IJDH’s Brian Concannon spoke with JURIST about his 27 years of Haiti work and his thoughts on the ongoing crisis in Haiti.

“…the acute causes [of the current situation] are that the current government that has run Haiti for the last decade has been persistently dismantling Haiti’s democracy for the last decade.” 

“The lack of rule of law is a key factor in the current unrest. The government is aware that the rule of law is a curb on their power, and they have systematically undermined that. To the extent possible, the government has eliminated the rule of law.”

“Our approach to Haiti is that unless you establish the rule of law and accountability, Haiti is never going to escape its past of poverty and insecurity.”

“Our position, which is shared by many of the Haitian people, is that you cannot fight criminal violence by throwing out the rule of law. Rather, the only way of really fighting criminal violence is to first address the long-term drivers of gang violence, such as poverty.”

“I think we need to listen to the Haitian population.…Haitians understand, better than we ever could, what it means to not have the rule of law. And they’re committed to getting their democracy back on track….The first thing we need to do is to stop making things worse by stopping supporting the government that’s causing these problems.”

Read the full interview here.