The IMF’s Role in Caribbean Gang Violence

In March 2024, diplomats from around the world convened to discuss the overwhelming presence of gangs in Haiti. The host country for this summit, Jamaica, dealt with a similar predicament nearly fifteen years ago, when soldiers and police clashed with the drug-smuggling “Shower Posse” in the slums of Kingston for an entire month. The staggering decline of public safety within these two nations traces its origins to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which has lent out nearly $150 billion to developing nations under the auspices of easing trade restrictions and countering communist influence. The structural adjustment programs introduced by the IMF plunged Haiti and Jamaica into the throes of economic volatility and gang warfare.

When self-described democratic socialist Michael Manley became prime minister of Jamaica in 1972, his economic programs provided “land to cultivators, free education, housing…and the national minimum wage.” Manley’s commitment to the socialist model extended internationally as well, seen in his lifelong friendship with Cuba’s Fidel Castro, who routinely donated medical supplies to the island. These policies were widely popular among Jamaica’s populace, earning Manley a comfortable re-election victory in 1976. 

Beneath the surface however, street violence between Manley’s People National Party (PNP) and the opposing right-wing Jamaica Labor Party (JLP) was steadily intensifying. These internal tensions were amplified by the 1970s OPEC oil embargo, which strained government budgets and devalued the local currency. To handle this economic crisis, Manley approved a $78 million loan with the IMF in 1977 that mandated reductions in government spending. Pressured by the agreement, the PNP government rolled back many of the progressive measures that were central to their anti-poverty campaign. These cuts limited the capacity of Jamaica’s state owned enterprises through the privatization and deregulation of major industries. The demise of the public sector coincided with an all-out gang war between PNP and JLP armed factions leading up to the 1980 election, claiming the lives of more than 800 people between February and October alone. In a scathing electoral defeat for the leftist PNP administration, the JLP’s Edward Seaga defeated Manley by a landslide. Seaga, who previously represented Jamaica as a governor in the IMF and World Bank, implemented further neoliberal reforms as prime minister. During the 1980s, Seaga accepted eight loans from the IMF, with conditions that led to suffocating austerity on basic goods such as food and medicine. Wages were lowered, civil servants were fired, schools and hospitals were closed, all in the name of structural adjustment. Oxfam described life in Seaga’s Jamaica as “a grim daily struggle to pay for food, clothing and transportation.” By the time Manley‘s PNP returned to government following the 1989 elections, the party had completely abandoned the project of democratic socialism. 

Although JLP-PNP political violence has subsided in recent decades, Jamaica itself has gradually deteriorated into one of the murder capitals of the world. In 2022, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime recorded a homicide rate of 53 per 100,000 people, quintupling the worst homicide rate of Manley’s first term. The absurd rise in violent crime has been attributed to Jamaica’s worsening gang epidemic. In a 2009 interview with the Jamaica Gleaner, former National Security Minister Dwight Nelson revealed that “90 percent of homicides are gang-related…There are about 200 gangs across the island, many of which mutate.” At the same time, these numerous gangs currently offer essential services to the country’s impoverished, such as loans, schooling, and employment; albeit dangerous and unlawful employment. By dismantling Jamaica’s robust welfare state, the IMF created the optimal conditions for gang recruitment and illicit behavior to thrive. 

The leader of the aforementioned Shower Posse, Christopher “Dudus” Coke”, grew his power base exponentially during the neoliberal era. From his stronghold in the Tivoli Gardens of Kingston, Dudus controlled much of the Caribbean’s marijuana and cocaine trade in the 1990s and 2000s. His group also maintained a close patron-client relationship with the JLP, exchanging votes for legal impunity. These activities eventually caught the attention of Jamaican and American federal law enforcement, culminating in an urban police man-hunt that killed at least 73 civilians between May and June 2010. Tivoli Gardens residents spoke fondly of Dudus even after the bloodshed: “He is a good man, he is good for the people. He takes care of the children, helps them go to school, takes care of the old people and them. He does good for the community.” The gruesome war against the Shower Posse draws strong parallels to Haiti’s ongoing gang crisis. 

Despite being the first nation to abolish slavery, Haiti lacks many of the democratic norms present in the Jamaican case. For nearly thirty years (1957-1986), the autocratic Duvalier family ruled the island with an iron fist. Haiti’s strong domestic economy, largely a product of strict price controls and state owned enterprises, faltered following the 1970s oil price shock. In 1980, the IMF loaned Haiti $22 million in foreign aid. Nearly all of these funds went to then President-for-life Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier and his Tontons Macoutes, a paramilitary group responsible for killing up to 60,000 Haitians and torturing countless more. Nevertheless, Baby Doc enjoyed relatively warm relations with the Western world during his reign of terror, owing to his anti-communist sympathies. Three years later, the Duvalier regime agreed to substantially reduce public spending in exchange for an additional $63 million IMF loan. The ensuing unemployment and civil unrest forced Baby Doc into exile in 1986, only to be replaced by a US-backed military dictatorship. The IMF then accelerated their assault on Haiti’s fragile state finances, forcing the country to lift its tariff protections and embrace international capital. Political Science professor Jean-Germaine Gros stated that “The loss of state control of the economy was a direct result of the lending conditionalities imposed upon Haiti after 1986.” Structural adjustment policies saturated domestic markets with cheap foreign goods and undermined local workers and producers. By 2003, wages for menial labor jobs were worth just 20 percent of their 1981 amount. Haiti’s spiraling material decline has crippled virtually every aspect of civil society. 

The vicious cycle of poverty and instability has followed Haiti for the last forty years. Mass urban “food riots” have become a common occurrence amidst diminishing salaries and scarce necessities, even under democratically elected governments. Much like Jamaica, the reverberations of economic desperation are most profoundly felt in the neglected slums. There, in the absence of state legitimacy, Haiti’s criminal underworld has taken up the mantle of public authority. Security studies researcher David C. Becker explained “gangs had much support from the population, at least at first—locals saw them as defenders of the population from a government that provided no services except abusive police.” On top of wielding considerable clout within their own neighborhoods, these gangs were also used as tools for intimidation and protection by political elites. The most feared Haitian crime boss of today, Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier, once held ties with former President Jovenel Moïse. Following Moise’s assassination in 2021, Barbecue’s G9 Family and Allies emerged as the dominant armed force within most of the country. Presenting himself as a freedom-fighter cut from the same cloth as Che Guevara and Malcolm X, Barbecue claims to be waging war against corruption and oligarchy. Regardless of this revolutionary rhetoric, his G9 have destroyed a great deal of Haiti’s remaining infrastructure, displacing more than 700,000 people in the process. International Crisis Group analyst Diego da Rin told the Guardian “He gives women presents on Mother’s Day. He gives money to families that don’t have the means to send their kids to school. But people are aware that he is [also] one of the main people responsible for the nightmare they are living.” Ending this nightmare will require building adequate public services for the Haitian people. 

Jamaica’s Christopher “Dudus” Coke can thus be considered a precursor to Haiti’s Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier. Both crime lords benefited immensely from the mass suffering unleashed by IMF austerity measures. With Jamaica now deploying its own security forces in Haiti to eliminate the G9, the horrific 2010 Tivoli Gardens siege is at risk of being repeated. The use of armed suppression against the Caribbean’s most vulnerable does little to address the jarring inequities of the modern international system. In order to halt the spread of organized crime, the global community must work to end abject poverty and reintegrate those cast to the margins of society, thereby filling the void left by the IMF.