Who is Jimmy ‘Barbecue’ Chérizier, gang leader at centre of Haiti violence?

Haiti is in turmoil.

The country has declared a state of emergency after an outbreak of violence in the capital.

Two major prisons have witnessed thousands of inmates make their escape – leaving at least a dozen bodies in their wake.

Meanwhile, gang leader Jimmy ‘Barbecue’ Chérizier has vowed to oust Prime Minister Ariel Henry.

Haiti has been in turmoil since the July 2021 assassination of then-president Jovenel Moïse.

But who is ‘Barbecue?’ What do we know about him?

Let’s take a closer look:

According to Al Jazeera, Chérizier is a former Haitian National Police (HNP) officer.

Chérizier previously worked for the police’s crowd control unit.

This unit is only employed in case of unrest or protests.

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Chérizier in 2019 told The Associated Press in an interview that he was born in Port-au-Prince’s Delmas — next to a slum in La Saline slum.

One of eight children, Chérizier said he lost his father at the age of five.

He claimed his nickname derived from the fact that his mother was a street vendor who sold fried chicken.

He rejected the claim that he was nicknamed “Barbecue” for allegedly setting people on fire.

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Chérizier told the AP that he was inspired by Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier —  the former dictator who ruled the country with an iron fist from 1957 to 1971.

Duvalier had named himself “president for life.”

Chérizier is one of the Haiti’s most influential gang leaders.

He has been accused of several human rights abuses.

Chérizier has been sanctioned by both the UN and the United States Department of Treasury, as per CNN.

According to Global News.ca, Chérizier was dismissed from his police job in December 2018.

He still has an outstanding warrant for his role in a 2017 massacre.

He first became a gang leader in an impoverished Lower Delmas neighboruhood known as Base Delmas 6.

Chérizier currently leads a group of Haitian gangs collectively called the “G9 Family and Allies.”

The outlet quoted a UN Security Council report as saying the gang initially composed of nine groups from Cite Soleil, La Saline and lower Delmas.

However, it now encompasses more than a dozen outfits.

“The G9 … is notorious because of the diversity of its membership,” the report stated.

According to the United Nations, Chérizier was involved in the November 2018 attack on civilians in Port-au-Prince’s La Saline.

The attack by armed gangs left at least 71 people dead, over 400 houses razed and left at least seven women were raped.

Chérizier in that year and next led several armed groups in coordinated, brutal attacks in neighbourhoods across Port-au-Prince.

In May 2020, Chérizier led armed gangs in a five-day attack in several Port-au-Prince neighbourhoods that left civilians dead and homes ablaze.

According to the UN, Chérizier and his gang alliance have been blocking the free movement of fuel from the Haiti’s Varreux fuel terminal – the largest in the country.

The UN says Chérizier’s actions ‘have directly contributed to the economic paralysis and humanitarian crisis in Haiti.’

A report published by Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic claimed that the G9 had ties to both the police and the previous Moïse administration.

The US treasury department said the gang would remove “victims, including children, from their homes to be executed and then dragged them into the streets where their bodies were burned, dismembered and fed to animals.”

But Chérizier has denied taking parts in massacres.

“I would never massacre people in the same social class as me,” he told the AP. “I live in the ghetto. I know what ghetto life is.”

Chérizier has claimed he is a revolutionary.

“We are fighting for another society – another Haiti that is not only for the 5 percent of the people who keep all the wealth, but a new Haiti where everyone can have food and clean water, so they can have a decent house to live, another Haiti where we don’t have to leave the country,” he told Al Jazeera in 2021.

“I’m not a gangster. I never will be a gangster,” he told the outlet. “It’s the system I’m fighting against today. The system has a lot of money; they own the media. Now they try to make me look like a gangster.”

Haiti in turmoil

Henry traveled abroad last week to try to salvage support for bringing in a United Nations-backed security force to help stabilise Haiti in its conflict with increasingly powerful crime groups.

Henry took over as prime minister following Moise’s assassination and has repeatedly postponed plans to hold parliamentary and presidential elections, which haven’t happened in almost a decade.

Haiti’s National Police has roughly 9,000 officers to provide security for more than 11 million people, according to the UN T

They are routinely overwhelmed and outgunned by gangs, which are estimated to control up to 80 per cent of Port-au-Prince.

Chérizier has claimed responsibility for the surge in attacks. He said the goal is to capture Haiti’s police chief and government ministers and prevent Henry’s return.

“We ask the Haitian National Police and the military to take responsibility and arrest Ariel Henry. Once again, the population is not our enemy; the armed groups are not your enemy. You arrest Ariel Henry for the country’s liberation,” Cherizier was quoted as saying by CNN. “With these weapons, we will liberate the country, and these weapons will change the country.”

The prime minister, a neurosurgeon, has shrugged off calls for him to resgn and didn’t comment when asked if he felt it was safe to come home.

He signed reciprocal agreements Friday with Kenyan President William Ruto to try and salvage the plan to deploy Kenyan police to Haiti. Kenya’s High Court had ruled in January that the proposed deployment was unconstitutional, in part because the original deal lacked reciprocal agreements between the two countries.

The violence has complicated efforts to stabilise Haiti and pave the way for elections. Caribbean leaders said Wednesday that Henry had agreed to schedule a vote by mid-2025 — a far-off date likely to further enrage Henry’s opponents.

‘Please, please help us’

Authorities have ordered a nighttime curfew trying to regain control of Haiti’s streets after an explosion of violence during the weekend, including gunmen from gangs overrunning the country’s two biggest prisons and freeing their inmates.

A 72-hour state of emergency began Sunday night, and the government said it would set out to find the killers, kidnappers and other violent criminals that it reported escaped from prison.

“The police were ordered to use all legal means at their disposal to enforce the curfew and apprehend all offenders,” said a statement from Finance Minister Patrick Boivert, who is serving as acting prime minister.

The emergency decree was issued after a deadly weekend that marked a new low in Haiti’s downward spiral of violence. At least nine people had been killed since Thursday — four of them police officers — as gangs stepped up coordinated attacks on state institutions in Port-au-Prince, including the country’s international airport and the national soccer stadium.

But the attack on the National Penitentiary late Saturday was a big shock Haitians, even though they are accustomed to living under the constant threat of violence.

Almost all of the estimated 4,000 inmates escaped, leaving the normally overcrowded prison eerily empty Sunday with no guards in sight and plastic sandals, clothing and furniture strewn across the concrete patio. Three bodies with gunshot wounds lay at the prison entrance.

In another neighborhood, the bloodied corpses of two men with their hands tied behind the backs lay face down as residents walked past roadblocks set up with burning tires.

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

“Please, please help us,” one of the men, Francisco Uribe, said in the message widely shared on social media.

“They are massacring people indiscriminately inside the cells.”

On Sunday, Uribe told journalists who walked into the normally highly guarded facility, “I didn’t flee because I’m innocent.”

Colombia’s foreign ministry called on Haiti to provide “special protection” for the men.

A second Port-au-Prince prison containing around 1,400 inmates was also overrun.

Gang gunmen also occupied and vandalised the nation’s top soccer stadium, holding one employee hostage for hours, Haiti’s soccer federation said.

Gunfire was reported in several neighborhoods in the capital. Internet service for many residents was down as Haiti’s top mobile network said a fiber optic cable connection was slashed during the rampage.

In the space of less than two weeks, several state institutions have been attacked by the gangs, which are increasingly coordinating their actions and choosing once unthinkable targets like the Central Bank. As part of coordinated attacks by gangs, four police officers were killed Thursday.

With inputs from agencies