FROM THE DESK OF RAY JOSEPH
- Regarding the Gang Suppresssion Force and the Elections
May 20, 2026– The Gang Suppression Force (GSF), authorized by the United Nations (UN) Security
Council, September 30, 2025, is now in Haiti. In a reportage, May 15, in the Haitian Times, by Juhakenson Blaise, Major General Erdenebat Batsuri, a Mongolian officer with over 30 years of peacekeeping experience, replaces Kenyan Godfrey Otunge, as the GSF deployment takes shape.”
This military personnel change at such high level happens just as the Electoral Council announced the schedule of general elections, with the first round on August 30, 2026, and the final on December 6. Based on public information, the contests will cover the presidency, all 30 seats of the Senate and the 119 seats in the House of Deputies, as the Lower House of Congress is called. Moreover, all local and municipal offices will be up for grabs.
These would be the first elections held in Haiti since the last ones in 2015 and 2016, when Jovenel Moïse was elected president. Since his assassination on July 7, 2021, in murky circumstances, not one election has been held in Haiti, as the the international community, the U.S. in the lead, has taken over political governance of Haiti, that has become a political laboratory to the point that a nine-headed presidency was introduced.
How different will the GSF be from a series of UN missions in Haiti?
It is questionable that the GSF will “suppress the gang,” as its name implies, to the point of creating an orderly situation within the next three months, to allow for credible elections. I wasn’t playing prophet when, in September 2021, I launched a slogan, first in Creole, then translated into English and French: “Toutotan kesyon gang nan pa regle anyen pa ka regle ann Ayiti.” (As long as the gang issue isn’t resolved, nothing can be solved in Haiti.)
As it is, since then the gangs have expanded their control of Haiti’s territory, even controlling more than 90% of the capital of Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas, as well as the Artibonite region, adjacent to the north of the Western department, as our mini states are called. According to public information, the West , with Port-au-Prince as headquarters, and the Artibonite represent the bulk of the Haitian electorate, accounting for about half of the participating electorate of the 10 departments. Thus, those who propose to conduct elections in areas where security is no problem are undercutting the democratic process.
Therefore, I contend that the GSF should carry out its gang suppression mission before any electoral campaign can be undertaken in Haiti. Unless Michel Legros is correct when he writes in his May 9, 2026, instinctive analysis that the so-called leadership of the country is benefitting from the gang insecurity to delay elections and remain indefinitely in power.
The responsibility of the UN and the international bigwigs in Haiti’s decline
That brings me to point fingers at the United Nations with all the bigwigs pulling strings on the side, who have been introducing one mission after another in Haiti since 2004, beginning with MINUSTHA
(Mission to Stabilize Haiti), MINUJUSTH, which Haitians deridingly call “Minijupe,” (Mission For Justice Support in Haiti) and BINUH ( Bureau Intégré des Nations Unis en Haïti ) still active. Yet, the situation of the country has deteriorated at all levels, to the point that some refer to Haiti as a lost cause.
I contend that when the United States returned President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to Haiti, in October 1994, from his two-year exile in Washington, under the protection of more than 20,00 American troops, the security situation began to unravel, especially after January 1995, when President Aristide disbanded the Haitian Armed Forces (FAd’H, in a gesture of reprisal for the coup d’état against him on Septembe 29, 1991. The Haitian National Police (HNP), which was then set up by the international community has failed in its mission of providing security for the country.
Moreover, at that same time, President Aristide began organizing his private militia, under the name of “Chimères,”(Fantasies) with units given fancy names as “Red Army,” “Saddam Hussein Armyy,” “Sleep in the Woods Army,” even the “Cannibal Army.” Since then, they became the gangs that were expanded by Michel Joseph Martelly, the self-proclaimed “Legal Bandit,” who assumed Haiti’s presidency in 2011, and had Laurent Salvador Lamothe as his adviser, who bypassed the U.S. and bought military equipment for his gangs in Israel, and transiting them via Canada.
Aother Haitian Armed Forces to the rescue
To restore security in Haiti, there should be a reorganization of Haiti’s Armed Forces, which would be established by a democratically elected government. It should be pointed out that the old FAD’H had units in every city and town, and depended also on its rural auxiliaries, the Police Rurale and the “Soukèt Lawouze, the civilians who were up early in the morning, sniffing around and detecting any rebellion in the making.
Since the GSF is supposed to have a personnel of 55000, with 50,00 in civilian service for the UN, these should have the responsibility to undertake a reorganization of Haiti’s Armed Forces, that will remain in the country after the foreigners leave. Also, being native Haitians, they fully know Haitian culture and language and can better control what will be happening on the ground. In the process, the UN and its major supporters, such as the United States, Canada, France, Mexico and other Latin American and Caribbean countries would have helped Haiti in solving for good the security mayhem which has delayed the establishment of real democracy in the land.
RAJ at raljo31@yahoo.com
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Collaboration spéciale : Système-dedieu GDMA