Made up of around fifty agents armed after completing one month of training, this municipal police force is raising concerns in the community, according to sources who cite the use of weapons of unknown origin
According to local authorities contacted by AyiboPost, La Gonâve formally certified around 50 municipal police officers, including 3 women, on March 30, 2024.
In the making since 2021, Haiti’s largest island joins several dozen municipalities throughout the country with their own police forces.
The legality of these local forces remains in question.
A 2006 decree on the operation of local authorities provides for the existence of a municipal administrative police force, but postpones the release of a law to regulate its recruitment, its workforce, its organization, and its hierarchical structures to a later date. This law does not exist.
Like the parliamentary police officers and the agents of the Protected Areas Security Brigade (BSAP), these new independent groups seem to operate on the fringes of the 1987 Constitution which prohibits the existence of other armed bodies in the country beyond the Haitian army and the Haitian National Police (PNH).
In the making since 2021, Haiti’s largest island joins several dozen municipalities throughout the country with their own police forces.
The municipal police officers of La Gonâve were trained for a month by PNH agents and must “help in the fight against insecurity” on the island, whose 90,000 inhabitants are protected by only 5 under-equipped police officers, according to Luckson Fils-Aimé, member of the Board of Directors of the Communal Section (CASEC) of Anse-à-Galets.
But the force is causing concern in the community.
“The agents of the municipal police force carry weapons of unknown origin,” reveals to AyiboPost Content Renil, president of the association of CASECS and ASECS (Assembly of the Communal Section) of the fourth section of Ti Palmiste in La Gonâve.
According to a source, the island’s municipal police is sending a murky signal about its ties to the PNH.
The majority of its agents wear bulletproof vests marked PNH even though they are not part of this institution, Renil continues to AyiboPost.
Inspectors Jilles Motlaire and Jose Renard, respectively responsible for the Anse-à-Galets and Pointe-à-Raquettes police stations in La Gonâve, told AyiboPost that they have no information on the training or arming of new municipal agents.
Motlaire was, however, present at the certificate ceremony on March 30, 2024.
The officers of this municipal police force carry weapons of unknown origin.
– Content Renil
According to Oleste Pierre Louis, CASEC of the fourth Grand Lagon section of the commune of Anse-à-Galets, the equipment came from the town hall. It is not clear how the municipality obtained them, nor whether the agents will return them in the event of any changes at the town hall.
According to specialists, municipal police can worsen the security problem they aim to help solve.
In a context of arms trafficking, they can be “instrumentalised or find themselves in role conflicts with the Haitian National Police,” according to Youdeline Chérizard Joseph, criminologist and attorney at the Gonaïves Bar.
In 2017, the municipal council of Petit-Goâve created its force, called “high voltage” in the area. Very quickly, its members were guilty of abuses against civilians, according to revelations made to AyiboPost by a member of the area’s town hall in 2022.
Read also: Petit-Goâve created its own police force. This group quickly became a threat to the population
In 2017, a Delmas municipal police officer killed a young man during a raid in Delmas 65.
In La Gonâve, the force continues to take actions criticized in the community.
On April 13, 2024, agent Dieuphel Lapointe injured himself with his weapon after firing into the air to subdue an individual who was carrying a machete, according to two local sources familiar with the incident.
Maître Damas Jean Milfort, a citizen of Anse-à-Galets, fears that the new police officers will become instruments of repression in the hands of the authorities in place against the population. He bases his concerns on arrests made by the agents.
In a context of arms trafficking, they can be “instrumentalised or find themselves in role conflicts with the Haitian National Police.”
– Youdeline Chérizard Joseph
Some specialists are calling for these forces to be regulated, and a hierarchical relationship to be established with the PNH down the line.
“We need a law to define the terms of recruitment of these police officers, how they operate, as well as their training,” insists Luc Wans Duvalsaint, former mayor of Petite-Rivière de l’Artibonite and executive director of the National Federation of ASEC’s in Haiti (FENASEC).
In the meantime, other municipalities are following in La Gonâve’s footsteps.
The Aquin town hall has just launched a call for applications to recruit police officers to secure the town. The decision was taken by municipal decree dated April 10, 2024.
Order for the creation of the municipal police of Aquin. (1/2)
Order for the creation of the municipal police of Aquin. (2/2)
Notice of recruitment of candidates for the municipal police of Aquin. (1/2)
Notice of recruitment of candidates for the municipal police of Aquin. (2/2)
Cover image: An armed police officer during a protest to denounce police mismanagement in Port-au-Prince on Thursday, January 26, 2023. | AP – Odelyn Joseph.
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