessary, the United States is the only regional actor that has the capacity to provide the required funding and resources to ensure the MSS mission’s success. Furthermore, if the U.S. fails to support the Kenyan-led MSS mission, other countries could rethink participation in future multinational security efforts if they anticipate their forces will not be appropriately funded.

Haiti’s Recent Collapse

Haiti’s gang crisis has spiraled out of control since the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. After the assassination, the already weakened Haitian government—torn between supporters of the then-Prime Minister Ariel Henry and a transitional government—floundered to contain the crisis. After gangs prevented Prime Minister Henry’s re-entry to Haiti, he resigned on April 25, 2024. The new Transitional Presidential Council (TPC) was created and tasked with leading the country until new elections could be held in February 2026. Amid the government crisis, gangs mounted coordinated attacks across Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, attacking the country’s main airport, releasing thousands of inmates from Haiti’s two largest prisons, and seizing around 80% of the capital 

Kenyan-Led MSS Mission: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Witnessing the chaos erupting in Haiti, the Kenyan Government announced its willingness to lead a multinational security support force in July 2023. However, the Kenyan government faced setbacks as opposition parties in the Kenyan national assembly, fearing government overreach, legally challenged the MSS deployment. In early February 2024, the Kenyan High Court ruled that the government had no legal authority to deploy Kenyan police abroad. A reciprocal security agreement was signed in March 2024, and Kenyan police were allowed to deploy in June 2024.

Once deployed, the MSS mission reestablished some stability in Port-au-Prince, securing infrastructure like hospitals and port facilities and establishing armored vehicle and foot patrols to create a physical security presence. A sense of normalcy returned to secured areas, where local street markets have reopened. Haiti’s then-acting prime minister expressed his confidence in the progress of the MSS mission. These successes were accomplished with only 400 MSS members and 24 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) armored vehicles. 

While the Kenyan-led MSS mission has expelled Haitian gangs from critical infrastructure and reestablished security in areas of Port-au-Prince, the understaffed and under-equipped force can only do so much. Even with a planned strength of 2,500 MSS mission officers, the multinational force must defeat approximately 15,000 Haitian gang members across the country. U.S. technology could level the playing field, reducing the gangs’ numerical advantage. For example, MSS mission requests for air support could be met with comparatively inexpensive commercial police drones to increase situational awareness and gain an operational edge over Haitian gangs. U.S. material aid is critical as an MSS operation on October 12, 2024, gang members, armed with a variety of high-powered rifles and machine guns, can destroy the MSS mission’s MRAPs. While the operation demonstrates that the MRAPs are not impervious, they have proved the critical capability to protect MSS forces. The MSS mission has not experienced any officer fatalities during its deployment, largely thanks to the protection offered by the mission’s armored vehicles. Due to the MRAP’s vital role, U.S. support must supply more of these vehicles to increase the MSS mission’s technological advantage over the numerically superior Haitian gangs.

Despite MSS mission operations, gangs retain close to 85% of Port-au-Prince. A Spirit Airlines flight was recently hit by Haitian gang fire while attempting to land in Port-au-Prince, resulting in the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration grounding American flights to the island. Additionally, non-governmental organizations, including Doctors Without Borders, have withdrawn personnel from the capital due to deteriorating security.

Furthermore, the MSS mission has neither the numbers stationed outside of the city nor the airpower to respond rapidly to gang attacks outside of the capital, like the massacre at Pont-Sondé. Despite indicators for over two months that gangs planned to attack the town, both the MSS and national police were unprepared to respond on the night of the massacre, with national police forces only arriving two days after the attack. Further U.S. material support for the MSS mission is critical to give the multinational troops the ability to respond and protect Haiti’s people. 

Increasing Funding Instead of Deploying Troops

The United States’ checkered history of military involvement in Haiti illustrates that material and financial support is the best intervention. Over the last century, United States military forces have entered Haiti on multiple occasions. In the twentieth century, the United States invaded and occupied Haiti between 1915 and 1934 to protect U.S. business interests and impose a new constitution following the assassination of the Haitian president. In 1994, U.S. forces were returned to the Caribbean nation during Operation Uphold Democracy, and again in 2004 as part of a multilateral intervention against another military coup. History indicates that using U.S. military force fails to establish long-term stability in Haiti.

Apart from the lasting impact of the United States’ historical use of force in Haiti, calls for U.S. military intervention in Haiti fail to consider the lack of U.S. public support for nation-building. A proposal from academics Ebenezer Obadare and Robert I. Rotberg argues that a 10,000-strong joint U.S.-Canadian special operations force would swiftly eliminate Haitian gangs and establish order. However, following two decades of nation-building efforts in the Middle East, neither Canada nor the U.S. public—especially following the withdrawal from Afghanistan—are likely to support this type of effort. Additionally, the complexity of fighting Haitian gangs among the civilian population would require a slow, methodical effort, not a rapid decimation, as Obadare and Rotberg predict.

International intervention in Haiti is also a delicate subject. United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), which ran from 2004 to 2017, was riddled with failures. The mission infected over 600,000 Haitians with Cholera due to improper MINUSTAH base sanitation construction. This epidemic triggered Haitian riots against UN peacekeepers. A report released by the UN in 2015 stated that MINUSTAH was one of four peacekeeping missions that accounted for the highest number of sexual exploitation allegations. 

Kenya, in contrast, has a limited history with Haiti. It did not contribute forces to the MINUSTAH mission, placing it in a preferable position to lead the MSS mission. With Kenya sending an additional 600 police officers to support the MSS mission, the United States’ role in Haiti does not need to rely on sending U.S. soldiers. Instead, the United States should increase its financial and equipment contributions to the MSS forces already in Haiti.

Haiti And U.S. Geopolitical Interests

It is within U.S. geostrategic interest to allocate further resources to support the Kenyan-led MSS mission in Haiti. While Haitian territory primarily rests in the hands of gangs and the MSS mission remains under-resourced, geopolitical competitors, like Russia and the PRC, gain opportunities to challenge the United States-led international order. Russia and the PRC have used Haiti’s condition as evidence that the United States is unsuited to lead the global order. Russia has criticized the U.S. historical interventions and “manipulation of the internal situation” for the current Haitian crisis. The PRC has accused the United States of being the primary supplier of weaponry and ammunition to Haitian gangs. The PRC has also attempted to position itself as an international partner to Haiti, claiming to uphold Haitian self-determination. This explains the PRC’s lack of contribution to the MSS mission. Within the United Nations, the PRC and Russia exert influence to prevent the MSS mission from becoming a direct UN action, which would provide expanded access to UN resources.

With international crises occurring worldwide, the United States must demonstrate that it has the capability and resources to manage critical issues. While Haiti remains in chaos, geopolitical competitors that are placed at the top of the current U.S. National Security Strategy (NSS) gain another way to attack the credibility of the United States while trying to “reshape the international order.” While Russia and the PRC see opportunities to condemn the United States for its failure to address the situation in Haiti, increased funding for the MSS mission allows the United States to refute their criticisms.

As the situation in Haiti deteriorates and hard-fought MSS mission security gains are eroded, the United States must act in this critical moment to provide financial and material assistance to the MSS forces. In addition to humanitarian considerations, addressing this crisis aligns with the priorities of the incoming Trump administration. A collapse of Haiti would exacerbate escalating migration pressures, with 220,798 Haitian immigrants arriving at U.S. borders in 2024. A stabilized Haiti is critical to reducing migration flows to the United States. Geopolitically, resolving the Caribbean nation’s crisis is vital to demonstrate the United States’ ability to resolve international crises, counter the critiques of rivals attempting to upend the global order, and convince nations to take more prominent leadership roles in U.S.-backed multinational missions.

Views expressed are the author’s own and do not represent the views of GSSR, Georgetown University, or any other entity. Image Credit: Picryl