Leader or killer? A day with 'Barbecue' in Haiti's capital



"Gangs are multiplying because the government is weak," said Haiti's attorney general, Paul Eronce Villard, who estimates there are more than 50 gangs now operating in the country. "It's a real challenge for police."

Armed gangs, sometimes with links to corrupt police and believed financed by local politicians and businessmen, battle each other for control of Port-au-Prince's lucrative outdoor markets, the source of a steady flow of cash from so-called "protection" fees from vendors, as well as drug deals and arms sales.

Among them is Base Delmas 6, which local human rights groups say is led by Cherizier in Port-au-Prince's impoverished Lower Delmas neighborhood. Cherizier denies that, describing himself as a community leader who doles out cash to residents when they're in need, clears garbage from the streets and protects the neighborhood from rival gangs.

He's also a suspect in the country's worst massacre in years, accused by police and witnesses of helping to orchestrate the slaughter of up to 59 men, women and children in the nearby neighborhood of La Saline last year.

But despite being named in a police report and in two local human rights groups' investigations of the killings, Cherizier, remains not only free, but the most powerful man in Lower Delmas.




"What do you see?" he asked as he gestured at a crowd of supporters gathered around him. "It's misery. None of these kids have a future. In 10 years from now, they will have guns in their hands."

Another suspected gang leader, Joel Noel, calls himself the community leader of La Saline, where the massacre began on Nov. 13 as men armed with guns and machetes broke into homes, killing and torturing dozens and raping several women. Victims' bodies were then burned or cut into pieces and thrown to pigs and dogs. Among the dead was a 4-year-old girl shot in the head in her mother's arms, according to authorities.



Noel, his lips stained purple from the wine he'd been drinking that morning, also accused Cherizier in the slayings and said people in La Saline now sleep on the streets because they're too scared to spend the night at home.

"We need security, we need help for the people, we need justice," he said, adding that he fears more people will be killed. "The people who can't fight are going to be the victims."


"I would never massacre people in the same social class as me," declared Cherizier, who says he takes inspiration from late dictator Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier, who ruled Haiti with a bloody brutality as "president for life" from 1957 to 1971.

"I was born next door to La Saline. I live in the ghetto. I know what ghetto life is," added Cherizier, the youngest of eight children, whose father died when he was 5.



"Haiti's security situation is very, very alarming," she said. "It seems that the country doesn't have a leader."

The spike in violence prompted the U.S. State Department to pull out all non-emergency personnel in mid-February and issue a "no travel" advisory that remains in effect as embattled President Jovenel Moise faces massive protests over alleged corruption, lack of basic goods and record inflation.



"There are limited things the police can do," he said. "We can try to stop the gang activity, but until these people have employment ... it's very difficult."



"I love this country, but at a certain point, I have to make the best decision for my family," he said. "I don't think we've reached rock bottom yet. ...It's going to get harder in the months to come. It's going to reach a breaking point."