Since the 2010 earthquake, Haiti has no longer been governed. It is managed. Managed like a permanent crisis file, like a “country project” in the portfolio of the international community
Imagine a surreal scene. It is July 2021, inside the bullet-riddled residence of President Jovenel Moïse. As the head of state’s body lies cooling on the floor, two forces begin to move. On one side, an under-equipped, paralyzed Haitian police force that does not even know where to begin the investigation. On the other, the American FBI landing in Port-au-Prince less than 48 hours later, effectively taking control of the investigation, the evidence, and the official narrative. The message was unmistakable: even the death of the president no longer fell under national sovereignty, but under an outsourceable competence. That night, the Haitian state was not attacked; it was found absent.
Since the 2010 earthquake, Haiti has no longer been governed. It is managed. Managed like a permanent crisis file, like a “country project” in the portfolio of the international community. The suits and ties of ministers have been replaced by the fleece jackets of humanitarian logisticians. Laws have become “logical frameworks,” citizens have become “target beneficiaries.” Welcome to the era of the NGO-state, where sovereignty has evaporated and the last functioning public service is international begging.
2010: The Humanitarian Big Bang That Devoured Everything
On January 12, 2010, the earth shook, and with it the last remnants of Haiti’s social contract. In the dust and despair, an army of saviors arrived. They did not wear military uniforms, but NGO badges and construction helmets. The aid was immense, sincere for many, but its architecture was a slow poison.
The Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC) was created. A monstrous structure, co-chaired by Bill Clinton for the United Nations and the Haitian prime minister. English was spoken there, dollars were counted there, and Haiti’s future was decided there—outside its Parliament.
Anthropologist Mark Schuller decoded it clearly: the state was downgraded from sovereign to subcontractor.
For the first time, a state officially accepted that its recovery plan no longer belonged to it. It was the starting point of proxy governance, where local expertise became superfluous, where the Ministry of Finance became an accounting service for foreign funds.
The Seized Investigation, the Nationalized Mourning
The assassination of Jovenel Moïse in 2021 is the ultimate symbol of this vacancy. The murder of a sitting president is the supreme criminal act against sovereignty. The response should be the most solemn, the most furious affirmation of state authority.
In Port-au-Prince, the opposite occurred. The investigation was immediately and visibly taken over by the United States—with the FBI leading the way—to the point of becoming a national humiliation.
Washington determined the suspects, the narratives, the timeline. Haitian justice was reduced to the role of spectator, of clerk for documents drafted in English. The message was unequivocal: “You are not even capable of investigating the death of your own president. Let us handle it.” This takeover is not merely operational; it is metaphysical. It means that the state’s ultimate prerogative—delivering justice for its highest representative—is now subcontracted as well.
The Fire Sale of Sovereign Functions
After 2010, the dismantling became systematic.
Healthcare? A patchwork of mobile clinics run by Médecins Sans Frontières and other Spanish, French, or Canadian NGOs. The Ministry of Public Health was transformed into a simple donor coordinator.
Education? A chaotic landscape where community schools funded by French agencies or American churches coexist with programs financed by international lending institutions. The state no longer sets a national curriculum; it merely “validates” projects.
Security? The ultimate delegation. Facing gangs that control 90% of the capital, the NGO-state’s response was logical: call in an external contractor. First the Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS) in 2024, then the Gang Suppression Force (GSF) in 2025. Kenyan police officers, Jamaican soldiers, foreign funding. The Haitian state has admitted that it is no longer the holder of the monopoly of legitimate force, but merely its contract manager.
Mark Duffield calls this “humanitarian governance”: a system that does not aim to emancipate citizens, but to manage vulnerable populations, to contain crises in order to maintain minimal order. Haiti has become its global laboratory.
Today, power resides in the Council of Government. This body is the perfect embodiment of the NGO-state. It was never elected. Its legitimacy does not come from the dusty ballot boxes of Jacmel or Gonaïves, but from letters of support from embassies and resolutions of the UN Security Council.
The Council of Ministers does not govern; it administers a transition. Its horizon is short (until elections), its objectives are technical (organize elections), and its primary accountability is international. It is the perfect equivalent of a country director for a major international organization: it applies a roadmap decided elsewhere, manages a budget provided from outside, and attempts to maintain calm in the “project zone.”
Political scientist Robert Fatton predicted this: dependency is not a fatality; it is a political choice. For an elite, a weak state connected to aid circuits is more profitable than a strong state accountable to its people. There is more prestige—and more diplomatic passports—in the hushed salons of New York than in the burning streets of Martissant.
The Zombie People and the Industry of Survival
In this equation, the Haitian people are the great forgotten—or rather, the great transformed. From rights-bearing citizens, they have become grateful beneficiaries. From sovereign voters, they have become vulnerable victims whose “humanitarian needs” are measured.
This transformation kills politics. Why debate social projects or economic models when the real budget is decided in Washington or Brussels? Why demand accountability from a prime minister whose position depends more on the support of the Core Group than on the confidence of the population?
The result is a deeply ill society. Absolute distrust toward any authority. An instinct for individual survival replacing collective purpose. And in the vacuum left by the NGO-state, the emergence of dark powers: gangs, which offer a perverse form of protection, employment, and identity.
Can a State Be Resurrected?
Haiti’s contemporary tragedy is therefore not simply a “crisis.” It is the successful implementation of a model: the humanitarianized state. A system in which the international community, weary of local political turbulence, has chosen to directly finance and steer the management of misery, bypassing national institutions. A system in which local elites have traded the heavy responsibility of building a country for the comfortable privileges of well-paid intermediaries.
Escaping this trap will require a revolution far deeper than a mere change of government. It will require:
A fiscal revolution: Restore taxation as the foundation of the citizen contract. We only respect what we finance.
A revolution of dignity: Refuse, with non-negotiable firmness, that the death of a president or the security of a neighborhood be treated as domains reserved for foreign experts.
A revolution in external cooperation: Demand that every donation pass through the national budget, debated in Parliament, and strengthen existing ministries—particularly the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor—rather than creating parallel NGOs.
Otherwise, Haiti will remain this land of absolute paradox: the birthplace of the first successful anti-slavery revolution in history, now the quiet graveyard of the very idea of sovereignty. A country that no longer produces policies, only fundraising appeals. A state that is nothing more than a large NGO, waiting in the antechamber of nations for its next allocation to survive.
By : Jackson Jean
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