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Jimmy Chérizier, alias “Barbecue”, considered the most powerful gang leader in Haiti, set the scene this Tuesday, March 5, for the crisis currently affecting the poorest country on the American continent.
The gangs, which control entire swaths of Haiti and the capital, announced last week that they were ganging up against the current government and have since carried out attacks against infrastructure and strategic sites, taking advantage of a trip abroad Prime Minister, highly contested.
From former police officer to gang leader
The man behind the chaos has a more than unusual story. Today at the head of an alliance of armed gangs nicknamed “the G9 family”, Jimmy Chérizier has not always been on this side of the law. As Le Parisien recalls, he spent around fifteen years within an elite unit responsible for fighting Haitian gangs.
A few years ago, he finally landed, suspected of having participated in summary executions of civilians during several operations carried out with this unit. According to Courrier Internationnal, he participated in the La Saline massacre, where 70 people were killed.
It was during 2020 that things accelerated for Cherizier, who announced in June of that year the creation of “the G9 family”. Several months of abuses then followed with, as Courrier International indicates, the material and financial support of the government of Jovenel Moïse, assassinated in 2021. The latter’s death has since plunged the country into a serious security crisis. but allowed Cherizier to gain more power, to the point of becoming the most powerful man in the country.
His nickname, “Barbecue“, comes from his propensity for his victims to be burned alive. “We must unite. Either Haiti becomes a paradise for all of us, or a hell for all of us,” proclaimed “Barbecue” during his last speech, equipped with a bulletproof vest and carrying a weapon and surrounded of hooded men. For its part, the UN has placed it under sanctions.
Emergency state
For several days, it seems that the 46-year-old man has walked his words. Last week, four police officers were killed in gunfights with gangs while five other officers were injured. In the process, at least ten people died during the escape of several thousand inmates from the National Penitentiary of Port-au-Prince, attacked by armed gangs seeking to free the prisoners.
Gangs, united under the label “Living Together”, carry out coordinated attacks in the capital, targeting strategic sites such as the civil prison, the international airport, and police buildings. The government was forced to declare a state of emergency and a 72-hour curfew to regain control of the capital.
For his part, Prime Minister Ariel Henry, absent for several days, landed on Tuesday in the American territory of Puerto Rico, in the Caribbean. The US State Department announced Monday that Ariel Henry was on his way back to Port-au-Prince. But according to the Haitian media Radio Télé Métronome, he was unable to land in the capital due to security problems at the airport.
