Haiti is plummeting towards chaos, a surprisingly long path, which the country travels step by step, slowly at times, at other times in a hurry. The last week has been one of the accelerated ones. In a few days, citizens have witnessed the escape of more than 3,000 prisoners from various prisons, attacks on the airport of the capital, Port-au-Prince, as well as gun battles between the military, police and bandits, and the press conferences of one of the most high-profile criminal leaders in recent years: Jimmy Chérizier, alias Barbecue, now aspiring guerrilla leader.
This Tuesday, Chérizier spoke to the press in Delmas 6, a neighborhood not far from the center of Port-au-Prince. He did it as if he were an activist for change, owner and lord of a markedly political discourse. Only, on top of his clothes, he was wearing a bulletproof vest and was carrying, hanging from his shoulder, an AK-47 type rifle with a double magazine. Next to him, as advisors, two boys with their faces covered carried machine guns. All this was happening with the city upside down, due to the battles of these days, half pending the state of emergency decreed by the Government.
It was one of the images of the week in Haiti: while the prime minister and acting head of government, Ariel Henry, was looking for a way to return to the country following a trip abroad, Barbecue, accused of perpetrating massacres in the capital in recent years, represented the role of the opposition. He criticized Henry, as he has done so many times over the years, and said: “If Henry does not resign, if the international community continues to support him, we are going straight to a civil war, which will lead to genocide.”
Chérizier’s statements are not surprising. Within the complex universe of criminal groups that dominate more than half of the capital, according to the United Nations, the federation he leads, G-9 Family and Friends, is one of the most powerful. His voice has appeared with some regularity in the media these years, in interviews and impromptu press conferences in the neighborhoods he dominates, near the center and the port terminal. The tone of the threats to Henry is surprising, however, following the chaos of the previous week, with the invasion of the prisons and the battles in the streets.
Kenya police dispatch
The situation is gradually getting worse in the Caribbean country. All crises get tangled. Around 1,200 people have been murdered since the beginning of the year, according to the United Nations. Henry’s own situation shows how dramatic the situation is. Last week, the prime minister, in power since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July 2021, traveled to Nairobi to try to give a definitive boost to the collaboration agreement with the Government of Kenya, which would involve sending 1,000 police officers to Haiti, with the financial support of the United States and Canada. The agreement seemed to finally come to fruition.
But then the last battle of Port-au-Prince began. It is not clear which gangs of the dozens that roam freely in the capital participated in the assault on the prisons; or if Chérizier himself led the attack. It is true that he later took the blame, once once more occupying that space of guerrilla leader. Barbecue had no qualms in saying that his intention was to capture the head of the Haitian police, Frantz Elbe, with the ultimate goal of overthrowing Henry’s government.
Henry headed back, but the return also turned into chaos. The prime minister took the plane in Nairobi, with a final stop in Port-au-Prince, but, instead of arriving there, he landed in Puerto Rico. The disturbances at the capital’s airport made their arrival impossible. I was surprised that Henry did not arrive in the Dominican Republic, Haiti’s neighbor and fellow island, but this Wednesday, the Dominican Government reported that it might not allow the prime minister’s plane to make an indefinite stopover in the country. The response fueled the long history of disagreements between both nations, always with the border at the center of the dispute.
Instability makes it difficult to predict the development of events in the medium term, even in the short term. He Miami Herald published these days that the United States Government and Caricom, the organization of Caribbean States, are trying to force Henry’s departure from the Government, in an attempt to channel the different discontents of parts of Haitian society. The calling of elections and the arrival of a mission to support the country’s security forces thus appear to be the main points of any path to future stability.
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