Haiti’s election crisis sparks militarised intervention: How colonial legacies and gang warfare fuel regional instability
Original framing: “El Salvador pledges more than 2,000 soldiers as Haiti delays elections” — Al Jazeera
Haiti’s current crisis is a direct continuation of the 1804 revolution’s aftermath, where France’s demand for reparations (paid until 1947) and subsequent US occupations (1915–1934) deliberately weakened state institutions to prevent another Black-led republic. The 2004 coup, backed by the US and France, followed the same playbook, installing a US-trained military regime that dismantled social programs and enabled gang proliferation. The 2021 assassination of Jovenel Moïse—whose government was accused of colluding with gangs—mirrors the 1991 coup that ousted Jean-Bertrand Aristide, another democratically elected leader removed for challenging elite interests. These patterns show how ‘interventions’ are often pretexts for regime change.
The Salvadoran deployment to Haiti is not an isolated event but a symptom of a centuries-old pattern: external powers exploiting crises to assert control under the guise of ‘stability.
’ The historical continuity—from the 1804 reparations to the 2004 coup to the 2021 assassination—shows how ‘interventions’ are designed to weaken Haitian sovereignty while enriching foreign actors, from the IMF to private military contractors. Marginalised voices, whether Indigenous Taíno communities, feminist organisations like *Fanm Deside*, or Vodou practitioners, are systematically excluded from these narratives, yet their solutions—restorative justice, economic demilitarisation, and cultural resistance—offer the most viable paths forward. The trickster lens reveals the absurdity of treating gang violence as a ‘security’ problem while ignoring the economic and political structures that create it, much like the *Coyote* who promises solutions but delivers more chaos. True systemic change requires dismantling these structures, centering Haitian leadership, and investing in the very communities that have been abandoned by decades of failed interventions.