Additional US Marines being sent to Haiti to defend the embassy from gang attacks face a grim reality: They’re increasingly being targeted by American-made, military-grade firearms.
Haiti doesn’t manufacture weapons and has been under an arms embargo since 2022, but it’s awash in guns. And the Government Accountability Office says 90% of all weapons in Haiti used in a crime were US sourced.
It’s not just simple handguns.
During a chaotic shootout on the outskirts of Haiti’s capital this month, police killed seven gang members and captured a Barret M82 .50-caliber sniper rifle, which is manufactured in Tennessee.
“That is a true military weapon,” said Jonathan Lowy, president of Global Action on Gun Violence, which has been working with foreign governments to try to stem the flow of US weapons. “It has a range of a mile. It can shoot down helicopters and can pierce reinforced concrete. It can cost around $10,000. That is not a weapon that a law abiding gun owner protecting their home or hunting deer is is looking to buy.”
And yet any 18-year-old with a clean record in can purchase one in most US states.
Homeland Security Investigations in Miami flagged a “substantial increase” in gun trafficking to Haiti and the Caribbean earlier this year, including sniper rifles, .308 rifles — considered “battle rifles” — and at least one belt-fed machine gun. The agency didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The chaos in Haiti — where gangs now control more than 85% of the capital and have forced 1.4 million to flee their homes — comes as Washington is flooding the southern Caribbean with military assets in what it claims is a push to stop drug trafficking and put pressure on Venezuela.
But for many leaders in the region, it’s US weapons that are the worry.
Of the 10 nations and territories with the highest per-capita murder rates globally, eight are in the Caribbean, according to World Bank data. That’s no coincidence, Lowy said in an interview.
The US “is the one country in the world that is both the major manufacturer and seller of civilian small arms and combines that with some of the weakest gun laws in the world,” he said. “You have this perfect storm that makes it easy for gun traffickers.”
Joseph Harold Pierre, an economic and political analyst in Haiti, was stuck in Cap-Haitien this week because domestic air travel was shutdown after gangs shot a local airliner.
He said that many Haitians blame the US for allowing guns to flow into the country, but he said local authorities are also complicit. An American rifle can sell for 50 times its retail price in Haiti, making it a lucrative business that has corrupted industry and politics, he said.
On Monday, the US State Department imposed visa restrictions on Fritz Alphonse Jean, a member of Haiti’s transitional presidential council, “for supporting gangs and other criminal organizations.” Jean has denied those accusations, but he’s just one of several private sector and political actors who have been sanctioned in recent years for allegedly working with criminal groups.
“The main problem is not the guns themselves but that there is no political will to control them,” Pierre said.
Some countries have tried to push back against the flow of weapons coming from the north. In 2021, Mexico sued US gunmakers for $10 billion, accusing them of fueling that nation’s epidemic of violence. The US Supreme Court threw out that suit this year, arguing that a 2005 law shields gun makers from liability.
Lowy says the US needs to crack down on gun manufacturers and dealers that ignore blatant red flags. About 5% of US gun dealers are responsible for supplying 90% of guns used in crimes, he said.
“If those gun dealers who choose to supply the criminal market are reformed or shut down, the crime gun pipeline can be significantly reduced,” he said. “Simply focusing on prosecuting individual straw buyers and gun traffickers is a game of ‘whack a mole.’”
As the violence grinds on, Washington is backing a United Nations plan to send a 5,500-strong “gang suppression force” to Haiti in hopes of laying the groundwork for long-overdue general elections that are set to be held next year.
Just how precarious the situation is was underscored Nov. 13, when US Marines guarding the American embassy exchanged fire with suspected gang members. None of the soldiers were injured, but the Embassy said it was bringing in more Marines to secure the diplomatic compound, which has been attacked in the past.
“If we hold elections under the current conditions, it will only worsen the situation,” Pierre said. “We have to find a way out of this security conundrum.”