Haitian Gang Conflict begins

The beginning of the Haitian gang conflict matters because it marks the point where criminal armed groups ceased to be a serious but containable security problem and began to emerge as a core force in Haiti's political and territorial order. This start marker matters not because gang violence was previously absent, but because it captures the opening of a phase in which state weakness, elite fragmentation, and armed control of neighborhoods became central to national crisis. It matters because some modern conflicts begin not with formal rebellion, but with the collapse of the state's ability to monopolize coercion. The start marker connects to Haiti's repeated political crises, the rise of gang federations in and around Port-au-Prince, and the way insecurity became tied to governance itself. It matters because the beginning of a gang conflict can reveal when organized violence has stopped being peripheral and has started to shape the state from the inside out.