Bukele adds a wildcard to Haiti’s fractured security landscape

Guerinault Louis/Anadolu/Getty Images

What could go wrong? For over a week, El Salvador has been quietly sending troops to Haiti, a project whose scale was only revealed publicly last night: More than 2,000 Salvadoran soldiers will be sent to the Caribbean nation, but their mission and mandate remain opaque.

The deployment is a wildcard in Port-au-Prince, a city of densely-inhabited hills where battle lines constantly shift between dozens of gangs and anti-gang groups, including foreign forces, neighborhood vigilantes, and mercenaries.

Two thousand soldiers is a significant arrival here. That’s more than Haiti’s entire army, and about a quarter of the urban footprint of the Haitian National Police. It’s about equal to the current staffing of the multinational UN-backed Gang Suppression Force (GSF) and far outnumbers the private military contractors on the Haitian government’s secretive “task force.”

But how do they fit into Haiti’s fractured security landscape? Who is paying for it all? And what exactly is their mission? For now, the Salvadoran forces’ command structure has not been established, according to a source close to the matter.

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Little light was shed by parallel communiqués released Wednesday evening by El Salvador and Haiti, which described a call between President Nayib Bukele and interim Haitian leader Alix Didier Fils-Aimé about the overall security situation and status of four missing Salvadorans air technicians.

The air technicians, catalyst for this deployment, disappeared earlier this month after an apparent gang ambush. They had been working with the GSF in a noncombat role, according to Salvadoran officials. In the immediate aftermath, 100 Salvadoran special forces were sent to Haiti to assist in search and rescue operations — a precursor to the now expanded force.

Ten days later, local sources say it is unlikely that the missing four can be recovered. If Salvadoran forces cannot achieve that, they’ll likely seek other wins, perhaps joining one of several existing security forces for an extended push against the gangs in retaliation.

A clue to their plans may eventually lie with their physical location; at time of reporting, the Salvadorans were not staying at the main GSF base.

El Salvador sends troops to Haiti to rescue four service members

Bukele has argued that he has unique bona fides to address Haiti’s crisis. His government’s own hardline crackdown on gangs back home did restore peace to what was once the most violent country in the Western Hemisphere — though critics highlight his use of mass incarceration and accusations of widespread abuses.

In a message posted to X last week, he addressed the gangs in Haitian Creole: “There is still time to avoid this,” Bukele said. “Return our four countrymen to us alive and unharmed and everything will return to the way it was before the kidnapping.”

Most residents of Port-au-Prince would rather see dramatic change, after years of brutal gang violence that have driven over a million people from their homes. Just two hours from Florida’s coast, the city is terrorized by frequent gang kidnappings, rape and arson, all broadcast on social media.

On Thursday, Haitians nationwide were reminded again of just how much insecurity has put civil life on pause, with the news that long-deferred presidential elections are postponed yet again until next year.

But experts warn about the dangers of additional players on a crowded urban battlefield. “The situation is volatile and could become more violent with innocent people being harmed,” Bill O’Neill, the UN’s human rights expert for Haiti, said.

Romain LeCoeur, Haiti expert at the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime, echoed the concern. “Haiti’s security response no longer rests on a single strategy, but on a juxtaposition of multilateral, national and private actors, each operating under its own rules,” he said.

“As long as no one can say who decides and who is accountable, every operation risks adding to the confusion rather than to security.”

Reporting contributed by CNN’s Merlin Delcid in El Salvador.

Guerinault Louis/Anadolu/Getty Images

会出什么问题呢？一个多星期以来，萨尔瓦多一直在悄悄地向海地派遣军队，这项行动的规模直到昨晚才公之于众：超过2000名萨尔瓦多士兵将被派往这个加勒比海国家，但他们的任务和职责仍然不明。

在太子港，这次部署是一个未知数。太子港是一座人口稠密的山城，数十个帮派和反帮派组织（包括外国军队、社区治安队和雇佣兵）之间的战线不断变化。

两千名士兵的到来意义重大。这比海地整个军队的兵力还要多，约占海地国家警察城市警力部署的四分之一。这与目前联合国支持的多国联合打击帮派部队（GSF）的人员规模大致相当，而且远远超过海地政府秘密“特遣部队”中的私人军事承包商的数量。

但他们如何融入海地支离破碎的安全格局？谁来支付所有费用？他们的任务究竟是什么？据一位知情人士透露，目前萨尔瓦多部队的指挥结构尚未建立。

独家报道：揭秘埃里克·普林斯秘密打击海地黑帮的行动

萨尔瓦多和海地周三晚间分别发表的平行公报并未透露太多信息，公报中描述了萨尔瓦多总统纳伊布·布克莱和海地临时领导人阿利克斯·迪迪埃·菲尔斯-艾梅就整体安全形势和四名失踪的萨尔瓦多航空技术人员的状况进行的通话。

促成此次部署的空军技术人员在本月初遭遇疑似团伙伏击后失踪。据萨尔瓦多官员称，他们此前一直在为萨尔瓦多特种部队执行非战斗任务。事件发生后，萨尔瓦多立即派遣100名特种部队人员前往海地协助搜救行动——这便是如今这支扩充部队的前身。

十天后，当地消息人士称，失踪的四人不太可能被找回。如果萨尔瓦多军队无法做到这一点，他们可能会寻求其他胜利，或许会加入现有的几个安全部队之一，对这些团伙发起更大规模的报复性打击。

他们的计划或许最终会从他们的实际位置中得到一些线索；截至发稿时，萨尔瓦多人并未居住在 GSF 的主要基地。

萨尔瓦多派兵前往海地营救四名军人

布克莱认为，他拥有解决海地危机的独特资格。他领导的政府在国内对帮派采取的强硬镇压确实恢复了这个曾经是西半球最暴力国家的和平——尽管批评者指出他使用了大规模监禁手段，并指控其存在普遍的虐待行为。

上周，布克莱在X网站上发布消息，用海地克里奥尔语向各团伙喊话：“现在还有时间避免这一切，”他说。“把我们四位同胞活着、毫发无损地送回来，一切都会恢复到绑架事件发生前的样子。”

太子港的大多数居民都希望看到翻天覆地的变化，因为多年来残酷的帮派暴力已经迫使超过一百万人流离失所。这座城市距离佛罗里达海岸仅两小时车程，却饱受频繁发生的帮派绑架、强奸和纵火的困扰，所有这些罪行都在社交媒体上广泛传播。

周四，海地全国人民再次意识到，长期推迟的总统选举再次被推迟到明年，这让全国人民更加深刻地体会到，不安全局势已经严重阻碍了公民生活。

但专家警告说，在拥挤的城市战场上，更多参与者的加入会带来危险。“局势动荡不安，可能会变得更加暴力，造成无辜平民伤亡，”联合国海地人权专家比尔·奥尼尔说。

全球打击跨国有组织犯罪倡议组织的海地问题专家罗曼·勒科尔也表达了同样的担忧。他说：“海地的安全应对不再依赖于单一战略，而是多边、国家和私人机构相互协作，各自按照自己的规则行事。”

“只要没有人能说清谁来做决定、谁来负责，那么每一次行动都有可能加剧混乱，而不是增强安全。”

本文由 CNN 驻萨尔瓦多记者 Merlin Delcid 提供报道。