Drone warfare is hitting Haiti

Warfare in the skies has arrived in Haiti. The country’s government has been in a vicious and, up until now, losing battle with heavily armed gangs. Over the course of the past year gangsters have taken control of most of the capital, Port-au-Prince. Now Haiti’s government has started deploying drones, hoping to shift the balance of forces, despite concerns about human rights and the impact on civilians in a densely populated urban battlefield.

It was the gangs who began using drones first, mostly to track police movements and to record bird’s-eye videos of their attacks to be posted on social media. That changed in March, when the government announced it had set up an anti-gang task force equipped with drones, some for mere surveillance and others to carry out “kamikaze” attacks with explosives on tactical operations.

The Haitian police said this soon produced results and showed a grainy video of gang members fleeing one of their strongholds in Port-au-Prince. One notorious gang leader, Andre Johnson, known as “Izo”, was reportedly injured by a drone attack in late May. In recent weeks the police have been carrying out daily drone strikes on gang targets across the capital. They have inflicted heavy casualties, killing 300 gang members and wounding 400, according to a prominent human-rights organisation, the National Human Rights Defence Network (RNDDH). However, information about civilian casualties is limited, because first responders such as Doctors Without Borders cannot operate in gang territory.

Human-rights groups are worried that Haiti’s use of explosive drones risks breaking international law because of a lack of clear regulations. “The intentional use of lethal force by law enforcement is legal under international human-rights law only when it is strictly unavoidable to protect life [when] facing an imminent threat, and as a last resort when other less lethal alternatives—such as capture or non-lethal incapacitation—have been exhausted,” says William O’Neill, the UN’s designated expert on human rights in Haiti.

Despite the risk to civilians, the capital’s population has broadly welcomed the drone offensive. Haitians have been terrorised for months on end by armed thugs, many of them young, drug-addled boys forced to commit sadistic acts of violence, including beheadings and rape. “There is no alternative,” says a former political leader. “I don’t think we have a choice. There is no way to win with the forces we have. It’s death by a thousand cuts.” He describes international concern over supplying such lethal weapons to Haiti’s police as “just ridiculous”. He added: “This is pure insurgency. This is Fallujah,” referring to a once-embattled city in Iraq.

Last year more than 5,600 Haitians died in gang-related violence and the death toll is rising. In the first five months of this year some 2,680 people were killed, according to the UN’s records. The violence has displaced 1.3m people, a tenth of the country’s entire population. More than 2m people are seriously short of food.

Critics of the drone campaign also question its long-term efficacy. So far the police have still not permanently dislodged the gangs from the territories under their control, and the government lacks a long-term strategy to retake those neighbourhoods. The gangs “quickly return, reoccupy the areas, and continue committing acts of violence aimed at terrorising local communities”, RNDDH stated in a report on June 12th.

Experts say that in the hands of professional soldiers, drones can be remarkably effective, and in urban settings they can be accurate enough to limit civilian casualties. But drone warfare in Haiti is shrouded in secrecy. Little is publicly known about the rules of engagement or who is entitled to operate the drones.

Another cause for concern is the persistent allegations that Haiti’s politicians have ties to gang leaders, and that various members of the presidential transition council are corrupt. Some experts say that the targets of the drone operations are being chosen by the prime minister, Alix Fils-Aimé, and the transitional council, without input from the police, opening the door to political vendettas. It is no secret in Haiti that politicians have for years used the gangs to help scrabble for power.

As a result, Haiti’s gang war is “about to get even uglier”, says Jake Johnston of the Centre for Economic and Policy Research, a think-tank in Washington. “In some parts of Port-au-Prince, the police are as big a threat as the gangs,” he adds, noting that the UN reported an alarming rise in summary executions of unarmed people by the Haitian police.

Nor is it clear how the cash-strapped Haitian government is paying for the drones. Some reports suggest that rich businessmen are helping the government in return for political favours. In May gangsters firebombed a car dealership owned by a man they accused of helping supply drones to Haiti’s government.

Gang leaders are defiant. After a recent drone attack failed to kill Jimmy Cherizier (known as “Barbecue”), Haiti’s most notorious gang leader, he took to social media to ridicule local law enforcement. “I have friends and brothers all over the world,” Mr Cherizier (pictured above) posted. “I have money. Drones are sold everywhere. I can also obtain them.” He leads a gang coalition that calls itself Viv Ansanm (Living Together).

Few doubt the truth of his threat. Three Haitians were arrested in the neighbouring Dominican Republic last week and quickly deported back to Haiti after they were caught allegedly trying to buy attack drones for the Haitian gangs. ■