• No results found

Concentrating on the community : an analysis of community violence reduction programs in the Haitian context

N/A
N/A
Protected

Academic year: 2021

Share "Concentrating on the community : an analysis of community violence reduction programs in the Haitian context"

Copied!
176
0
0

Bezig met laden.... (Bekijk nu de volledige tekst)

Hele tekst

(1)

Concentrating on the Community: An analysis of

Community Violence Reduction Programs in the Haitian

Context

Joshua Maziak-Amey (12142832)

Supervisor: Professor Jana Krause

Second Reader: Professor Dimitris Bouris

June 2019

Master Thesis Political Science: International Relations

The United Nations & Peacebuilding

(2)

2

Abstract

Within contemporary literature it is increasingly assumed that peacebuilding

efforts that are tailored to local contexts will be more effective than the

generalized traditional approaches employed for many decades under the liberal

peacebuilding mantra. Therefore, Community Violence Reduction (CVR)

programs, which were first deployed in 2006 under the mandate of the

MINUSTAH mission in Haiti, would be expected to have produced beneficial

results. Nonetheless, the environment in Haiti today is not much better, and is

argued by some to be even worse. This being the case, why have more than a

decade of sustained efforts, which focus upon targeting specific local contexts,

not worked to improve the overall stability of Haitian society as could be

expected based upon reading contemporary literature? I argue in this thesis that

limited ownership over operations by the Haitian locals and authorities, poor

institutional coordination, the 2010 earthquake and the fact that the intervention

was unable to break ties between armed gangs and political elites,

fundamentally limited the success that CVR efforts experienced. That aside, I

go on to argue that irrespective of the overall failures, the deployment of CVR

offers valuable lessons for future deployments and has resultantly worked its

way into the peacebuilding architecture as an indispensable tool for localized

and contextually tailored operations.

Keywords

: Localized, Peacekeeping, Peacebuilding, Ownership,

Coordination, Community, Violence, Reduction.

(3)

3

Table of Contents

Abstract... 2 1. Introduction... 7-9 1.1 Motivation...7 1.2 Relevance...7 1.3 Main Argument...8 1.4 Research Objectives...8 1.5 Research Question...9 1.6 Sub-Questions...9 2. Literature Review... 10-19 2.1 Peacebuilding & the United Nations...10

2.2 Local Peacebuilding...11

2.3 Peacebuilding Effectiveness...14

2.4 Haiti...16

2.5 Community Violence Reduction...17

3. Theoretical Framework... 20-31 3.1 Complexity Theory...20

3.2 Local Peacebuilding...21

3.3 Stabilization...24

3.4.1 Community Violence Reduction...26

3.4.2 CVR as a Peacebuilding Strategy...27

3.5 Robust Mandates...29

3.6 Institutional Coordination...30

4. Background... 32-36 4.1 History of the Haitian Context...32

4.2 Haitian Peacebuilding...33 4.3 Statebuilding in Haiti...34 4.4 DDR & CVR in Haiti...35 4.5 Haitian Statistics...36 5. Methodology... 37-44 5.1 Methodological Approach...37 5.2 Case Selection...37 5.3 Content Analysis...38 5.4 Interviews...41

5.5 Secondary Data Analysis...43

5.6 Limitations...44

6. Results & Findings…... 45-50 6.1 Content Analysis Findings...45

(4)

4

7. Analysis…... 51-69

7.1 Discussion...51

7.2 Security Council Resolutions...51

7.3 Tailoring to Local Contexts...55

7.4 Domestic Ownership...60

7.5 Institutional Coordination...64

7.6 Other Factors & General Discussion...67

8. Conclusion ... 70-74 8.1 Answering the Research Question...70

8.2 Recommendations...73

(5)

5

List of Tables & Figures

Figures

Figure 1

Post-conflict stabilization, transition and recovery continuum 25

Figure 2

Multi-track peacebuilding pyramid

28

Figure 3

Content analysis graph

47

Figure 4

Gang affiliation graph

60

Tables

Table 1

Content analysis codebook

41

Table 2

List of interviewees

43

Table 3

Results of content analysis

48

(6)

6

Abbreviations

DDR

Disarmament, Demobilization & Reintegration

IDDRS

Integrated Disarmament, Demobilization &

Reintegration Standards

CVR

Community Violence Reduction

UN

United Nations

MINUSTAH

Mission des Nations Unies pour la stabilisation

en Haïti

MINUJUSTH

Mission Des Nations Unies Pour L’appui À La

Justice En Haïti

IMF

International Monetary Fund

SAP

Structural Adjustment Program

SCR

Security Council Resolution

CNDDR

Commission Nationale de Désarmement,

Démantèlement et Réinsertion

(7)

7

Chapter 1

Introduction

1.1 Motivation

In recent years, the liberal peacebuilding approach has increasingly come under scrutiny for its mixed outcomes (Doyle and Sambanis, 2006). As a result, new methods to address peacebuilding have begun to be developed and deployed in the hope that this will lead to greater consistency in operations. Similarly, scholarship has progressively been discussing the critical nature of understanding the localized contextual factors that influence and shape wider, often national, conflicts (Kalyvas, 2003; Autesserre, 2010; Donais, 2012). My motivation for this study is derived from these shifts in the way peacekeeping is being approached, combined with the relevance and personal interest I have in one of the UNs most challenging missions, MINUSTAH.

Haiti is a context that has been subject to various and ongoing peacekeeping missions since the early 90s, some of which have been considered to be relatively effective (Berdal & Ucko, 2015; Lemay-Hebert, 2015). Therefore, there is value in its analysis and through the study of certain dimensions of past missions in the country, such as Community Violence Reduction (CVR), it offers lessons that future missions can draw from. This focus also provides insight into the current mission, MINUJUSTH, in order to help understand the challenges it faces based on the national history and results of past interventions. In this respect, through my study of CVR I want to illuminate the legacy left by previous missions and the resultant context this created, which the new mission has had to cater to and operate within.

1.2 Relevance

Localized peacebuilding measures have demonstrated their potential in contributing to critically strengthening local communities through incentivizing peace by providing carrots and sticks and working collectively with the inhabitants of these contexts to cater to their specific needs. As a result, this has worked to help mitigate conflict in multiple settings and contribute to greater levels of stability in some environments, such as in the case of Somalia (Ladouceur, 2019). Ultimately, this localized focus has proven its potential benefits in empowering local actors, creating more durable peace and in turn generating more successful peacebuilding, (Donais, 2012).

(8)

8

My argument is relevant in that given the rise of local peacekeeping, the CVR approach that was first conceptualized and deployed in 2006 as part of the MINUSTAH mission, is founded upon the theoretical principles that guide local peacebuilding, and therefore it could be expected to have produced beneficial results and learning opportunities. Whilst there has been discussion around the potential utility of CVR, it remains an understudied topic and I therefore delve more deeply into it, in order to understand whether, if implemented effectively, it may wield significant capacity for improving success of peacebuilding operations. This being the case, my analysis of the example of CVR in Haiti seeks to clarify whether its application had much success in improving the situation there, and in turn, what can be learnt from these experiences.

1.3 Main Argument

Within contemporary literature it is increasingly postulated that peacebuilding efforts that are customized relative to local contexts will be more effective than standardized one-size-fits-all approaches employed for many decades under the liberal peacebuilding mantra. Therefore, given their locally tailored approach, CVR programs would be expected to have produced favorable results. Nevertheless, the environment in Haiti today is generally regarded as being not much better, and by some measures even worse, irrespective of over a decade of CVR programs and wider stabilization and statebuilding efforts. This being the case, I argue that limited ownership over operations by the Haitian locals and authorities, poor institutional coordination, the 2010 earthquake and the fact that the intervention was unable to break ties between armed gangs and political elites, fundamentally limited the success that CVR efforts experienced. Nonetheless, I go on to argue that irrespective of the overall failures, the deployment of CVR and its experiences in Haiti, offer important lessons for future deployments and have resulted in it working its way into the peacebuilding architecture as an valuable tool for localized and contextually tailored operations.

1.4 Research Objectives

Ø To establish the relative successes of the CVR approach in Haiti. Ø To establish the biggest challenges the CVR approach faced in Haiti. Ø To establish the learnable lessons of the CVR approach in Haiti.

(9)

9

1.5 Research Question

Why were Community Violence Reduction programs hindered from

contributing to greater levels of stability in Haiti?

1.6 Sub-Questions

1. Did Security Council Resolutions impact the success of the mission and CVR operations?

2. Was CVR programming tailored to contextually specific local factors in Haiti? 3. Did Haitian actors have domestic ownership over operations?

4. Did a lack of coordination between the various operating bodies limit the impact of CVR operations?

(10)

10

Chapter 2

Literature Review

In the following section I provided a brief overview of some of the topics and debates that exist within contemporary literature that relate to my study. After a brief introduction to peacebuilding and the United Nations I outline some of the key literature with regards to local peacebuilding, peacebuilding effectiveness, Haiti and then finally Community Violence Reduction.

2.1 Peacebulding and the United Nations

Peter (2015) highlights that after steadily progressing its total number of missions through the second half of the 20th Century, by the end of the Cold War in the 1990s a new chapter in UN peacebuilding began with more missions taking place in that decade than in the previous 50 years combined. This can in large part be associated with the removal of the divisive competition that the Cold War stimulated between states (Doyle & Sambanis, 2000), and as a result it created an international environment that was more conducive to cooperation between states that allowed for greater collaboration in peacekeeping efforts. Further, Salvatore & Ruggeri (2017, p. 18) highlight the fact that whilst during the cold war “peacekeeping missions were predominantly deployed in the last phase of conflict”, during the 90s they began deploying missions with a preventative mandate in order to “avoid military confrontation” (ibid), which in turn led to a rapid increase in the number of deployments.

Richmond (2007) highlights that since the turn of the millennium the UN’s approach has fundamentally structured its missions based on a Liberal Peacebuilding framework. This approach, which contrasts with the argument of this paper, has been widely debated within the peacebuilding literature and promotes the creation of democratic institutions, human rights, an open economy and free and fair elections as a key focus of peacebuilding efforts (Chesterman, Ignatieff, & Thakur, 2005). This form of peacebuilding is based on assumptions of democratic peace theory, which outlines “democratic states have rarely, if ever, gone to war with each other, and has associated this absence of conflict with the character of democratic institutions” (Zaum, 2013). Nonetheless, over the years, scholars

(11)

11

have expressed their doubts around the presumptions the practice is built upon and its resultant utility (Paris, 1997; Richmond 2007; Donais 2012; Salvatore & Ruggeri, 2017).

With respect to this, Doyle and Sambanis (2006, p. 1) point out that the record of peacebuilding since the end of the Cold War has been “mixed at best”. With increasing doubts about and criticisms of the liberal approach, the field of peacebuilding and related literature can be seen to have been going through another significant chapter in its development in the last decade or so, with new ways of approaching missions slowly being discussed, developed and deployed. MacGinty and Richmondy (2013) specify that one area in which the field has been developing and assigning more attention to is on local level factors of violence, instability and conflict and how these can be addressed more appropriately by missions; something they refer to as ‘The Local Turn in Peacebuilding’. Whatever the approach and irrespective of the speed bumps experienced in the long road of peacebuilding, today “more than 100,000 troops, observers, and police personnel currently serve as United Nations Peacekeepers” (Autesserre, 2017, p. 115), and with global instability and violent conflict on the rise, this number is likely to increase.

2.2 Local Peacebuilding

The history of localized peacebuilding is inherently tied to that of the liberal peacebuilding model, however in saying this, it is important to realize that this is in a contrasting rather than comparative sense. Donais (2012, p. 6) makes the distinction between the typical liberal model type of peacebuilding and that of a more bottom-up ‘communitarian’ approach highlighting the fact that “local ownership [of peacebuilding operations] is the core issue around which liberal and communitarian perspectives diverge”. As aforementioned, the limitations and often-explicit failures of the liberal approach created an appetite within both the peacebuilding community and scholarship to try and develop more appropriate ways for addressing different forms of conflict. One of the ways this has subsequently been addressed is through an increasing focus on the local level dynamics of conflict and its consequent impact on the wider national or even international level conflict; a shift which has been described as an “affront” (MacGinty & Richmondy, 2013, p. 764) to the liberal peace approach, which has consistently focused more on macro-level dynamics.

(12)

12

The concepts which localized peacebuilding are founded upon are not new, with the conceptualisation of a peace from below gaining prominence through the 90s. By the early 2000s, Kofi Annan who was the Secretary General at the time, made an announcement, in which he advocated for the building of local capacity when engaging in conflict resolution (Annan, 2001). However, the contemporary focus within literature can be divided along two core lines, those being the necessity of local peacekeeping to improve effectiveness, and the second from an emancipatory perspective, highlighting the need to bolster local agency of peacekeeping efforts (Leonardsson & Rudd, 2015). The discourse advocating for local agency has an extensive history within the field of international development, which has expressed the necessity for external intervening operations to promote and employ local

ownership for roughly two decades(Eriksson & Baaz, 2005).

Having derived much of localized peacebuilding largely from the international development originated local ownership, multiple authors have highlighted its focus on employing ‘nuanced understandings’ of local contexts in order to be more effective in operations (Autesserre, 2010; Hirblinger & Simons, 2015). However, regardless of the prominence that local ownership has enjoyed within the international development discourse, it was not until much more recently that it garnered similar consideration in the peacebuilding literature. In their 2013 article, MacGinty & Richmond discuss the ‘local turn’ in the field of peace and conflict. In their description they outline that this represented a ‘renaissance’, whereby greater considerations were beginning to be paid to local factors that influence national conflicts. Importantly though, they highlight the fact that at this point in time, although there was recognition for the necessity to consider local factors, much progress was still needed in order to change institutional practices and develop the necessary frameworks.

Further, as Donais (2012: p. 4) highlights “the fact that this vision of local ownership has remained both contested and largely unimplemented suggests that (…) [regardless of its long history, it] has not necessarily produced greater clarity in terms of either definition or practice” (Donais, 2012). In this sense, the local has largely fallen victim to the same fate as prevention, in that although it may have been mentioned in literature and rhetoric over the years, its practical application has not experienced the same recognition or prominence (Leonardsson & Rudd, 2015; Lemay-Hebert & Kappler, 2016). Irrespective of the difficulties experienced in the terminological, conceptual and operational development of the concept, it

(13)

13

has increasingly worked its way into the peacebuilding lexicon in recent years, and has enjoyed rising prominence and appreciation.

However, the argument for local ownership has not gone unchallenged. Authors such as Jarstad in his 2008 article have made arguments such as that of the ‘horizontal dilemma’, and Paris (2004) warns of the need to consider capacity of local owners; both of which focus upon and warn of the complications ownership can involve. From a divergent but comparably critical perspective, Chandler (2010) suggests that through the lens of effective peacekeeping, encouraging local capacity allows for external interveners to avoid accountability for undesirable outcomes of interventions and thus shift responsibility onto locals when convenient; although I would argue that this should simply be an analytical factor to be aware of, and should not dissuade attempts to increase local ownership.

Along these same critical lines, Randazzo (2016) has more recently argued that the local turn in peacebuilding remains full of paradoxes and contradictions that must be thought about more deeply. Further, Gorur & Vellturo (2017) highlight that the UN has framed local conflict management differently from mission to mission, accentuating the ad hoc approach with which local peacebuilding is still addressed, and the need for further development of this dimension of peacebuilding operations. In this respect, Donais (2012, p. 1) points out that there remains a “gap between rhetoric and practice” with regards to local peacebuilding, and Autesserre (2017, p. 114) points out “Existing research on war & peace lacks analysis of what allows peacebuilding to succeed at the subnational level”.

Another critical aspect of the localized peacebuilding literature has focused upon how the local can be understood and defined. For Hauge, Doucet & Gilles (2015, p. 260) the local is understood as “referring to the village or community level [emphasis added]”. For Grour and Vellturo (2017, p. 7) local conflict “refers to conflicts involving violence or the risk of violence that are centered [at] the subnational level [emphasis added]”, which is in contrast to national-level conflicts or international-level conflicts but “These categories are not mutually exclusive; many conflicts that appear local have national or international dimensions”. Interestingly, by Autessere’s definition (2017, p. 116) the local is more specific and refers to “the level of the individual, the family, the clan, the district, the province, and the ethnic

group [emphasis added] when it is not a national level one”. She further specifies that

(14)

14

the population from the area targeted by a given peacebuilding initiative” (ibid). As these various definitions show, ‘the local’ is a fairly fluid term and is often used as a buzzword. Nonetheless, what is concrete is that the local generally refers to any attempts to address conflict dynamics at the subnational level.

Some of the most recent works on the topic such as in Gorur & Vellturo (2017), have outlined the essential interrelation between local and national conflicts and how one can feed into, and directly influence the other (Gorur & Velituro, 2017). Similarly, Campbell (2018) highlights the importance of recognising ‘conflict sensitivity’ which focuses on understanding conflict dynamics, the relationship between intervention and these dynamics, and how best to take action to reduce negative impacts. She delves deeper, by discussing the varying types of approaches taken by country offices in addressing conflicts, highlighting that only ‘peacebuilding learners’ are likely to pay enough consideration to local dynamics and in turn be successful (Campbell, 2018).

Articles like these demonstrate the gradual, yet consistent rise that localised peacekeeping has experienced in the past decade. In theory, they outline the premise that by paying an increased attention to the intricacies and specifics of peacebuilding operations, it is possible to increase effectiveness. Nonetheless, there has also been significant amounts of literature that consistently reinforce that although there has been and continues to be increasing awareness around the importance of the local, it continues to be overlooked, used as a buzzword and fails to be operationalized by the United Nations and their missions (Richmond, 2012; Billerbeck, 2015).

2.3 Peacebuilding Effectiveness

In addressing what is effective in peacebuilding, one must first consider what desirable conditions are, and in this respect refer back to work such as that of Galtung (1969) and consider how peace can be defined. In his 1969 work ‘Violence, Peace & Peace Research’, Galtung made a distinction that has shaped peace studies ever since. In Galtung’s view, having established a detailed explanation of violence, peace can be broadly separated into two kinds, positive and negative. Positive peace can be understood as the “absence of personal violence” whilst negative peace is concerned with the “absence of structural violence” (Galtung, 1969, p.183). Whilst debate on the topic goes back as early as 1988 with

(15)

15

scholars such as Paul Diehl publishing articles on the topic, more recently authors such as Dorussen (2014) have made calls for success and effectiveness of missions to be evaluated against baseline expectations such as what they were mandated to perform. However other scholars have warned that this argument risks overgeneralizing and standardizing inapplicable measures (Diehl & Druckman, 2010).

One of the most critical areas of the peacekeeping effectiveness literature that I am concerned with for my study relates to mandate design and the influence this has on mission effectiveness and success. As early as 1993 scholars such as Brown were judging mission success on the extent to which they reached their mandated goals. Over the years a plethora of scholars have weighed in with their interpretations of the influence that mandates have and resultantly what makes a mandate effective. Whilst this is something I discuss at greater length in the following chapter, notable contributors include Doyle and Sambanis (2000) who stress the importance of having a multidimensional mandate. Further, many authors have stressed the necessity for a mission to have a robust mandate that allows them greater operational freedom to uphold and achieve the stated goals of the mission (Hultman, 2010; Kreps, 2010; Beardsley & Gleditsch, 2015). Most recently Salvatore & Ruggeri highlight their view that “The propensity for peacekeeping to either prolong peace or shorten war is likely determined by different configurations of factors, such as breadth of the mission’s mandate” (2017, p. 6).

As a result of such difficulty in understanding what makes peacebuilding effective, multiple authors have picked up on the fact that one of the most pertinent questions in contemporary peacebuilding relates to why certain operations succeed rather than why they fail (Fortna & Howard, 2008, Campbell 2018). However, Diehl & Druckman (2010, p. 5) point out that having an operational uniform standard upon which peacebuilding success is assessed may well be misguided as “conclusions drawn on only one set of standards will lead policymakers to adopt certain policies without being aware of the full consequences of those policies”. As a result, they suggest that each individual peacebuilding operation should judge their success against their own set of standards, which are tailored to the unique environment.

As I have highlighted, most assessments of the effectiveness of peacebuilding have addressed macro-level dynamics of conflict. Understanding what makes peacebuilding effective at the local level therefore remains under-studied. Nonetheless, authors like Autesserre (2017) have

(16)

16

made attempts to contribute to this dimension of the effectiveness literature and some promising progress is beginning to be made in this direction. Similarly, as has been picked up on by multiple authors and previously mentioned, generalizing from one context to the next often leads to inappropriate and unsuitable approaches and this is even more so the case when dealing with contextually dependent approaches (Diehl & Druckman, 2010).

2.4 Haiti

The literature concerning Haiti over the years has predominantly focused on the peacebuilding presence that has been almost permanent since the early 90s. With respect to these missions, the first articles that made attempts to address MINUSTAH, the core focus of my study, came in 2006, taking quite similar approaches whereby they first lay the historical context that led to the current makeup of the contemporary setting of Haiti in which MINUSTAH was to be deployed (Einsiedel & Malone, 2006; Muggah & Krause, 2006). Over the following years much of the literature simply focused upon progress that was being made and challenges that the mission was facing (Dziedzic & Perito, 2008; Donais, 2009).

In 2010, the devasting earthquake that stunned both the Haitian population as well as onlookers around the world occurred, caused a somewhat predictable shift in the literature to the effects and response to this catastrophy (Bilham, 2010; Bayard, 2010; Kolbe et. al, 2010). A significant proportion of the literature at this time became understandably saturated with divergent analyses of the earthquake, its after effects and the ensuing response. Nonetheless, articles authored by scholars like Muggah (2010) continued to focus on peacebuilding in Haiti, even going as far as to measure succes of certain stabilization efforts relative to the earthquakes impacts. Muggah (2010, p. 445) found that “stabilisation also produced spaces for certain forms of socioeconomic recovery, including the delivery of certain essential services to previously inaccessible neighbourhoods of the country’s capital, Port-au-Prince” and that “Remarkably, some of these improvements endured following the 2010 earthquake” (ibid).

In the following years, multiple articles focused on the importance of local agency and ownership over operations, including the reform of the Haitian National Police (Donais, 2012; Schia & Karlsrud, 2013). Similarly in 2013, Donais also co-authored a paper with Amy Knorr in which they emphasize the means by which efforts in Haiti could work more

(17)

17

effectively in creating greater coherence between top-down and bottom-up approaches in order to engage the domestic population in the peacebuilding process; a view Donais put forward in multiple papers and which was shared by various other authors in this period (Donais & Burt, 2014, 2015; Hauge, Doucet, & Gilles, 2015).

Returning to focus on MINUSTAH’s confrontation with gangs, authors like Cockayne (2014) and Schuberth (2015) addressed the way in which the mission was necessitated to engage in strategic learning and tactical innovations when addressing the difficult challenges they were faced with. Ultimately, Cockayne concluded that although there was some measured success in reducing gang numbers, the deeper goal of breaking ties between the gangs and the nation’s political and business elites proved to be ‘unfeasible’ and resulted in the subsequent rise of the gangs once again following the 2010 earthquake. More recently, there have been ongoing attempts by multiple papers trying to grapple with the difficult issue of dealing with urban gangs and violence, with authors like Moritz Schuberth advancing the field by presenting new “empirical evidence on how humanitarian and development actors negotiate safe access in Port-au-Prince’s gang-ruled neighborhoods in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake” (Schuberth, 2017, p. 425). Whilst these areas regarding Haitian peacekeeping have been addressed, Schuberth (ibid p. 412) also points to the fact that “the experiment with CVR in Haiti remains an understudied topic in the literature on post-conflict peacebuilding” and I intend to contribute towards this significant gap in the literature.

2.5 Community Violence Reduction

CVR developed out of the limitations of traditional DDR operations that were deployed in Haiti in 2004. With this in mind, DDR programs are considered to be important as former fighters can risk becoming spoilers to peace processes if they feel they are not taken care of, a concept that Schafer (1998) refers to as ‘compensatory justice’. Further, relating to what was previously mentioned with regards to local peacebuilding, the literature on DDR also highlights the importance of ‘local ownership’ of programs (Rolston, 2007); however many authors are skeptical of local capacities to successfully manage such programs and instead promote their running by overarching external bodies (Thruelsen, 2006).

In the case of Haiti, having initially been mandated in 2004 to engage in traditional DDR efforts in the absence of a formal peace agreement, MINUSTAH’s best efforts were reported

(18)

18

as early as 2006 to have generated “few positive outcomes” (Muggah & Krause, 2006, p. 136). With regards to this, Einsiedel & Malone (2006, p. 162) point out that the international community did not do enough to support DDR efforts in Haiti, which led to complications. Further given the increasingly complex nature of conflicts that the UN has to confront, Muggah & O’Donnell (2015) suggest, “it is hardly surprising that [the UN] are also adapting their approaches”. In this same vein, scholars like Cheema & Rondinelli (2007, p. 9) point to the need for “the right ingredients, appropriate timing and some degree of experimentation”, which can clearly be seen to have been the approach with CVR in Haiti.

As a result of the limitations of the DDR approach, CVR programs were introduced in Haiti in 2006 through UNSC Resolution 1702. This resolution called for initiatives to “reorient its disarmament, demobilization and reintegration efforts, to further that goal, towards a comprehensive community violence reduction programme adapted to local conditions” and to “strengthen local governance and the rule of law and to provide employment opportunities to former gang members, and at-risk youth, in close coordination with the Government of Haiti and other relevant actors, including the donor community” (UNSC, 2006, p.3).

This notable shift in approach in response to the failure of the traditional DDR efforts, experienced palpable success with almost immediate effect through the years that followed, as highlighted in the literature, largely as a result of being combined with a direct offensive against prominent gangs (Cockayne, 2014). Given these early successes, Muggah et al. (2008, p. 218) highlighted the importance of employing “second generation ‘community-orientated’ processes” in order to more effectively reduce and limit access to arms. Further, in a 2008 United States Institute of Peace report it was highlighted that “MINUSTAH has provided a valuable innovation for future peace missions with its CVR program (…) [through] activities intended to provide a peace dividend in communities where MINUSTAH has taken assertive action to counter gang influence” (Dziedzic & Perito, 2008, p. 11). The report further highlighted the benefits that CVR had brought in bridging the gap between security operations and those of humanitarian and development efforts, as well as the critical role it had played in addressing both organised crime and urban gang violence, which in turn upheld the mission’s mandate.

In addressing CVR it is essential to understand that, although it also takes a wider view to top-down statebuilding and long-term goals, it intrinsically has a specific focus on bottom-up

(19)

19

peacebuilding and local level dynamics. In the Haitian case, whilst MINUSTAH was tasked with working to reinforce the violence reduction capacity of the Haitian state, UNDP was to focus on bottom-up efforts, which “reinforce communities and local authorities in terms of violence reduction” (UN 2006, p. 4). Donais & Burt (2014, p. 8) highlighted that in terms of this institutional organization, alongside MINUSTAH and the UNDP, there was also the Commission Nationale de Désarmement, Démantèlement et Réinsertion (CNDDR), which was established in 2006 “to facilitate national ownership of the disarmament process and to act as an essential intermediary between the international community, national government and local communities”, however this was decommissioned in 2011. In a further paper the following year they highlighted that MINUSTAH partnered with NGOs like the Brazilian Viva Rio, in order to run smaller, localized and more targeted CVR operations. This method proved to possess great utility and they highlight that “in 2007 Viva Rio helped broker a set of peace accords, signed by 12 community leaders from Bel Air. Since then, additional peace accords have been signed on a regular basis” (Donais & Burt, 2015, p. 11).

This comprehensive framework to try and coordinate wider efforts with local operations proved to be successful in the run up to 2010 “through creating conditions at the local level more conducive to community development and participation in the legitimate economy than to predation and parasitism” (Cockayne, 2014, p. 765). Schuberth (2017, p. 425) also praises the local efforts that were deployed in Haiti, stating that they “have managed to erect permanent structures on the local level with the potential to leave a lasting impact”. However, for the benefits of the localized approach in Haiti there have also been critical downfalls, with Donais (2015, p. 45) pointing to an overly inward focus of many CVR initiatives which led to local-level peacebuilding unfolding “as a series of isolated and disconnected ‘islands’, and it remains questionable whether these collectively add up to more than the sum of their parts”.

(20)

20

Chapter 3

Theoretical Framework

Given this overview of the relevant arguments within the literature, in the following section I outline the specific theories and interrelating concepts that form the foundation of the theoretic perspective I take in the argument I construct. After describing the specific theoretical lens that the argument of this paper is viewed through, this section then details the core concepts that the study is built on including stabilization, mandate robustness, local and national ownership and community violence reduction.

3.1 Complexity Theory

In contrast to the presumptions of Liberal Peace Theory, which have typically focused upon establishing and developing institutions at the national level, local peacebuilding extends to the subnational level and establishing peace infrastructure in localized contexts, based upon the needs of the individual community (Leonardsson & Rudd, 2015). With regards to the contrast between these two, the former assumes that a generalized approach that implements economic liberalization and the building of democratic institutions etc. inherently lead to a more peaceful society (Paris, 2018), whilst the latter attributes more importance to considerations for historical and social factors and adapting approaches to specific local particularities. With a view to this, the theoretical lens I employ in this study is complexity theory, which provides the basis for understanding the theoretical logic behind this localized approach.

Building upon this, looking through a somewhat social constructivist lens, complexity theory makes the case that post conflict environments are defined by complex historically formed social structures, which are unique to their particular environment, and as a result are not able to be dealt with by generalized uniform approaches (Hendrick, 2009). With this in mind, Coning (2013, p. 4) states, “The linkage between history, culture and institutional legitimacy is, from a Complexity perspective, emergent from the local, not derived from the universal”. From this perspective it can be understood that as social systems function organically as opposed to as part of the material world, you cannot, as is the case with the liberal approach, “transfer one model that seemed to work well in one context to another and expect that it would work equally well there” based upon some kind of universal assumptions (ibid). As a

(21)

21

result, “In a non-linear social system the ‘one-problem-one-solution’ construct does no longer make sense because the linear cause-and-effect logic no longer applies. The system is continuously evolving, and ‘the solution’ needs to adapt and evolve with it” (ibid) and this being the case, interventions must evolve based upon the changing environment that they exist within. This being the case, complexity theory attributes the utmost importance to monitoring outcomes of the intervention because “it is only through feedback that complex systems can gain the information they need to adapt and evolve” (ibid, p. 5).

Therefore international actors must frequently address the role in which they play within these complex systems in order not to undermine the capacity of the host state. In this regard, these systems have certain abilities to self-organize and administer their own peace-consolidation process. In Coning’s view, the implication for peacebuilding “is that interventions have to be essentially about stimulating and facilitating the capacity of societies to self-organise” (ibid) and an omnipresent fault of peacebuilding missions has been to underestimate the necessary sensitivity to this and undermine local systems to the point where they cross a threshold and become reliant on the presence of the external intervener. This being the case, complexity theory is relevant to my argument as it places local peacebuilding within a broader theoretical understanding in terms of its contrast to the liberal approach. It is further relevant in that in line with the theory, CVR operations are inherently localized and rely on social and contextual factors in their programmatic design and it also places significance on state capacity and ownership; a fundamental aspect of my study. From this view it sheds light on states’ resilience to self-organize and respond to external shocks and in turn how capable they are to withstand a return to violent conflict when put under pressure. Finally, through this lens of complexity theory it is also possible to understand the extent to which Haitian society has become dependent on this presence of external actors.

3.2 Local Peacebuilding

When addressing CVR frameworks it is important to understand that one of the core pillars of its logic is that of understanding local contexts and conflicts, and in turn their resultant influence on the wider, national conflict. Local peacebuilding largely gained momentum due to the aforementioned disappointing results of the liberal peacebuilding mantra. In this regard, Donais (2009) differentiates between the two approaches, referring to them as the liberal and communitarian approaches; the latter of which I use in the construction of my

(22)

22

theoretic argument. He specifies that the liberal approach “insists that global norms surrounding principles of good governance do exist and should carry weight” and therefore “dangers that failed, unstable, or war-torn states pose to other states in the international system have bolstered the arguments of those who insist that responsible membership in international society requires domestic politics to be organized in a liberal manner” (ibid, p. 6). However, in contrast to this and building upon Bell (1992), he details that the communitarian method stresses “the importance of tradition and social context in determining the legitimacy and appropriateness of particular visions of political order, justice, or ethics. Rather than relying on a universal template, communitarians stress that any viable resolution to the problems of order and good governance must “derive from and resonate with the habits and traditions of actual people living in specific times and places”” (Donais, 2009, p. 6).

Building upon this, when referring to local peacebuilding it is essential to establish what the ‘local’ is actually referring to. In this regard, I adopt Autessere’s (2017, p. 116) broad definition of local as “the level of the individual, the family, the clan, the district, the province, and the ethnic group when it is not a national level one” as this broad definition allows for a widely encompassing view that picks up on the varying levels at which local peacebuilding works. It is also important to recognize that there are multiple ways in which localized peacekeeping contribute to being tailored to contextual factors, for example Gorur & Vellturo (2017) differentiate between the varying types of local conflicts that exist, and in turn make suggestions for how these require different tailored approaches as a result. The UN highlight how ‘local governance can act as “‘a vital means for the populace to have access to government – a foundation for any state–society compact (…) [which serves] as a valve mitigating local claims for political and socio-economic power” (2012, p.24). Further, Leonardsson & Rudd (2015, p. 828) specify that “carefully designed and well-governed decentralization can help achieve stability and peace by increasing legitimacy, accountability, inclusion and participation, establishing stable sub-national arenas for citizen–state interaction and bargaining”.

With respect to adapting to these considerations, I draw significantly from Campbell’s 2018 work ‘Global Governance and Local Peace’. She specifies “In highly dynamic contexts, the overall country environment changes, as does the peacebuilding intervention itself as it aims to create change in the changing local context. [And therefore] organisations that simply implement their peacebuilding activities as planned, without regularly attempting to align

(23)

23

them with the changing context, are less likely to achieve the desired peacebuilding outcomes in that context” (Campbell, 2018, p. 53-54) This is interesting in my case as the CVR attempts in Haiti were widely considered to have been locally tailored and adaptable to the rapidly changing context, and therefore through Campbell’s peacebuilding learner lens it is possible to understand their potential utility.

One of the most critical aspects of local peacebuilding is domestic ownership of peace processes, both at the local and national levels. Lederach (1997) highlights the importance of recognising local populations as resources for, not recipients of, peace processes. In the same vein, Curle (1994) suggests that conflict stricken societies actually possess the greatest peace-making potential and thus should be aided in developing local peacemakers, whilst Rupesinghe (1995) similarly makes the case that local actors should be the primary architects, owners and long-term stakeholders of peace. Following this argument, Autesserre (2014) outlines that in order for peacekeeping to be effective it must be accepted and promoted by not only the interveners but also the local beneficiaries. She further specifies that “Peacebuilding initiatives are much more effective, for instance, when interveners value local expertise on par with thematic knowledge” (ibid, p.14) and when interveners “develop personal and social relationships with their local counterparts” (ibid). Beyond this, local ownership must also be complimented by ‘national ownership’, which can be understood as ensuring state authorities both at the district and national levels have control over the peace processes being implemented (Donais, 2014). Sending (2009, p.3) highlights the crucial dimension of this and specifies that international actors should function less as ‘peace

builders’ and more as ‘peace facilitators’.

My argument builds upon a history of various authors who advocate for the necessity of development and peacebuilding to not only be tailored to contextual local environments, but also to be locally owned by the individuals that inhabit these contexts and in turn, the governments that oversee them. Local ownership can refer to a spectrum of different levels of control and authority over processes, however Donais simply defines it as “the degree of control that domestic actors wield over domestic political processes” (2012, p. 1). When referring to its presence in international development, Tony Killick (2005, p. 3) highlights that “ownership is important (…) because it raises the probability that reforms will be tailored to local circumstances, priorities and political realities”. Further Donais (2009, p. 3) specifies that the logic of local ownership in post-conflict contexts conveys “the

(24)

24

commonsense wisdom that any peace process not embraced by those who have to live with it is likely to fail”.

I further build on the aforementioned communitarian approach whereby Donais outlines “Peacebuilding communitarians uphold, consequently, the right of societies to make their own choices, regardless of the degree to which such choices correspond with emerging international norms” (Ibid, p. 6) However, on the contrary, I also build my argument with respect to the concept of the ‘horizontal dilemma’ which raises concerns over the balance between whom should be included and excluded from peace processes in order to avoid overcomplicating or causing breakdowns in organizational or communication paths (Jarstad, 2008). In this vein, Paris (2004) specifies that ownership is only a realistic goal if local actors truly have the capacity to engage in planning and implementation, otherwise it will simply remain theoretical.

3.3 Stabilization

Stabilization sits within the broader framework of statebuilding that can be understood as “an endogenous process to enhance capacity, institutions and legitimacy of the state driven by state-society relations. Hence it is primarily a domestic process that involves local actors, which means the role of international actors is necessarily limited” (Grävingholt et al., 2012, p. 5). Post-conflict stabilization, like many of the other concepts that underpin peacebuilding efforts, battles with difficulties of consensus around its definition. However I concur with the UK Stabilization Unit’s definition of stabilization as a transitional process used in the shift out of violent conflict that is “designed to protect and promote legitimate political authority, using a combination of integrated civilian and military actions to reduce violence, re-establish security and prepare for longer-term recovery” (Barakat, 2016, p. 1).

With respect to this, stabilization can be placed within a wider framework, which the UN refers to in the Integrated Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration Standards (IDDRS) as the ‘transition and recovery continuum’ as shown in Figure 1 on the following page (UN, 2006). Through this lens, stabilization is seen as a stepping-stone or individual stage within the wider process, which is differentiated in order to specify the “Different assistance strategies [that] are needed to support the peace-building and recovery process” (ibid, p. 5). However, it is further elaborated “in reality, the phases of the continuum will

(25)

25

overlap or run parallel, and there are likely to be reversals and opportunities that will affect DDR and other transitional processes and will therefore have to be responded to” (ibid). Nonetheless, this contextualizes stabilization within wider post-conflict programming and how DDR processes, and in turn CVR processes, interact with this wider programming.

Whilst there isn’t consensus in the literature concerning how stabilization can be specifically measured, certain authors have contributed by outlining how this has been assessed in other contexts and in turn which measures seem to be most appropriate (Hartzell et al., 2001; Lothe & Peake, 2010). Measuring levels of stabilization is also problematized by the fact that these kinds of measurements are highly politicized. Therefore it is often hard to find relevant data, and that which can be found is often limited and hard to assess due to the aforementioned lack of consensus on what is being analyzed (Becker & Grossman-Vermaas, 2011). It is also important that measurements of stabilization be context specific and based upon “a clear baseline assessment that is derived from an initial analysis of the conflict” (Cohen, 2006, p.1). With respect to this, Becker & Grossman-Vermaas (2011 p. 148) writing on appropriate metrics for the Haiti Stabilization Initiative (HSI) suggest that, broadly speaking, measuring stability in Haiti should measure levels of stable governance, security of the social environment, the degree of rule of law, strength of the economy and social well-being.

Figure 1. DDR in a post-conflict stabilization, transition and recovery continuum,

(26)

26

3.4.1 Community Violence Reduction

With respect to wider processes of statebuilding, CVR can be understood to address the micro-level aspects that are required. ‘Community Violence Reduction’ refers to a variety of localized initiatives that aim to strengthen local communities through methods largely based upon prevention and incentivisation. As I have previously made reference to, “CVR is based on the combination of a top-down approach of statebuilding and a bottom-up approach of reducing violence in the communities” (Schuberth, 2017, p. 424), and in doing so, it fills the void between security and development and generates both social and economic mechanisms for lowering gang related influence and works towards greater levels of stability.

CVR takes a multifaceted approach whereby its programs offer a diverse toolkit in order to address specific contexts. One of the primary goals of these CVR programs is to offer alternatives to individuals who are vulnerable to recruitment into armed gangs, such as the unemployed and youth (Dziedzic & Perito, 2008). In its different froms, CVR programs are targeted towards providing education, infrastructure development and community policing. These programs operate in contrast to top-down peacebuilding efforts that focus more upon diplomatic and military based approaches towards conflict resolution. Various actors including multiple UN agencies and the mission itself can conduct these grassroots bottom-up approaches, however they are mainly operated through partnerships that are formed with local actors including the local authorities, civil-society organizations and NGOs (Donais & Burt, 2015).

The economic aspect of the CVR approach aims to provide financial incentives for individuals not to resort to criminal or gang activity through utilizing Quick Impact Projects (QIPs). QIPs are defined as “small-scale, low cost projects, that are planned and implemented within a short timeframe, (…) aim to build confidence in the mission, the mandate or the peace process [and] respond to the needs expressed by local communities” (UN, 2019). With potential funding up to $200,000, these create preventative programs that offer solutions such as labor-intensive short-term employment, as well as measures such as professional development programs to encourage youth not to engage in gang activity (Schuberth, 2017). Further, CVR approaches can also involve the building of community centres and other community infrastructure, weapons and ammunition management as well as providing funding for community security/ policing, psycho-social support and sensitisation on gender

(27)

27

and sexual violence. These various approaches demonstrate the depth of the CVR toolkit, and the underlying logic of these activities that when applied in unison, work to strengthen local communities in a multifaceted way that ultimately leads to wider stablization of the state (Ladouceur, 2019).

3.4.2 CVR as a Peacebuilding Strategy

In this respect, CVR programs are in line with previous research conducted by O’Brien and her concept of ‘community development projects’ which she specifies “facilitates local leadership capable of encouraging participatory approaches; enables people of various persuasions to work together to achieve fundamental human needs and that incorporates conflict resolution strategies to facilitate development” (2003, p. 52). Further, these projects often work towards increasing and facilitating dialogue between divided communities through the joint pursuance of collective community goals, with the ultimate goal being to improve community relations. Building upon this in a 2005 article, she further elaborates that these programs assist the development of a micro-discourse at the foundational level which has the potential to create new cultural spaces which facilitate new discourses to emerge (O’brien, 2005, p.123).

In this respect, CVR programs fit into track 2 and 3 of the peacebuilding categories (O’brien, 2005, 121) as can be seen on the following page in Figure 2. This figure demonstrates a multi-track conceptualization of peacebuilding strategies that is developed from the 1997 work of John Lederach and explores the idea of varying levels of power and intervention. Whilst track 1 focuses on the top-down approach to peacebuilding that is more concerned with negotiations and diplomacy involving military and political actors, tracks 2 and 3 deal with the bottom-up approach through the implementation of peace commissions and workshops as well as grassroots training and conflict resolution involving NGOs, religious leaders, local leaders and community developers (O’brien, 2005, 120). Although these track 2 and 3 efforts cannot be implemented in place of track 1, Lederach advocates the value of and necessity for the engagement of multi-scalar actors from the grassroots local actors, to NGOs, all the way to international institutions in order to have the best chance of building durable peace (Lederach, 1997).

(28)

28

Figure 2. Multi-track approach to peacebuilding adapted from Lederach

(1997), published by O’brien (2007)

(29)

29

3.5 Robust Mandates

With regards to peacebuilding efforts, Security Council Resolutions play a central role in what missions are mandated to do. United Nations Resolutions can be defined as “formal expressions of the opinion or will of United Nations organs” (UN, 2019), and with respect to peacebuilding missions these are the documents that outline or ‘mandate’ what operations

should be conducted and goals should be achieved. This dimension of mission mandates and

their importance is a key area I address in my study.

As I have noted in my literature review, within the peacebuilding effectiveness scholarship multiple authors have highlighted the necessity of having a robust mandate in mission success (Hultman, 2010; Beardsley & Gleditsch, 2015), as well as the utility of using the realization of mandated goals as a good measure for mission success. To elaborate on this, I employ Hultman’s definition of a robust mandate whereby “robust peacekeeping mandates authorise the mission to ‘use all means necessary’ to implement the mandate and protect the mission” (2010, p. 31). Similarly I build significantly from Kreps (2010) who outlines the significant dangers of having a mandate that has “overly ambitious or ambiguous political objective[s]” (ibid, p. 24), does not respond relative to changing contexts and is not “well-understood” by those acting upon it (ibid, p. 16).

Further, the logic of my argument is founded considerably on the research of Doyle & Sambanis (2000) whereby they set out that mandates should “address the local sources of hostility, the local capacities for change, and the (net) specific degree of international commitment available to assist change” (p.781). I also subscribe to their reasoning whereby I assume that ‘multidimensional’ peacebuilding efforts have the greatest capacity for a conflict reducing and stabilizing impact, including institutional and political reform and democratization etc. In this sense, I use their definition for multidimensional as “a mix of strategies to build a self-sustaining peace, ranging from those of traditional PKOs to more multidimensional strategies for capacity expansion (e.g., economic reconstruction) and institutional transformation (e.g., reform of the police, army, and judicial system; elections; civil society rebuilding)” (ibid).

(30)

30

3.6 Institutional Coordination

Coordination between the various different bodies that operate on peacebuilding missions has been an elusive goal that the UN has struggled with in its operations throughout its history and still does today. This difficulty of integration has been referred to by Paris & Sisk as the ‘coordination problem’, which they state has been an on-going struggle of post-war statebuilding operations whereby they “suffer from a lack of coordination among the myriad international actors involved in these missions” (Paris & Sisk, 2009, p.53). The concept of

coordination in this context can be understood as “Getting statebuilding agencies to work

smoothly together (…) [as] a necessary condition for successful international action” (ibid).

Drawing from an organisational theory perspective (Lipson, 2007), it is also important to recognize that coordination must not just be blindly aimed for, but must also be carefully designed and tailored to the needs and demands of the context, ensuring that coordination does not go too far or fall too short, and subsequently over-complexify or worse, under-develop the desired integration. The reason that targeted and nuanced coordination of this kind is critical both in peacebuilding and beyond is to ensure that the differing bodies that conduct an operation have a clear understanding and delineation of who is responsible for the various tasks that must be conducted and issues that must be addressed (Paris, 2009). In this respect this then ensures that not only are all the necessary actions taken to achieve the desired outcome, but also that operations do not overlap resulting in inefficiencies operationally, temporally and financially.

Going further, (Campbell & Hartnett, 2005) diagnose 8 critical barriers to coordination including factors like the desire for ‘organizational sovereignty’ between agencies, misunderstanding between agencies of the optimal end goal, and communication inefficiencies both from a linguistic and technological/ networks point of view. Resultantly the authors highlight 5 key takeaways from past failures, 2 of which are “Decentralize decision-making authority, but maintain strong, supportive linkages between headquarters and the field” and “The long-term effectiveness of coordinated efforts depends on national capacity” (ibid, p.6).

The importance of this relates back to, and ties together, what I specified previously with regards to the local and ownership. Firstly, the concept of decentralization, whereby efforts

(31)

31

are coordinated but local actors have the freedom to make decisions based on their context and act upon them, relates to what Campbell (2018) specifies with regards to the need to be able to align peacebuilding efforts with dynamically changing contexts. Secondly, it is key that coordination incorporates domestic actors and tailors its work relative to national capacities. This is essential, as in order for domestic ownership to be realized after the mission, the state must have the capacity to support and continue the work that’s been begun by international actors. As a result, “National and local actors therefore need to be involved, to at least some degree, in the coordination process” (Campbell, 2005, p.6) and coordination must not only occur within UN bodies but also with state authorities and the wide-reaching network of NGOs and civil society organizations, to maximize the utility of the social capital they wield and have a multidimensional approach to coordination (Cox, 2008).

In sum, the overarching theory and interrelating concepts led me to focus my study on four key areas, which are expressed through my sub-questions. These four variables being, the influence of the mandate on the success of the mission, the extent to which programs were tailored to local contexts, the degree of domestic ownership there was over operations and finally the level of institutional coordination there was within operations. These key frames through which I analyze, allow me to formulate an understanding of which factors led to the desired outcome of nation-wide stabilization falling short. Further, this structure then allows me, through my content analysis, to be able to outline whether or not the mission had a robust and well-elaborated mandate; and through my interviews, whether it was well understood and considered to be appropriately articulated, especially with regards to CVR. In turn, this will create the foundations for me to present a more in depth analysis through the content of my interviews to try and uncover what factors hindered success.

(32)

32

Chapter 4

Background

In the following section I provide a brief overview of the Haitian context in order to set the scene for the analysis I engage in in the following sections of the study.

4.1 History of the Haitian Context

To understand the fractious environment that Haiti suffers from and to understand the core ‘fault lines’ that divide the country, it is necessary to go back to the 1950s and the rule of the Duvalier family. Acting as the leader of the Party of National Unity in 1957, Francois Duvalier won an election that was widely considered to be illegitimate (Lundahl, 2015). Subsequently, he began purging the country of individuals he considered to be “enemies of the nation” (Hauge, Doucet, & Gilles, 2015, p. 261), engaging in systematic murder of anyone he considered to contest his rule. In the process, he simultaneously wiped out all of the higher ranks of the army, leaving it subject to his direct rule.

Before his death in 1971, Francois Duvalier passed over control of the country to his son Jean Claude, who remained in power until he was forced to flee the country in 1986 (Schuberth, 2017). The result of the Duvalier years left the Haitian army decimated, largely as a product of deep-rooted internal divisions (Lemay-Hebert, 2015). In 1991 Jean-Bertrand Aristide became the first democratically elected leader of Haiti, however, irrespective of winning with 67% of the vote, after just 7 months he was removed from power due to a military coup (Political Database of the Americas, 2000). After a few years of rule under the military, largely due to pressure from the United States, the coup regime collapsed and Aristide was reinstated into power in 1994, at which point he fully dismantled the dysfunctional army.

Alongside this, economic structural adjustment programs (SAPs) being implemented by the IMF and the World Bank created another major fracture in Haitian society. As Hauge et al. point out, these programs “contributed to the destruction of the country’s agriculture and led to massive rural-urban migration.” (2015, p. 262). The liberalization of the economy and the removal of almost all of the country’s trade barriers led to a vast increase in rice imports from the US; roughly 100 times more than had previously been the case. As a result, much of the impoverished rural population were not able to compete and were forced to flock to the

(33)

33

shanty towns on the outskirts of major cities like Port-au-Prince in search of work. Estimates suggest that the capital’s population grew from 720,000 in 1982 to over 2 million in 1995 (World Bank, 1998), putting huge strain on the city’s infrastructure and giving rise to uncontrollable economic and social tensions. These key fractures continue to destabilize Haiti to the current day and are essential in understanding the divisions that exist and the mechanisms that maintain them. It is because of these factors, that disparity between the economically privileged and the economically impoverished perpetuates today, which has created a volatile environment in which dissatisfaction and anger are high, and consequently violence, crime and instability thrives.

4.2 Haitian Peacebuilding

Following the military coup that removed then president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the first of many peacekeeping missions in Haiti was established (UNMIH) under UNSC Resolution 867 (UNSC, 1993). The first forces arrived in Haiti in early 1994 consisting of roughly 20,000 personnel equipped with a multifaceted mandate requiring them to reform various Haitian institutions that had been degraded as a result of decades of instability and violent power struggles (Einsiedel & Malone, 2006). Haitian peacebuilding missions have included UNSMIH (1996-1997), UNTMIH (1997), MIPONUH (1997-2000) and MICAH (2000-2001), all which fundamentally focused on supporting the Haitian National Police as well as prison and judicial reform to create the conditions for the development of a stable state political system (Lemay-Hebert, 2015).

MINUSTAH (2004-2017) is the longest lasting of this list, and is the main focus of this study. The mission can be understood to have three separate parts, the first provided security for the 2006 elections, the second focused on securing volatile neighbourhoods of Port-au-Prince up to 2010 and the third functioned as a post-2010 response to the earthquake (International Crisis Group, 2012). Much of the post-2010 efforts have also concentrated on the security and safety of displaced people, reconstruction programmes and the establishment of a government that could effectively address reconstruction. Additionally, there has been a concerted effort by the mission to promote “a rule of law compact with the Haitian authorities, the private sector, and other international actors to integrate the stabilization and economic development agendas” (Lemay-Hebert, 2015).

Referenties

GERELATEERDE DOCUMENTEN

de posttarieven; ƒ 6,- staat er voor zo’n brief in de tarief- tabel voor 1999. De tarieven voor volgend jaar heb ik nog niet gezien).. Dit voor wat betreft de vorderingen bij het

ESA has provided the Mission Con- trol System and the spacecraft simulator as part of the satellite procurement contract and also provides Collision Avoidance services through

These results on the Crab and Vela pulsar in gamma rays, as well as the indication for polarized gamma-ray emission from the Vela pulsar /49/ and the. variation of the hard

Ellis en sy ondersteuners op die uitvoerende bestuur, het na hierdie versoek, soos dit ook tydens die Hoek-kommissie van Ondersoek die geval met Hertzog, Gleisner en Paul Visser

In the second phase of the literary fairy tale the approach of old witches in the woods and young pretty and kind-hearted fairies had not yet been fixed, wherefore in “La Belle au

are studying. We may begin by stating that practically there. are ne vowele in English which are pronounced exactly the same as in South African Dutch. But some few are

The relationship between entanglement entropy and the dual spacetime geometry has been made precise in the AdS/CFT correspondence, which is a holographic duality between

Sperm washing is an ideal treatment option when the male partner is HIV positive.. Pre-conceptual counselling and informed consent are