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The Guardian
02-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
US designates two powerful Haitian gangs as terrorist groups
The United States has designated a powerful Haitian gang alliance, whose members have taken control of almost all the capital city as a 'transnational terrorist group'. The criminal coalition known as Viv Ansanm (Live Together), and another faction, the Gran Grif gang, which in October took responsibility for a shocking massacre of at least 115 people in the agricultural town of Pont-Sondé, were both covered by the move on Friday. 'They are a direct threat to U.S. national security interests in our region,' the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said in a statement, adding that providing material support or resources to the gangs could lead to 'criminal charges and inadmissibility or removal from the United States'. The conflict in Haiti has been met with little international response, while neighboring countries, including the US, have continued to deport migrants back to the Caribbean nation despite United Nations pleas not to due to humanitarian concerns. More than 1 million people have been displaced by the conflict, and tens of thousands more in recent weeks, as the violence has spread to central Haiti, forcing more health facilities to shut their doors and pushing more people into severe food insecurity. Frozen US funding for security efforts and the dismantling of the US Agency for International Development, as well as other cuts, also complicate the situation. The latest designations come after the US in February designated Venezuela's Tren de Aragua gang, alongside a number of other organized crime groups across Latin America, including Mexico's Sinaloa cartel, as global terrorist organizations. It was unclear what, if any, impact the terrorist designation would have regarding Haiti. Those who do business in Haiti also could be affected by the new designation. Gangs control the areas surrounding a key fuel depot and the country's biggest and most important port, as well as the main roads that lead in and out of the capital, where they charge tolls. 'It could function as a de facto embargo,' said Jake Johnston, the international research director at the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research. 'The gangs exercise tremendous control over the commerce of the country,' he said. 'Doing any kind of business with Haiti or in Haiti is going to carry much greater risk.' Armed groups in Haiti have made significant gains in the first part of 2025, as an under-resourced, UN-backed security mission has stalled, and along with police has been unable to hold off advances of the heavily-armed and well-funded gangs. The UN has called for tougher measures to prevent guns being trafficked to the Haitian gangs, especially from the US, which it said was the major source of illegal firearms in Haiti via ports in Florida. Haiti has not held an election since 2016 and the man elected president then, Jovenel Moïse, was assassinated in 2021.
The Guardian
23-03-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Haitians fear the imminent fall of Port-au-Prince to rebel gangs: ‘We will die standing'
By day, the stressed-out Haitian police officer patrols the streets of his beleaguered city with an Israeli assault rifle to do his bit to resist the onslaught of the gangs. By night, the 28-year-old returns home to his increasingly empty neighbourhood wondering what calamity may unfold as he rests. 'Yesterday afternoon … there was panic, heavy gunfire ... It was tense … there was continuous gunfire throughout the day,' the officer said this week as the battle for control of Port-au-Prince raged on. 'I wondered if by the time I woke up the next morning, I would still recognise the city,' added the officer, a member of a specialised rapid-response unit tasked with thwarting the advance of the gangs. 'I fear we'll wake up to the announcement that Port-au-Prince has fallen.' The officer, who asked not to be named, is not alone in his trepidation. The year-old criminal insurrection in Haiti's capital has plumbed new depths in recent days, fuelling speculation that the entire city – the third-largest in the Caribbean – may be on the verge of falling into the hands of a coalition of heavily armed gangs called Viv Ansanm (Live Together). Frantz Duval, the head of Haiti's oldest newspaper, Le Nouvelliste, warned in a despondent editorial that the fall of Haiti's capital could be imminent. 'Like Phnom Penh overrun by the Khmer Rouge, Saigon swallowed by north Vietnamese troops, Tripoli after Muammar Gaddafi's fall, Sana'a seized by the Houthis, or Kabul taken by the Taliban – Port-au-Prince has been hanging by a thread for long enough that one must now fear the rumours and cries of anguish are not mere echoes, but the sound of its final collapse,' he wrote. Duval said that since the criminal uprising began in February 2024 'the situation has spiralled completely out of control'. Just over a year later, Port-au-Prince is on the brink, with at least 60,000 people fleeing their homes over the past month to escape the fighting, according to UN estimates. More than a million have been displaced since the mutiny was launched. 'In recent hours, countless ministries, public services and families have fled areas that were once considered safe,' Duval reported, as gang combatants continued to advance, burning buildings and threatening to completely commandeer Haiti's capital. 'The gangs' assaults, punctuated by bursts of automatic gunfire … leave flight as the only option,' Duval wrote. Yet for most Haitians, escape is now impossible, he added: 'Every exit from the capital is under the control of armed groups.' 'Fear is written all over people's faces,' said Rosy Auguste Ducéna, a human-rights activist who works with the victims of gang violence and has spent recent days watching displaced people stream past her group's offices carrying suitcases and bags. 'It feels like the population is suffering while the authorities stand by and do nothing.' The disintegration of Port-au-Prince has been a torturous and gradual process, rooted in centuries of colonial exploitation, foreign meddling, brutal dictatorship, political corruption and dysfunction, and a series of devastating natural disasters such as the 2010 earthquake. Now, some fear the security situation could be close to completely unraveling, with a succession of once-safe areas such as Solino and Nazon falling under the control of gangs, aid workers from the medical group Médecins Sans Frontières coming under fire, and the headquarters of Haiti's oldest radio station being torched. Earlier this month, the city's mayor, Youri Chevry, admitted that his government only controlled about 30% of the city, with several key areas 'in a state of war'. On Wednesday, thousands of protesters took to the streets to denounce the violence – and the government's failure to contain it. 'We are ready to die to defend our neighborhoods, our families, and our homes. We are ready to take responsibility. If we must die, we will die standing, without surrendering,' one protester told Le Nouvelliste, as armed self-defense groups erected roadblocks to defend communities yet to be conquered by the gangs. William O'Neill, a UN human-rights expert who visited Port-au-Prince earlier this month, saw no exaggeration in comparisons with Saigon or Kabul: 'The sense of fear is palpable. The sense [that] the city is on the edge of totally falling into the hands of the gangs is really strong.' 'This is really dramatic. I can't overstate it. It's incredibly urgent and frightening,' warned O'Neill, who said the wealthy hilltop districts around Pétionville were now 'pretty much the last safe areas in the capital'. 'But [for] how long? That's the question,' he added. Things were supposed to have turned out differently. When a transitional government was set up last April, after the prime minister, Ariel Henry, was ousted by the criminal rebellion, its members voiced optimism that the situation could be reversed. 'Today is an important day in the life of our dear republic. This day in effect opens a view to a solution,' declared Henry's temporary replacement, Michel Patrick Boisvert. Three months later, the first members of a planned 2,500-strong, UN-backed security force were deployed, with its commanders also insisting peace could be restored. But so far only about 1,000 members of that Kenya-led operation have reached Haiti. Experts say they are woefully ill-equipped for their fight against Haiti's powerful, politically linked gangs, as is the country's embattled national police force. Last week, a 26-year-old Kenyan police constable, Samuel Tompoi, was buried in Kenya after being shot dead while patrolling – the first member of the mission to die in the line of duty. He left a 23-year-old wife and two children. 'They're outnumbered and outgunned … They need helicopters to move around easily and safely … they need night-vision goggles, body armour, you name it – and they need more people,' O'Neill said, also calling for an arms embargo to stop guns being smuggled to Haiti from the US. In their desperation, Haitian police have started employing dramatic tactics similar to those used on the battlefield in Ukraine. Recent weeks have seen reports of a series of suicide drone attacks, targeting gang bosses who live deep in Port-au-Prince's maze-like shantytowns, surrounded by barricades and guards. 'With kamikaze drones we can reach places police officers can't go,' the police officer explained. Françoise Ponticq, a French dentist who works in a clinic near the partly deserted Champ de Mars plaza, heard 'loud blasts' last week as those drones were detonated, although precisely where she could not say. Of one thing Ponticq was sure: Port-au-Prince had reached a perilous crossroads. 'It's either the gangs take us, or we take them,' she said. 'It's a coin toss, in my opinion.'
Yahoo
02-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Haiti police raid gang leader's stronghold in capital
The government of Haiti says police have launched a large-scale operation in a shantytown controlled by powerful gang leader Jimmy Chérizier, who is widely known as Barbecue. The authorities say several gang members have been killed in the Lower Delmas area of the capital Port-au-Prince. Local reports say military drones carrying explosives are being used in the operation. Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé praised the assault. He said it was the work of a special task force created two days ago to tackle insecurity. Chérizier, aged 47, is the feared leader of Viv Ansam (Live Together), a coalition of gangs that control much of the city. It is not clear whether Kenyan police officers deployed in Haiti last year to help fight the gangs are involved in the security operation. Last week, a Kenyan police officer - who was on patrol with the Kenyan-led Multinational Security Support mission - was killed in a confrontation with gang members. The men fighting gang leader Barbecue for power in Haiti On patrol with Kenyan forces inside Haiti's gang warzone Gang control in Port-au-Prince has led to an almost complete breakdown of law and order, the collapse of health services and emergence of a food security crisis. More than 5,500 people were killed in gang-related violence in the Caribbean nation in 2024 and more than a million people have fled their homes. Haiti's transitional presidential council, the body created to re-establish democratic order, has made little progress towards organising long-delayed elections.
BBC News
02-03-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
Haiti police raid gang leader Barbecue's stronghold in capital
The government of Haiti says police have launched a large-scale operation in a shantytown controlled by powerful gang leader Jimmy Chérizier, who is widely known as Barbecue. The authorities say several gang members have been killed in the Lower Delmas area of the capital reports say military drones carrying explosives are being used in the Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé praised the assault. He said it was the work of a special task force created two days ago to tackle insecurity. Chérizier, aged 47, is the feared leader of Viv Ansam (Live Together), a coalition of gangs that control much of the city. It is not clear whether Kenyan police officers deployed in Haiti last year to help fight the gangs are involved in the security week, a Kenyan police officer - who was on patrol with the Kenyan-led Multinational Security Support mission - was killed in a confrontation with gang men fighting gang leader Barbecue for power in HaitiOn patrol with Kenyan forces inside Haiti's gang warzoneGang control in Port-au-Prince has led to an almost complete breakdown of law and order, the collapse of health services and emergence of a food security than 5,500 people were killed in gang-related violence in the Caribbean nation in 2024 and more than a million people have fled their transitional presidential council, the body created to re-establish democratic order, has made little progress towards organising long-delayed elections.
