Haiti’s government is growing desperate, now resorting to using handheld drones to drop bombs on local gangs as the situation on the western half of Hispaniola becomes more dire, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.
“It’s showing how weak the government forces are,” Vanda Felbab-Brown from the Brookings Institution said of the tactic. “They are desperate.”
According to sources close to Haitian Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé, who took over as acting leader in November, a drone task force was created in response to the gangs the government considers terrorist entities.
On March 1, Fils-Aimé’s office announced the start of the task offensive: “The state will not give in to terror. Victory against the gangs is coming. Haiti will take back control of its destiny.”
A State Department spokeswoman told the Journal that the United States is the top defense supplier to Haiti and has provided nonlethal surveillance drones to its government but also has policies in place to ensure they’re not used for lethal purposes.
“The U.S. government hasn’t supplied lethal drones to any element in Haiti,” she stated.
In early May, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the Haitian gangs Viv Ansanm and Gran Grif would be designated as “Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists.”
The announcement comes as Fils-Aimé’s administration looks to U.S. security contractors, such as Blackwater’s Erik Prince, for help. A spokesman for Prince said he met with senior members of the Haitian government in April to discuss security and work related to delivering essential goods.
The gangs have reportedly perpetrated thousands of murders, choking off the supply of food and fuel. According to the United Nations, half of Haiti’s 12 million people are starving.
Haiti’s government has provided little to no information on the collateral damage the bombs from the drones have had.
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