The Crisis No One Wants to Fix: Haiti’s Fall and the Global Failure
In this eye-opening episode of Breaking Battlegrounds, hosts Chuck Warren and Sam Stone speak with veteran journalist and author Michael Deibert, who recently returned from his latest trip to Haiti—his first in years. With over three decades of experience covering the country, Deibert paints a harrowing yet deeply human portrait of a nation caught in a worsening crisis.
Deibert describes a capital city—Port-au-Prince—largely inaccessible to government authorities and overwhelmed by gang violence and mass displacement, with over a million people now living in dire conditions. And yet, amid the chaos, Deibert finds flickers of hope: a resilient population still showing warmth and joy despite hardship.
He contrasts the dire state of the capital with the relative calm in Cape Haitian, where restaurants are still open, nightlife is alive, and daily life continues. But he warns against complacency: even these functioning areas are being affected by the country’s instability.
Deibert doesn’t hold back when discussing Haiti’s so-called interim government—a nine-person transitional council, cobbled together by the U.S. and CARICOM—which he describes as completely disconnected from the people it claims to represent. Citizens across economic classes, he says, see them as opportunists enriching themselves while the nation suffers.
The conversation turns blunt as the hosts ask the hard questions: Why hasn’t the promised 5,000-member Kenyan-led peacekeeping force materialized, nearly two years after its announcement? With only about 1,000 currently on the ground, the delay—rooted in a lack of funding and political will—has proven deadly.
Deibert urges for a shift in U.S. policy—one that prioritizes a Haitian-led democratic process, not externally imposed solutions that continue to fail. Without security, elections are impossible. Without elections, Haiti remains adrift.
This episode is a sobering call to attention for anyone who believes in democracy, humanitarianism, and accountability.
Image of Port-au-Prince captured by Michael Deibert
Transcript
Sam Stone: Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with the host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. Continuing on the line now with us, Michael Divert, friend of the program, author and journalist, has covered Haiti for 30 years and just came back from his latest trip there.
Chuck Warren: So, Michael, as we helped you get down there, were you surprised what you found on the ground? Was it better than you expected, worse than you expected? I mean, you spent two decades of your life down there. Give people a picture of what you saw in Haiti.
Michael Deibert: Yeah, so the situation in Port-au-Prince is still quite dire, I would say. I mean, you know, you have a lot of the capital that is still inaccessible to the kind of quasi-official authorities. And you have, of course, this huge displacement of more than a million people who are living in quite precarious conditions.
The security situation isn't quite as bad as I thought it was, although for, I would say, a kind of normal country, it would still be viewed as quite, quite bad. What I found extraordinary, though, was, you know, I mean, anybody who goes to Haiti,
I think one of the things you come away with is an impression of the incredible friendliness and warmth of the people there. And I would expect to see that fairly erased, but I still found people had a little bit of the joie de vivre, even amid this terrible situation.
And I would say I flew into Cape Haitian, which is Haiti's second largest city in the north. It's fairly far away. from Port-au-Prince and you know CAP despite the fact that it's been it's been flooded with kind of internally displaced people from other parts of the country
it's still operating more or less normally I mean there's lots of nightlife there's restaurants opening the airports functioning so you know the the although the the chaos and the violence is encompassing an ever greater part of the country and is having impacts in the other parts of the country,
it would not be accurate to kind of say that the entire country is under gang control. What you have is, you know, Port-au-Prince, the metropolitan area, the area going to the Dominican Republic, increasingly the area going towards what we call the plateau central, which is kind of also heading east towards the border with the DR.
But there are some other areas, I mean, if you just kind of landed in Cap, for example, without knowledge of what's going on in the rest of Haiti, you could be kind of oblivious. And, you know, I would say the people, I mean, the interim government such as it is, which was cobbled together by the U.S.
And CARICOM, it's this nine-person hydra-headed transitional authority and a prime minister, I think there's a general, I mean, it's quite extraordinary in that along with Ariel Henry, the prime minister who was ousted, I really have never in the world met a political entity with no support until then. And Ariel, you know, because everybody, every politician,
no matter how much they're hated, they generally have some support, but they wouldn't be in politics. But these guys, I mean, from the people who are quite living in really modest circumstances to people who are much more comfortable, I found the general consensus was that these guys are kind of scrambling to take
whatever privileges and money they can get their hands on and essentially ignoring the really desperate straits that the rest of the population is in.
Sam Stone: How do... People like you, us, others, how do we get the message? I mean if the U.S. is going to play a role in this going forward like they have,
that that needs to change, that there needs to be some sort of Haitian-led coalition that actually represents some of the people there because it doesn't seem like Washington is listening. Yeah, and it's interesting. I mean, I was talking to an entrepreneur who I would say, you know, is very close to some of these self-defense brigades,
militias in Canapé Bear, and he was saying that when he saw the formation of the interim, the transition council that's ostensibly running the country now, he said it was as if you put all the anti-Haitian, anti-democratic, anti-progress forces in one entity and gave them control of the country. That was an analysis of it.
And, you know, I think there are a couple of things. I mean, clearly, you know, Haiti has not had any sort of elected government since the assassination of Jovenel Moïse in July of 2021. So, you know, you have to at some point have an election that will give it a parliament, that will give it a government president.
But that would be that will be impossible to do until some sort of security situation stabilizes. Now, my theory is You know, Haiti was supposed to get this 5000 member international Kenyan led security force. There's only a little over 1000 there right now.
And I think, you know, even if they're trying.
Chuck Warren: Michael, Michael, let me stop you there. Why? I mean, that was like over 18 months ago, they were supposed to get the 5000 there, right? I mean, am I wrong on that number? Yeah, no, I mean, they were supposed to be long there.
So why?
So my question is, and this is what frustrates Americans, and I make a very big point here. This is why you have people like Donald Trump. People are just tired of this. Why is there not 5,000 peacekeepers down there? What is the delay?
Michael Deibert: Well, the Americans, along with other entities, don't want to fund them, for one, which is obviously problematic.
Chuck Warren: Well, it's criminal.
It's criminal. People are dying. I mean, we're creating terrorist haven.
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