Haiti is bursting into the headlines again over the armed gangs that are wreaking death and desolation in the land, kidnapping and killing people from all social strata. Most recently, the criminals have closed Haiti to interaction with the outside world by attacking the international airport, causing cancellation of all flights to and from the country since February 29.

They also attacked two major penitentiaries, releasing more than 4,500 inmates. These include some of the most dangerous gang leaders. All that was predictable, though. The authorities, whether in Haiti or in the international community  have failed to to heed the warnings. A detachment of Marines arrived Sunday morning to help get Americans out and to secure the embassy.

The gangs have been operating in Haiti since before the assassination of President Moïse on July 7, 2021. Danniel Foote, the American special envoy, resigned in September, three months later. He protested the “inhumane policy” of President Biden, who sent thousands of Haitian migrants back “to a country where American officials are confined to secure compounds.”

Now, no compounds are secure. Though reluctant about getting American forces involved in the violent mess in Haiti, the Biden administration dispatched the Yank jarheads to Haiti, via helicopters, to reinforce security at the American Embassy in the upscale neighborhood of Tabarre, which has been invaded by gangs, to evacuate non-essential personnel. 

The latest gang offensive was launched February 29, at the same time that Haiti’s de facto prime minister, Ariel Henry, arrived in Nairobi to sign a pact with President William Ruto of Kenya, who offered, in October, to take the lead with 1,000 policemen, in an international force intended to counter the gangs in Haiti. The Haitian National Police are no match for the better armed gangs.

The United Nations has recently reported that the gangs control up to 80 percent of the capital.  On Saturday, the gangs attacked the neighborhood around the National Palace, the presidential seat without a president. Normally the palace is a symbol of political power, but the gangs found resistance from some policemen who had sought the help of the embryonic army of about 1,200. 

This brings up the sensitive issue regarding Haiti’s Armed Forces, FAd’H by its French acronym. The army was disbanded in January 1995 by the erstwhile president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, with support from the international community. That was done in October 1994, when Mr. Aristide returned to Haiti from exile in Washington. He was then protected by 24,000 American troops. 

Mr. Aristide’s move against the army was his revenge against the army for the September 1991 coup that toppled him seven months after he had assumed the presidency. Instead of destroying the army, Aristide should have reformed it, not throwing out the whole basket just to get rid of two or three rotten oranges. 

It should be noted that when the FAd’H existed, there was a system of national intelligence that extended throughout the country with army posts all over, even in the rural areas, where the “Police Rurale” and their auxiliaries the “Soukèt Lawouze” (the dew shakers) uncovered any dissenting movement and reported it to the chain of command to army headquarters that dealt with it immediately.

To replace the regular army, President Aristide organized the “Chimères” — which means ghosts. They were official gangs with various units spotting distinctive army names, including a “Cannibal Army.” In 2003, in part due to the mayhem they caused, a rebel movement, led by a former army and police officer, Guy Philippe, gained popular support.

As Guy Philippe’s men approached Port-au-Prince intent on ousting President Aristide, on February 29, 2004, the United States and France coordinated to fly the president out of the country to the Central African Republic, where he found refuge. Whereupon, the UN relieved America, by assuming the task of making Haiti whole again.

The various UN missions, beginning with the United Nations Mission to Stabilize Haiti — known as Minustha — that came in 2004 and departed after 13 years. Minustha left Haiti more destabilized than before. Then came two other missions, including the United Nations Mission for Justice Support in Haiti and the UN Integrated Bureau in Haiti, Binuh by its French acronym.

That has been in Haiti since 2018. In June 2020, the “Gang Federation” was created by Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier, a former police officer-turned gang-leader, who was accused of undertaking massacres around Port-au-Prince, including the infamous La Saline massacre, in November 2018, in behalf of President Moïse. So we have come full circle.

That’s because the names of Jimmy Chérizier and Guy Philippe are in the news. Mr. Chérizier takes credit for many of the latest gang actions in Port-au-Prince and has warned Haiti’s de facto prime minister, Ariel Henry not to set foot in the country, promising that he would be arrested and that worse could happen to him. Meanwhile, the gangs have called for Guy Philippe to be president.  

Oddly, the Core Group of Western ambassadors in Port-au-Prince has remained mum. It had named the neurosurgeon Ariel Henry Prime Minister on July 20, 2021 via a tweet. But UN Secretary General António Guterres called on Dr. Henry to resign, and the State Department says there has been discussions with Henry to accept the formation of a presidential commission to replace him. 

Meanwhile, there’s no information of Mr. Henry’s whereabouts, since his chartered plane was forbidden from landing in the Dominican Republic on March 5, in a ruse to fly him to Cap-Haitian, in northern Haiti. Instead, he landed in Puerto Rico and was said to be under protection of American officials. How long will this hide-and-seek game go on?

One of the key points here is how badly this situation has been managed by the Biden administration.  In an election year in the United States, President Biden is spending billions of dollars in helping Ukraine which was attacked by Russia and attending to the messy conflict Hamas-Israel, thousands of miles away. No one in Haiti is saying he shouldn’t. 

Yet it’s a context in which it is incredible that the world’s most powerful country can’t scrape together $200 million to help with the Kenya-led mission to Haiti, only 800 miles from Florida shores. This is being laid to the truculence of the Republicans in Congress. Long-timers on this beat, though, mark President Biden’s long-held negative  evaluation of Haiti.

As a senator, Mr. Biden once said: “If Haiti just quietly sunk into the Caribbean, or rose up 300 feet, it wouldn’t matter a whole lot in terms of our interests.” President Trump, the remaining Republican candidate for the presidency has been no better. People tend to forget that it was Haiti that Mr. Trump was referring to when he expressed his disdain for that “shithole country.” 

For the past several years, I have been warning furiously — in The New York Sun and in my own paper, the Haiti-Observateur — of the danger of gang rule in Haiti. “As long as the gang issue isn’t dealt with, nothing can be dealt with in Haiti.” Now I add, “As long as there’s not a remobilized modern Haitian Army, under democratic governance, there won’t be security in Haiti” — or a Haiti itself.