In Haiti, where the state long ago abdicated its duty to protect its own people, citizens filled the void with their own weapons and their own justice. Now, as U.S.-backed and U.N.-authorized forces arrive to dismantle the gang networks that have held the country hostage, they find themselves navigating not one armed problem but two — the gangs they came to defeat, and the self-defense brigades that rose to fight them. The deepest irony of this intervention is that its success may hinge less on military strategy than on whether it can rebuild enough of a functioning state to make armed self-re
Haiti's Self-Defense Brigades Emerge as Peace Obstacle
Implied gang violence and security crisis affecting Haiti's population, though specific casualty figures not stated in excerpt.