Haiti’s Crisis Will Not End Unless We Name the Demon Holding It Captive
Why February 7 marks the beginning of a more dangerous phase
In 1805, as Jean-Jacques Dessalines confronted the unfinished business of independence, he issued a warning about a demon that had yet to be slain and still lives with us today. “Ever since we have thrown out the colonists,” he said, “their sons are claiming their properties; the Blacks, whose fathers are in Africa, will have nothing.”
Dessalines understood that political freedom meant little if economic power merely changed hands at the top while the majority remained excluded from land, wealth, and authority.
Two hundred and twenty years later, that demon is still alive.
Colonial Saint-Domingue was divided into three tiers. White colonists sat at the top, enslaved Africans at the bottom, and in between were the affranchis, free people of color who could own property, including enslaved people. After independence, Dessalines tried to prevent this hierarchy from reasserting itself by redistributing land so the Black majority would not inherit poverty. His assassination ensured that effort would die.
Dessalines’ dream, like his body, was mutilated and scattered. The ruling class reclaimed their estates, while the bossales retreated to the mountains.
Haitian history shifted again during the U.S. occupation from 1915 to 1934. Power became concentrated in Port-au-Prince, reducing political participation and weakening local governance. Old slave codes revived forced labor, with Haitians conscripted for public works projects through the brutal corvée system. The commercial environment also shifted: German merchants were pushed out, and new ones from Lebanon and Syria (Levantines) were prioritized in the import-export and finance sectors.
Over time, these Levantine families joined Haiti’s traditional economic elite to form a new ruling class. Together, with the participation of Black intermediaries who served as political enforcers, economic brokers, and institutional gatekeepers, they sustained and adapted a hierarchy rooted in white supremacy even as its outward forms modernized.
Today, this concentration of power is often described in shorthand as the BAM BAM families, including Brandt, Acra, Madsen, Bigio, Apaid, and Mevs, though they are not the only families that exert significant control over Haiti’s economy. Together, they represent fewer than one percent of the population yet dominate the ports, imports, fuel, telecommunications, and financial systems that shape the daily lives of millions of Haitians. Class often matters as much as, and sometimes more than, ethnicity, but in Haiti the two have historically been intertwined. Recognizing this reality does not require an ethnocentric reading of the country’s problems. It requires acknowledging that those who control economic systems, regardless of origin, tend to align with others who prioritize profit over national development and collective dignity.
Despite the influence of the international community, whose policies toward Haiti remain shaped by white supremacy and strategic convenience, we should never accept the claim that Haitians lack agency.
The Haitian problem and its solutions remain Haitian.
Despite our sharp criticisms of those in power, we must never fall for the siren song of xenophobia. Haiti’s founding principle remains intact. Haiti belongs to all of us, whether one’s roots trace back to Dahomey, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, France, or Germany. If you love this country and commit to its dignity, you are Haitian. This was the radical premise of 1805.
All Haitians were declared nèg, Black, not as a statement of skin color but as a political rejection of colonial hierarchy and racial domination, as enshrined in Article 14 of the 1805 Constitution: “All Haitians shall henceforth be known by the generic appellation of Blacks.”
That story, despite its contradictions, remains the only credible basis for national unity. It is our story, and it is the one we must continue to believe in and tell about ourselves.
Still, confronting today’s crisis requires returning to where Dessalines began. We cannot look away from the demon he named. We must face our past honestly and confront our present with courage. This is the context in which we are moving towards the end of CPT’s mandate on February 7.
The CPT and the Decay of Haiti’s Body Politic
The failure of the Transitional Presidential Council is not an isolated political breakdown. It is the visible symptom of a deeper decay within Haitian society, reflected through its body politic.
In many ways, the CPT mirrors not only Haiti’s political class but also its broader social structure. In the soft coup orchestrated by Laurent Saint-Cyr, as one of seven members, he was able to override the majority, a group that resembled the masses yet failed to act collectively. That failure did not occur solely because of external pressure. It occurred because the majority never articulated a shared vision, demonstrated discipline, or acted as a bloc. It was all for one, and one for oneself.
Even Haiti’s armed gangs understand the power of coordination under the logic of manyen youn manyen tout.
This is precisely why building organizational infrastructure matters more than finding the right leader. Without it, even well-intentioned actors fragment under pressure. As I have argued in my framework for Haitian nationalism, “accountability requires structure, structure requires organization, and organization requires people coming together with purpose.”
More troubling still, among that majority, two members face allegations of corruption, and today, five have been accused by the United States of collusion with armed groups. Even as Haitians recognize the cynicisms of these charges and the contradictions of international involvement in Haiti’s affairs, the CPT made no effort to build its own credibility or moral authority. It collapsed under the weight of its own selfishness, fragmentation, and incompetence.
What we are witnessing, then, is a soft coup carried out not with guns but through institutions and administrative processes. Mr. Saint-Cyr did not act alone. He is backed by the United States and Canada, which wield sanctions and visa cancellations to impose their will.
Mr. Fils-Aimé, who has taken advantage of and benefited from the majority’s incoherence, would do well to remember that former Prime Ministers Ariel Henry and Garry Conille also believed they were all-powerful because they enjoyed American backing. Both learned, painfully, how temporary and conditional that support can be.
As Haitians, we must never surrender our dignity. Negotiating with the United States is unavoidable and often occurs under duress, but necessity does not require submission, nor does engagement require abandoning our historical legacy.
As February 7 approaches and given the actors involved, it is becoming clear that whatever arrangement emerges will come at the expense of the excluded majority, those of us moun andeyò. This reality demands that we look beyond that fateful date and begin preparing not for the seventh but for the eighth.
One path carries the promise of rebirth, like a phoenix rising from the ashes. The other offers the prolonged decay of a monster stitched together like Frankenstein, neither fully alive nor truly dead.
Rebuilding Legitimacy from the Periphery
On February 7, the CPT’s mandate expires. This date should not be seen as a transition but as a breaking point. It marks the convergence of political illegitimacy, economic collapse, and external pressure.
What follows will not be shaped by the UN, eminent personalities, or the Charge d’Affaires (Haiti’s governor), but by whether we begin preparing for a more difficult phase. We should be honest with ourselves. The constitution is already being ignored. Pretending otherwise is collective self-deception. Haiti does not need more legal fiction. It needs political authority that people recognize as real.
A sober, realistic approach rooted in our own political tradition must begin at the local level. This is not only a political strategy but an organizing principle. Lasting change in Haiti has always begun where people actually live, in the lakous, in the provinces, among the moun andeyò.
The only way to regain legitimacy is to organize elections. These can be held at the departmental level for local offices, including ASEC and CASEC, with mayors serving as deputies at the national level to form a legitimate legislative body. These elections should be held in all ten departments. However, if security prevents full participation in some communes, they should proceed wherever possible. What we have seen is that waiting for the perfect conditions has only prolonged the paralysis and created a new norm of governance through transitions.
These elections must also be managed by local and departmental electoral councils, not by the centralized body in Port-au-Prince, which has shown its limits and incapacity. To tackle the center, authority must be rebuilt in the periphery first, in places where people live, organize, and survive.
This rebuilding cannot happen from Port-au-Prince. It requires the moun andeyò in both senses, those in the rural interior and those abroad, working in coordination. Haitians abroad, together, we make up the majority of the population.
This approach is not new. For much of Haiti’s history, presidents were selected by representative bodies when direct elections were impossible. Alexandre Pétion was elected by the Senate in 1807. Jean-Pierre Boyer was elected by the legislature in 1818. In 1946, Dumarsais Estimé was chosen by the National Assembly. These moments were imperfect, but legitimacy flowed through representative institutions when popular elections were not possible.
We should return to this method and, in many ways, start from the beginning. Once a legitimate legislative body is formed through departmental elections, it can elect a president. This would not be a permanent solution, but it could create the political space needed to convene a national conference to establish a new, much-needed social contract and long-term governance.
A Nation Still at War with Itself
The demon Dessalines warned us about has taken many forms over two centuries. The faces have changed, but the structure that concentrates power and excludes the many has endured. Independence did not fail because Haitians lacked courage, but because a system built on hierarchy and exclusion was allowed to survive it.
Dessalines understood that freedom meant little if those whose fathers were in Africa ended up with nothing. Two centuries later, his warning still stands. The division he identified, along the lines of color and class, has never been resolved. It has simply learned to present itself in the language of order, stability, and prudence, even as it continues to deny the majority land, opportunity, and authority.
If this demon is not confronted now, February 7 will not mark a transition but the opening of a more dangerous chapter, not only for Haiti but also for those who believe this crisis can be managed without confronting the division at its heart. And once again, the cost will be borne by those Dessalines warned would be left with nothing.