Haitian State of Emergency and Gang Violence: Understanding the Crisis

2024-03-05 01:39:03

Haitian authorities declared a state of emergency and nighttime curfew on Sunday in a bid to regain control of the streets of Port-au-Prince following violence broke out over the weekend when heavily armed gang members The country’s most powerful forces even took over two prisons and released thousands of inmates. The revolt is part of an attempt to overthrow Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who is traveling in Kenya.

Through a statement, the Executive indicated that the curfew applies from 6:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. Initially this measure is until Wednesday, but it might be extended.

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“Law enforcement agencies have been mandated to use all legal means at their disposal to ensure that the ceasefire is respected and to arrest violators,” said the statement signed by Patrick Michel Boivert, who serves as Prime Minister Henry. until his return.

“The escape of dangerous prisoners endangers national security,” the government stated.

Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry speaks to students during a public lecture on bilateral engagement between Kenya and Haiti, March 1, 2024. (Photo by SIMON MAINA / AFP).

In this note we explain the origin of this escalation of violence in Haiti and other areas.

Order to arrest police chiefs and ministers

Haiti, one of the poorest countries in America, is going through a serious political, humanitarian and security crisis since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, which occurred in July 2021.

The assassination of Jovenel Moise. (AFP).

Security forces have been overwhelmed by gangs, which have taken control of entire areas of the country, including Port-au-Prince.

In October 2023, the UN Security Council authorized the deployment of a contingent of 1,000 Kenyan police for security duties in Haiti.

Last Friday, Prime Minister Henry signed in Nairobi the bilateral agreement that gives the green light to the Multinational Security Support Mission (MMAS) in Haiti.

Flanked by members of the G9 gang coalition, leader Jimmy Cherizier, better known as Barbecue (right), speaks to reporters near the perimeter wall that demarcates Terminal Varreux, the port owned by the Mevs family, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on October 6, 2021. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd).

In this context, on Thursday, February 29, Jimmy Chérizier, known as ‘Barbecue’, the head of the G-9 and Family and Allies gang federation, appeared in a video to announce that he had ordered his men to capture the head of the police Frantz Elbé, to the ministers, and prevent Henry’s return to Haiti. That is, he was looking for a coup d’état.

“With our weapons and with the Haitian people, we will liberate the country,” said ‘Barbecue’, according to a report by the AP agency.

It is unknown whether Chérizier had the backing of other powerful gangs, which in total control up to 80% of Port-au-Prince.

Diego Da Rin of the International Crisis Group told the AP that ‘Barbecue’ referred in his speech to a coalition called Viv Ansanm, which means “living together” in the Haitian Creole language. That coalition was formed last year as part of a pact between Chérizier’s federation and another powerful gang known as G-Pep, and its main goal is to overthrow Henry’s government.

A man walks past two bodies this Sunday on a street in Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti. (EFE/ Johnson Sabin).

Following the ‘Barbecue’ order, on Thursday and Friday armed men opened fire on several targets, including the Port-au-Prince international airport, and took control of two police stations, causing residents in dozens of communities to flee, while schools and businesses closed.

The violence escalated on Saturday night, when gang members attacked the National Penitentiary. More than 3,700 prisoners escaped, almost all the inmates the facility housed.

The AP agency verified on Sunday that the prison was almost empty, with no guards in sight and with clothes and furniture scattered around the patio. At the entrance to the prison three bodies lay with gunshot wounds.

The entrance to the National Penitentiary following the attack by armed gangs in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. (EFE/ Siffroy Clarens).

Those who decided not to escape from prison were the 17 former Colombian soldiers prosecuted for the assassination of Moise.

Amid the clashes on Saturday night, several of the Colombians shared a video pleading for their lives.

“Please help us,” Francisco Uribe said in the message widely shared on social networks. “They are massacring people indiscriminately inside the cells.”

“I didn’t run away because I’m innocent,” Uribe told journalists on Sunday who entered the prison without any problems.

Finally, the authorities transferred the Colombians to another location.

In another Port-au-Prince neighborhood, the AP reported, the bloody bodies of two men with their hands tied behind their backs lay face down as residents walked past barricades set up with burning tires.

A man looks at corpses near the main prison in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on March 3, 2024. (Photo by Luckenson JEAN / AFPTV / AFP). A police officer keeps watch as tension returned to Port-au-Prince this Friday with shootings between forces of order and armed gangs. (EFE/ Johnson Sabin).

Gang members also invaded a second Port-au-Prince prison, Croix des Bouquets, which housed regarding 1,400 inmates, the AP reported. At the moment it is unknown how many prisoners managed to escape from this prison.

Additionally, gunmen occupied and vandalized the country’s main soccer stadium, holding an employee hostage for hours, Haiti’s soccer federation said.

As of Monday, 15 people had died due to the violence unleashed by the gangs, according to counts made by journalists, since there is no official balance sheet.

Jimmy Cherizier, leader of the band “G9 y Familia”, stands next to a pile of garbage to draw attention to the conditions in which people live in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on October 22, 2021. (Photo: Odelyn Joseph/AP).

Who is ‘Barbecue’?

Jimmy Chérizier, alias ‘Barbecue’, is Haiti’s most feared crime boss.

This former police officer born in Port-au-Prince leads the so-called G-9 and Family and Allies, an alliance of some of the most dangerous gangs in Haiti.

According to a BBC Mundo report, he has assured that they call him ‘Barbecue’ because his family had a grilled meat business; But other people maintain that he has that alias because he usually burns the houses and corpses of his victims.

In 2017, when he was still a police officer, Chérizier allegedly participated in the death of nine civilians in what was officially presented as an operation once morest mafias in Grand Ravine, a neighborhood of Port-au-Prince.

Once out of the police, the first gang that ‘Barbecue’ led was Delmas 6, which took control of several areas of Port-au-Prince.

Chérizier benefited from his collusion with members of Moïse’s government to gain power and influence, BBC Mundo highlights.

InSight Crime estimates that before President Moïse’s assassination, Chérizier’s gang federation obtained half of its money from the government itself, 30% from kidnappings, and 20% from extortion. After the assassination, government funding was significantly reduced, according to the organization.

Cherizer is credited with a role in three massacres in recent years that left hundreds dead in Port-au-Prince.

The United States government sanctioned him in 2018 for his role in civilian deaths.

In October 2022, the UN imposed sanctions on Chérizier for committing “serious human rights abuses.” An arms embargo, the freezing of his assets and a travel ban weigh on him.

Last year the AP agency interviewed ‘Barbecue’. He claimed to be a “revolutionary” fighting once morest a corrupt government.

“I am not a thief. I’m not involved in kidnappings. I’m not a rapist. “I am only carrying out a social struggle,” he assured. “I am a threat to the system,” she added.

Regarding Ariel Henry, Barbecue said that his “government is a de facto government. It is a government that has no legitimacy.”

A protester displays a Haitian flag during a protest to demand the resignation of the country’s Prime Minister, Ariel Henry, in Port-au-Prince, March 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph).

Why are there no elections in Haiti?

Ariel Henry was appointed Prime Minister of Haiti on Monday, July 5, 2021, two days before President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated.

Since then, Henry, whose authority has been recognized by foreign powers such as Canada, the United States, France and other Western countries, has remained in power without calling elections.

Officially, Henry’s mandate ended on February 7, but the prime minister has decided to continue leading the Executive.

On the same February 7, Henry called for calm to those who demand that he call elections and leave and highlighted the efforts of the police to stop insecurity. He also rejected the idea of ​​a protracted transition and emphasized the need for elections. “One transition cannot lead to another transition,” he said.

In early January of last year, Haiti lost its last democratically elected institution, when the terms of 10 senators in symbolic functions ended, the AP highlighted.

That turned Haiti into a de facto “dictatorship,” says Patrice Dumont, one of the senators.

He said that even if the current government were willing to hold elections, it is impossible to know if they would be possible because of the firm control of gangs in Port-au-Prince and other cities.

Police in an operation once morest gangs in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on February 29, 2024. (Odelyn Joseph / AP).

Gangs stronger than the police

The Haitian National Police has nearly 9,000 active agents in a country of more than 11 million inhabitants, according to the UN. Typically, police officers are outnumbered and outgunned by powerful gangs.

On Saturday, during the attack on the National Penitentiary, one of Haiti’s police unions asked on the social network , and warned that if the attackers were successful “we will be finished. “No one will be saved in the capital because now there will be 3,000 more bandits.”

Some 1,100 people were killed, injured or kidnapped in January this year alone, in what the United Nations called the most violent month in two years.

The life of Jovenel Moise. (AFP).
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