Why is Haiti so chaotic? Leaders used street gangs to gain power. Then the gangs got stronger

By MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN
Associated Press

It’s easy to blame the latest spasm of violence in Haiti on longstanding poverty, the legacy of colonialism, and European and U.S. interference with the West’s first free Black republic. However, experts say the most important immediate cause is more recent: Haitian rulers’ increasing dependence on street gangs. Haiti hasn’t had a standing army or a well-funded and robust national police force for decades. United Nations and American interventions have come and gone. Haiti has no solid tradition of honest political institutions. Its leaders have been using armed civilians as tools for exercising power. Now, the state has grown fatally weak and gangs are stepping in.