Jimmy Cherizier zips through Haiti’s capital on the back of a motorcycle, flanked by young men wielding black and leopard print masks and automatic weapons.
As the pack of bikes flies by graffiti reading “Mafia boss” in Creole, street vendors selling vegetables, meats and old clothes on the curb cast their eyes to the ground or peer curiously.
Cherizier, best known by his childhood nickname Barbecue, has become the most recognized name in Haiti.
And here in his territory, enveloped by the tin-roofed homes and bustling streets of the informal settlement La Saline, he is the law.
Internationally, he’s known as Haiti’s most powerful and feared gang leader, sanctioned by the United Nations for “serious human rights abuses,” and the man behind a fuel blockade that brought the Caribbean nation to its knees late last year.
But if you ask the former police officer with gun tattoos running up his arm, he’s a “revolutionary,” advocating against a corrupt government that has left a nation of 12 million people in the dust.
“I’m not a thief. I’m not involved in kidnapping. I’m not a rapist. I’m just carrying out a social fight,” Cherizier, leader of “G9 Family and Allies,” said while sitting in a chair in the middle of an empty road in the shadow of a home with windows shattered by bullets. “I’m a threat to the system.”
At a time when democracy has withered in Haiti and gang violence has spiraled out of control, it’s armed men like Cherizier that are filling the power vacuum left by a crumbling government. In December, the U.N. estimated that gangs controlled 60% of Haiti’s capital, but nowadays most on the streets of Port-au-Prince say that number is closer to 100%.
“There is, democratically speaking, little-to-no legitimacy” for Haiti’s government, said Jeremy McDermott, a head of InSight Crime, a research center focused on organized crime. “This gives the gangs a stronger political voice and more justification to their claims to be the true representatives of the communities.”
It’s something that conflict victims, politicians, analysts, aid organizations, security forces and international observers fear will only get worse. Civilians, they worry, will face the brunt of the consequences.
Haiti’s history has long been tragic. Home of the largest slave uprising in the Western Hemisphere, the country achieved independence from France in 1804, ahead of other countries in the region.
But it’s long been the poorest country in the hemisphere, and Haiti in the 20th century endured a bloody dictatorship that lasted until 1986 and brought about the mass execution of tens of thousands of Haitians.
The country has been plagued by political turmoil since, while suffering waves of devastating earthquakes, hurricanes and cholera outbreaks.
The latest crisis entered full throttle following the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. In his absence, current Prime Minister Ariel Henry emerged in a power struggle as the country’s leader.
Haiti’s nearly 200 gangs have taken advantage of the chaos, warring for control.
Tension hums in Port-au-Prince. Police checkpoints dot busy intersections, and graffiti tags reading “down with Henry” can be spotted in every part of the city. Haitians walk through the streets with a restlessness that comes from knowing that anything could happen at any moment.
An ambulance driver returning from carrying a patient told the AP he was kidnapped, held for days and asked to pay $1 million to be set free.
Such ransoms are now commonplace, used by gangs to fund their warfare.
An average of four people are kidnapped a day in Haiti, according to U.N. estimates.
The U.N. registered nearly 2,200 murders in 2022, double the year before. Women in the country describe brutal gang rapes in areas controlled by gangs. Patients in trauma units are caught in the crossfire, ravaged by gunshots from either gangs or police.
“No one is safe,” said Peterson Pean, a man with a bullet lodged in his face from being shot by police after failing to stop at a police checkpoint on his way home from work.
Meanwhile, a wave of grisly killings of police officers by gangs has spurred outrage and protests by Haitians.
Following the slaying of six officers, video circulating on social media – likely filmed by gangs – showed six naked bodies stretched out on the dirt with guns on their chests. Another shows two masked men using officers’ dismembered limbs to hold their cigarettes while they smoke.
“Gang-related violence has reached levels not seen in years … touching near all segments of society,” said Helen La Lime, U.N. special envoy for Haiti, in a late January Security Council meeting.
Henry, the prime minister, has asked the U.N. to lead a military intervention, but many Haitians insist that’s not the solution, citing past consequences of foreign intervention in Haiti. So far, no country has been willing to put boots on the ground.
The warfare has extended past historically violence-torn areas, now consuming mansion-lined streets previously considered relatively safe.
La Lime highlighted turf wars between Cherizier’s group, G9, and another, G-Pep, as one of the key drivers.
In October, the U.N. slammed Cherizier with sanctions, including an arms embargo, an asset freeze and a travel ban.
The body accused him of carrying out a bloody massacre in La Saline, economically paralyzing the country, and using armed violence and rape to threaten “the peace, security, and stability of Haiti.”
At the same time, despite not being elected into power and his mandate timing out, Henry, whose administration declined a request for comment, has continued at the helm of a skeleton government. He has pledged for a year and a half to hold general elections, but has failed to do so.
