Haiti gang chief vows to battle any overseas armed drive if it commits abuses

PORT-AU-PRINCE – An ex-police officer thought-about by many to be Haiti’s strongest gang chief warned Wednesday that he would battle any worldwide armed drive deployed to the Caribbean nation if it dedicated any abuses.

Jimmy Chérizier, finest often called “Barbecue,” additionally urged Haitians to mobilize towards the federal government. “We are asking the population to rise up,” he stated at a information convention.

Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who has led Haiti because the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, has been pushing for the deployment of a overseas armed drive since October to assist battle highly effective gangs which can be estimated to now management 80% of the capital of Port-au-Prince.

In late July, the African nation of Kenya provided to steer a multinational drive, and the U.S. stated earlier this month that it will put ahead a decision within the U.N. Safety Council to authorize a non-U.N. multinational mission.

Chérizier stated he would welcome a overseas drive if it have been to arrest the prime minister and other people he described as corrupt politicians and native police allegedly promoting ammunitions and weapons in Haiti’s slums.

“If the foreign force comes to help and provide security for life to start over again, we will also applaud,” he stated.

However he stated Haitians would stand up if any worldwide drive repeated the actions of earlier U.N. peacekeepers, together with committing sexual abuses and inadvertently introducing cholera into water sources.

“We will fight against them until our last breath,” he stated. “It will be a fight of the Haitian people to save the dignity of our country.”

The United Nations had no remark, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric stated.

Chérizier, who has been accused by authorities of masterminding a number of massacres lately and of organizing a gasoline blockade final 12 months that paralyzed Haiti for almost two months, stated the group he leads, G9 Household and Allies, is not warring with one other group often called G-Pep.

“We became one,” he stated. “We love life a lot.”

Chérizier is the one Haitian underneath U.N. sanctions, with the Safety Council saying he “has engaged in acts that threaten the peace, security, and stability of Haiti and has planned, directed, or committed acts that constitute serious human rights abuses.”

He known as on the Ministry of Training to reopen colleges in Cite Soleil and different slums which have been closed as a result of warring gangs who’re raping and killing individuals. The violence has displaced almost 200,000 Haitians whose houses have been torched by the gangs.

Chérizier spoke to almost two dozen journalists at an outside development website in Port-au-Prince. He wore sandals, white pants and an orange hoodie emblazoned with a spiritual image utilized in Vodou.

He was surrounded by a number of G9 members carrying small handguns seen underneath their garments, not like his earlier media appearances at which they freely held assault rifles.