The Dissolution of the State: A Haitian Leap

By: Abdallah Ali Ibrahim

Khalid Omar Yousif’s recent piece titled “The War of the State’s Demise” ended with a familiar opposition reflex: calling for the dissolution of the Sudanese state. His slogan — “the solution lies in dissolution” — is a refrain frequently resorted to by Sudanese politicians when matters get confusing or desperate. Such calls arise from a political culture shaped by relentless opposition to dictatorial regimes, not by the craft of state-building or even the stewardship of strong opposition institutions.

For instance, after the 1969 Nimeiri coup, the first thing opposition forces did was dissolve Omdurman Islamic University in retaliation for its scholars’ role in opposing them during the 1964 October Revolution. They demoted it back to a mere “scientific institute.” After the 1985 uprising, they dissolved the National Security Agency, outraged by its political policing, overlooking that it also had essential external and economic intelligence units. In 2018, they dissolved the Martyrs’ Organization, punishing the families of those who had “jihadist” ties with the former regime — precisely when the transitional government most needed that body to include new martyr names in its registry. These families were left abandoned, impoverished, or forced to depend on the charity of Burhan or Hemeti.

Now, they call for dissolving the army — and the state itself — out of the same habitual opposition instinct: when all else fails, dissolve. This is a brief word on Haiti, which beat Sudan to such a leap when it dissolved its army in 1996 — and has not known peace or recovery since.

If any comparison fits Sudan’s war-torn condition, it is Haiti’s. There, the national army was dismantled as part of an opposition plan that accused it of serving dictatorship. Similarly, part of Sudan’s civilian elite now wants to dissolve the army, citing its legacy of direct or complicit rule under dictatorships.

Haiti’s military overthrew President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in September 1991. When Aristide returned from exile in January 1996 — under conditions we need not delve into here — he promptly dissolved the army, a move even the Americans who backed his return had not agreed to.

The people welcomed the army’s dissolution with a collective sigh of relief. One man told reporters: “Now I can sleep in peace. They won’t break into my home and loot it anymore.” The Haitian public had grown so disillusioned with the army that they rejected a 2017 proposal to reinstate it, chanting in protests: “We don’t want an army, we want education.” A former mayor of the capital argued the country had more urgent needs than a military. Aristide’s supporters even proposed a constitutional amendment to remove the army from the state structure altogether.

Yet Haiti has not prospered since. The country became a host for multiple UN peacekeeping missions — between 1999 and 2001, and again from 2004 to 2017 — whose most lasting legacy was the spread of cholera and the sexual abuse of local women. Two new terms entered Haiti’s political lexicon as a result: “Haiti fatigue” and “peacebuilding fatigue.”

A current international initiative, led by a Kenyan police force, promised to send 1,200 officers. After a year, only 800 have arrived — and even once complete, they are unlikely to match the power of Haiti’s gangs. Donor countries continue to stall on their financial commitments, paralyzed by despair over Haiti’s condition.

Journalist David French argues that past peace efforts failed largely because they insisted on holding elections at all costs at the end of each UN mission — elections more like a desperate “make it stop” gesture than a genuine path to stability. He suggests that future missions be led and staffed by personnel from the Global South, with the Global North providing only funding — a proposal drenched in wearied resignation.

The Haitian state, having dissolved its army, now resembles a skeleton. One writer described the current Presidential Council as fractured and meaningless — holed up in a bunker in Port-au-Prince while the rest of the capital falls under gang control.

Of Haiti’s 11 million people, gangs have killed thousands and displaced a million. The state is largely under the thumb of predatory criminal networks. A journalist described the country as blanketed in “the blood-soaked shadow of gangs,” amid the ruins of burned-out homes and vehicles. Another wrote that Haiti’s current misery and mass killings were entirely predictable and preventable — but that easy solutions no longer exist.

In the latest flickers of hope, some Haitians have begun forming volunteer groups to fight back against the gangs. The police have begun using small drones — supplied by a private military contractor — to target gang leaders. Yet both efforts have drawn criticism.

The “Bwa Kale” group, a volunteer self-defense militia, has been hailed by some as a grassroots counterbalance to gang violence — dubbed by The Washington Post as a “self-defense battalion.” But academic Charli Carpenter sees them as a dangerous mob. Though their rise was a predictable reaction to Haiti’s dire security vacuum, they pose a serious risk to civilians. Members wield axes and gas cans, and often lynch gang suspects arrested by police. Carpenter argues that calling “Bwa Kale” a “civilian force” is inaccurate. Unlike true neighborhood watch groups, they do not guard homes or assist in emergencies. Instead, they embody the most brutal aspects of vigilantism — and often harm innocent people.

The drone strikes, meanwhile, are viewed by some as a last-ditch strategy of a failing state. Political analyst James Bosworth notes that while drones may temporarily disrupt gang command structures, they are not a substitute for a functioning government. He warns that once gangs acquire drone technology themselves — a likely scenario — the weapons will become yet another threat to civilians.

Bosworth insists that what Haiti really needs is a government and rule of law — things drones cannot provide. Using such tools without a legitimate state apparatus is the desperate swing of a failing power, not a display of strength. Without significant international aid to rebuild Haiti’s state institutions, drones will amount to nothing more than a 21st-century gimmick — and are destined to fail.

One of the greatest failings of Sudan’s modern intellectual elite is its impoverished comparative reasoning. Years of operating solely in opposition have caused them to idealize foreign examples and vilify local efforts. They assume that other countries have achieved what Sudan could not, without any evidence, using such narratives to romanticize their opposition role and fuel their frustration.

Perhaps this is why no one in Sudan’s elite ever mentions Haiti — the only country in the modern world that dissolved its army, only to become a nation ruled by gangs. Yet the Sudanese opposition’s discourse mirrors that of Haiti’s failed experiment. Activists in the “Samood” movement call the Sudanese army “a disgrace.” Livati Kamil Abbas said it is inseparable from the Islamic movement and has no independent will. Editor of Al-Hadatha newspaper, Shams al-Din Daw al-Bait, declared the army “useless,” hijacked by Islamists and now waging war to preserve their legacy. Journalist Rasha Awad lamented that Sudan waited too long to dissolve its military. This consensus culminated in the January 2024 Addis Ababa Declaration with RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, explicitly calling for dissolving the army and integrating it with all militias into a new “professional national army.”

If this plan is ever enacted — to disband the army and dismantle the state — Sudan will find itself in Haiti’s shadow. The country will become, as Sudanese say, “fi khashm al-nas” (the laughingstock of others), condemned to the fate of a failed state, whispered about in warning and pity.