Tag: Gang

Haiti gang leader ‘Barbecue’ would take part in peace talks but resist foreign peacekeepers


The gang leader who has become the face of Haiti’s descent into lawlessness and violence has said he would consider calling a ceasefire only if his consortium of armed gangs was included in international talks on the country’s future.

Jimmy Chérizier, the former police officer better known via his nomme de guerre “Barbecue,” spoke to Stuart Ramsay, the chief correspondent for the U.K.’s Sky News, which like NBC News is owned by Comcast.

He warned that a foreign peacekeeping force would be treated as enemy fighters and meet armed resistance, and that a recent pause in violence was merely a technical halt.

“There is nothing calm, but when you’re fighting you have to know when to advance and when to retreat,” Chérizier said in the interview, which aired Friday.

“I think every day that passes we are coming up with a new strategy so we can advance, but there’s nothing calm. In the days that are coming things will get worse than they are now,” he said.

Chérizier leads the G9 collective of gangs but also leads Viv Ansanm, meaning “Living Together,” a revolutionary gang alliance.

Haiti Experiences Surge Of Gang Violence
Haitian Gang Leader Jimmy ‘Barbecue’ Chérizier is flanked by his henchmen in Port-au-Prince on Feb. 22, 2024.Giles Clarke / Getty Images

As much of 80% of the capital, Port-au-Prince, is now in the control of gangs after Prime Minister Ariel Henry announced he would stand down on March 12 following months of unrest. The United Nations said an estimated 1,500 people have been killed in gang violence this year so far, and 4,500 last year, in a report released Thursday.

At least 450 U.S. nationals have been evacuated from Haiti since March 17, with efforts ongoing to airlift the remaining Americans there, the State Department said in a briefing Thursday.

The pan-Caribbean CARICOM group of nations and the United States pledged to help form a transitional government leading to a democratic nation — but for now the gangs still rule the streets.

Chérizier was dismissive of this process, but said he respected CARICOM and left open the possibility of taking part in a peace deal.

“If the international community comes with a detailed plan where we can sit together and talk, but they do not impose on us what we should decide, I think that the weapons could be lowered,” he said.

“We don’t believe in killing people and massacring people, we believe in dialogue, we have weapons in our hand and it’s with the weapons that we must liberate this country,” Chérizier added.

The consortium of armed gangs Chérizier leads says that Haiti has been controlled by corrupt politicians, dating back at least to the devastating earthquake in 2010 that killed about 220,000 people and left 1.5 million homeless. Many in Haiti believe that international aid money for reconstruction was mishandled.

Seen by some as a revolutionary leader, Chreizier has been accused of brutal violence for years, including the killing of at least 71 civilians and torching of some 400 homes in Port-au-Prince in 2018. That was at the time Haiti’s worst massacre in a decade and led to him being branded a human rights abuser by the U.S. Treasury.

Sky News had to travel along a deserted freeway with abandoned, burnt-out vehicles to reach the man known as Barbecue, who was surrounded by armed guards and carrying two weapons himself.

“We were told that their snipers were watching us, and to drive slowly, and follow our guide’s every move,” Ramsay wrote in his report. He described this once busy route into the capital as “a barricaded battlefield.”

The area claimed by Chérizier’s group was relatively calm and stable — food and water distribution is taking place, with orderly lines of people, he said.

But Chérizier made it clear that any foreign peacekeeping force sent in would face armed resistance.

Kenya has pledged to send 1,000 troops to coordinate a U.N.-backed alliance, but the plan is now on hold. Chérizier said the Kenyans would commit atrocities and he would not allow it.

“It’s evolving. If the Kenyan military or Kenyan police come, whatever, I will consider them as aggressors, we will consider them as invaders, and we do not have to collaborate with any invaders that have come to walk over our independence,” he said.

Chérizier predicted there would be a Haiti “where there are no kidnappings, without raping and killing people,” but this would require “corrupt politicians and the corrupt oligarchs” leaving.



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Haiti gang wars push hunger to worst levels on record


PORT-AU-PRINCE — Almost half of Haiti’s people are struggling to feed themselves as gang violence spreads across the country, with several areas close to famine, international organizations said on Friday.

Inflation and poor harvests have also helped push Haiti to its worst levels of food insecurity on record, they said.

“Rising hunger is fueling the security crisis that is shattering the country. We need urgent action now — waiting to respond at scale is not an option,” Jean-Martin Bauer, the World Food Programme’s Haiti director, said.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) — an organization which sets a scale used by the United Nations and governments to assess hunger — said in a report that about 4.97 million people out of a population of about 11.5 million were facing crisis or worse levels of food insecurity.

Merchants sell in the petion-ville market.
Merchants sell in the petion-ville market amid the ongoing insecurity and political instability in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on March 21, 2024.Guerinault Louis / Anadolu via Getty Images

Eight areas were now assessed to be in an emergency phase — the worst level before famine, it said.

These include the Artibonite valley, Haiti’s farming heartland, which has been badly hit by gangs expanding from the capital Port-au-Prince, rural parts of the Grand-Anse peninsula and neighborhoods of the capital such as the poor Cite Soleil district.

The Caribbean country has been gripped by violence since rival gangs unleashed a wave of attacks this month, including raids on police stations and the international airport. The conflict has killed thousands and displaced hundreds of thousands.

People take cover from gunfire.
People take cover from gunfire in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on March 21.Ralph Tedy Erol / Reuters

Regional leaders are trying to form a transitional council and Prime Minister Ariel Henry has promised to resign once it is set up. But he is currently stranded abroad, shut out of the country after making a visit to Kenya to discuss the deployment of an international security force. This has now been put on hold.

The FSB security service said ‘all four terrorists’ had been arrested while heading to the Ukrainian border, and that they had contacts in Ukraine.

The WFP said Haiti was now suffering its worst levels of food insecurity on record, with many people resorting to desperate measures and taking on more debt as armed groups take over farmlands and steal crops.

The IPC report found only 5% of Haitians had received humanitarian food aid and the WFP said that operations were “woefully under-funded.”

More than 30,000 people have fled violence and shortages in the capital in just two weeks this month, according to U.N. data, most of them people who had already lost their homes and were living in camps or with other families.

Authorities in the neighboring Dominican Republic, who have deported tens of thousands of Haitian migrants, have said they have not agreed to an air bridge announced by the U.N. to supply aid to Haiti, saying its air route is for evacuating foreigners.

Laurent Uwumuremyi, who heads aid group Mercy Corps’ Haiti arm, said gangs now control nearly 90% of the capital with basic errands impossible, key infrastructure closed, shortages in basic supplies and hospitals on the brink of collapse.

“Even in areas like Petion-Ville, an upscale neighborhood that until recently was considered safe, the population has been barricaded indoors,” he said. “If the situation deteriorates without any efforts to address the unfolding humanitarian crisis, Port-au-Prince will soon find itself completely overwhelmed.”



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Gang violence is tearing Haiti apart. Here’s what to know


The kidnapping of an American nurse in Haiti last week along with her young child has cast stark light on the Caribbean nation’s epidemic of lawlessness, where more than 1,000 people were taken hostage for ransom in the first six months of the year, according to United Nations figures.

Waves of crime and unrest have hit Haiti since the assassination of former President Jovenel Moise in 2021. His successor, Prime Minister Ariel Henry, has struggled to staunch the violence, which is also a major impediment to holding crucial long-delayed elections in the country.

For months, Henry and the United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres have called for a military intervention in the country. But Haiti’s neighbors in the Western Hemisphere have quietly declined a leading role.

Kenya finally responded to the call this weekend, when foreign minister Alfred Mutua announced on Twitter that his country would “positively consider leading a multi-national force to Haiti,” spearheaded by a 1,000-strong contingent of Kenyan police.

The commitment was praised by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and joined by the Bahamas on Tuesday, which offered 150 people for the force.

Their mission, if eventually approved by the UN Security Council, is hoped to “restore normalcy” to Haiti, Mutua said.

But such a state is increasingly difficult to envision in a nation where an entrenched network of gangs see kidnapping their countrymen as one of the few lucrative industries.

An ‘alarming’ cycle of violence

Over the past two years, warring gangs in Port-au-Prince have visited terror upon the country’s vital port city with rape, torture and killing as they vie for territorial control. Thousands of Haitians have fled their homes, gathering in makeshift encampments across the sprawling capital.

A vigilante movement known as “Bwa Kale” struck back brutally earlier this year, stoning and burning suspected gang members in the street – prompting United Nations Special Representative Maria Isabel Salvador to warn in a July report that the movement had set into motion “a new and alarming cycle of violence.”

Hundreds of alleged gang members have been killed by vigilantes across the country, she said.

Conflict in the capital has meanwhile choked the rest of the nation’s supply lines, causing the price of food and energy to spike in other parts of the country.

Flavia Maurello, country director for Italian aid group AVSI, told CNN earlier this month in the southern Haitian town of Les Cayes that a sense of lawlessness had also weakened the social fabric, with local communities turning a blind eye to petty crime and other abuses that before might not have been tolerated.

Haitians flee tear gas fired by officers clearing a camp of people at the US embassy seeking to escape the violence of armed gangs on July 25. - Ralph Tedy Erol/Reuters

Haitians flee tear gas fired by officers clearing a camp of people at the US embassy seeking to escape the violence of armed gangs on July 25. – Ralph Tedy Erol/Reuters

US tells citizens to leave

There have been a few fragile moments of peace in Port-au-Prince this year. The Bwa Kale movement successfully deterred some gang activity, according to Haitian monitoring group CARDH, with kidnappings slowing in early summer.

Further raising hopes for a period of respite, two of Haiti’s biggest gangs appeared to sign a peace deal in early July, per a press release from the Catholic charity that mediated the truce.

But normalcy remains far from reach.

Three weeks ago, in the Port-au-Prince neighborhood of Tabarre, medical NGO Doctors without Borders said that around 20 armed men broke in and forcibly removed a patient from the operating room.

Shortly after that, intense gang attacks prompted the mass exodus of dozens of Tabarre residents – including mothers with young children – who sought refuge at the US embassy. They were later dispersed from embassy grounds with tear gas.

On Thursday, the US State Department ordered all its non-emergency personnel to leave the country, following earlier warnings that Americans should not travel to the country.

The updated advisory came too late for nurse Alix Dorsainvil, who was kidnapped on the same day, per El Roi Haiti, the Christian humanitarian aid organization for which she works. Dorsainvil and her daughter have now been hostages for six days.

“Until Alix and her daughter are safely returned to us we will do as it says in Psalm 27:14 “Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord,” read a blogpost on Monday on the El Roi website.

Gedeon Jean, CARDH’s executive director, tells CNN that he was not surprised by Dorsainvil’s kidnapping. His organization has been expecting a resurgence in hostage-taking as gangs look to recoup some financial losses suffered due to international sanctions and at the height of the Bwa Kale movement.

After years of rampant violence, he is skeptical of declarations of peace. The latest truce between gangs could be just another ruse designed to lull an exhausted public off its guard, Jean added – “a way to trap the population” once again.

Reporting contributed by CNN’s Hira Humayun in Atlanta.

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Haiti: Gang violence is tearing the country apart. Here’s what to know




CNN
 — 

The kidnapping of an American nurse in Haiti last week along with her young child has cast stark light on the Caribbean nation’s epidemic of lawlessness, where more than 1,000 people were taken hostage for ransom in the first six months of the year, according to United Nations figures.

Waves of crime and unrest have hit Haiti since the assassination of former President Jovenel Moise in 2021. His successor, Prime Minister Ariel Henry, has struggled to staunch the violence, which is also a major impediment to holding crucial long-delayed elections in the country.

For months, Henry and the United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres have called for a military intervention in the country. But Haiti’s neighbors in the Western Hemisphere have quietly declined a leading role.

Kenya finally responded to the call this weekend, when foreign minister Alfred Mutua announced on Twitter that his country would “positively consider leading a multi-national force to Haiti,” spearheaded by a 1,000-strong contingent of Kenyan police.

The mission, if eventually approved by the UN Security Council, is hoped to “restore normalcy” to Haiti, Mutua said. But such a state is increasingly difficult to envision in a nation where an entrenched network of gangs see kidnapping their countrymen as one of the few lucrative industries.

Over the past two years, warring gangs in Port-au-Prince have visited terror upon the country’s vital port city with rape, torture and killing as they vie for territorial control. Thousands of Haitians have fled their homes, gathering in makeshift encampments across the sprawling capital.

A vigilante movement known as “Bwa Kale” struck back brutally earlier this year, stoning and burning suspected gang members in the street – prompting United Nations Special Representative Maria Isabel Salvador to warn in a July report that the movement had set into motion “a new and alarming cycle of violence.”

Hundreds of alleged gang members have been killed by vigilantes across the country, she said.

Conflict in the capital has meanwhile choked the rest of the nation’s supply lines, causing the price of food and energy to spike in other parts of the country.

Flavia Maurello, country director for Italian aid group AVSI, told CNN earlier this month in the southern Haitian town of Les Cayes that a sense of lawlessness had also weakened the social fabric, with local communities turning a blind eye to petty crime and other abuses that before might not have been tolerated.

Haitians flee tear gas fired by officers clearing a camp of people at the US embassy seeking to escape the violence of armed gangs on July 25.

There have been a few fragile moments of peace in Port-au-Prince this year. The Bwa Kale movement successfully deterred some gang activity, according to Haitian monitoring group CARDH, with kidnappings slowing in early summer.

Further raising hopes for a period of respite, two of Haiti’s biggest gangs appeared to sign a peace deal in early July, per a press release from the Catholic charity that mediated the truce.

But normalcy remains far from reach.

Three weeks ago, in the Port-au-Prince neighborhood of Tabarre, medical NGO Doctors without Borders said that around 20 armed men broke in and forcibly removed a patient from the operating room.

Shortly after that, intense gang attacks prompted the mass exodus of dozens of Tabarre residents – including mothers with young children – who sought refuge at the US embassy. They were later dispersed from embassy grounds with tear gas.

On Thursday, the US State Department ordered all its non-emergency personnel to leave the country, following earlier warnings that Americans should not travel to the country.

The updated advisory came too late for nurse Alix Dorsainvil, who was kidnapped on the same day, per El Roi Haiti, the Christian humanitarian aid organization for which she works. Dorsainvil and her daughter have now been hostages for six days.

“Until Alix and her daughter are safely returned to us we will do as it says in Psalm 27:14 “Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord,” read a blogpost on Monday on the El Roi website.

Gedeon Jean, CARDH’s executive director, tells CNN that he was not surprised by Dorsainvil’s kidnapping. His organization has been expecting a resurgence in hostage-taking as gangs look to recoup some financial losses suffered due to international sanctions and at the height of the Bwa Kale movement.

After years of rampant violence, he is skeptical of declarations of peace. The latest truce between gangs could be just another ruse designed to lull an exhausted public off its guard, Jean added – “a way to trap the population” once again.



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