--:-- Noelle King: Maybe you've seen the news that Haiti is experiencing a new round of violence, and maybe you feel like you've seen this before. Haiti is generally unstable, but now is a particularly chaotic time because of something called vive ensemble or live together, which sounds nice, but is in fact a formal alliance of two powerful criminal gangs.
--:-- Joe Daniels: One of Haiti's main gangs has released a slickly produced video currently circulating online. It shows a well-armed militia, a group prepared to take on the Haitian state and any international force which might be deployed here.
--:-- Noelle King: I mean, they kill, they maim, they rape, they burn, they loot. That's their business. They kidnap. That's their business. Together, they've seized the capital, blocked the prime minister from returning, looted homes, killed civilians and delivered a frightening message. We're in charge.
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--:-- Noelle King: It's Today Explained. I'm Noelle King. I'm back with Joe Daniels, who covers Haiti for the Financial Times.
--:-- Joe Daniels: Now, Haiti has dealt with generations of instability. And so I asked Joe, what makes this current eruption different?
--:-- Joe Daniels: Well, the main thing that has happened is that gangs that spent much of the last few years fighting against each other have now united to fight against the state.
--:-- Noelle King: So the current escalation in violence in Haiti can be traced back to the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise.
--:-- Joe Daniels: Local media reporting that the assailant stormed into the president's bedroom shooting him 12 times, his wife shot three times, he is murdered in his mansion in an upscale suburb of Port-au-Prince, Petionville, uh, in the middle of the night. More than a dozen of the suspects are former members of the Colombian army. Among the suspects, two Americans. Beyond that, the circumstances largely remain shrouded in mystery. There are dual investigations taking place, one in Haiti and one in Florida. They're ongoing.
--:-- Joe Daniels: Since that assassination, we've seen the security situation in Haiti, especially in Port-au-Prince, the capital, deteriorate amid a kind of political parallel crisis. And that is due to the muddled succession or lack of succession plan put in place following Moise's assassination.
--:-- Joe Daniels: So Moise is assassinated in July 2021. His prime minister at the time, Claude Joseph, was the de facto leader of the country for about 13 days. In that time, Ariel Henry emerged victorious in a sort of power struggle to succeed Moise in a kind of larger, longer term.
--:-- Joe Daniels: Ariel Henry had the key backing of what at the time was called the Core Group, an international coalition led by the US, France, and Canada.
--:-- Joe Daniels: So Henri emerges victorious in that power struggle. He is acting prime minister. He draws some legitimacy from the fact that Moise, before his assassination, had named Henri as his next prime minister, though hadn't actually kind of made that official.
--:-- Joe Daniels: But the Haitian public never recognized Henri. This government won't think for the people. They're unpopular. They're only thinking for the elite again.
--:-- Joe Daniels: To them, he was anointed by a coalition outside of Haiti. They saw it as a kind of puppet of the US. And at various moments in the last 32 months, Haitians are taken en masse to the streets to protest Henri.
--:-- Joe Daniels: Barricades of burning tires in the streets of Port-au-Prince as protesters took to the streets for the second day in a row. They're calling for Prime Minister Ariel Henry to resign, accusing him of failing to tackle a devastating surge in gang violence.
--:-- Joe Daniels: They called for his resignation a number of times, and gangs had increasingly also called for it, claiming to represent the people, the Haitian people out there in the streets.
--:-- Joe Daniels: All of this is happening since Moise's death in 2021 amid a wider deterioration of the security situation in Port-au-Prince as gangs thrive in the absence of of really a Haitian state while of course terrorizing the people uh extorting Haitians uh kidnapping Haitians rich and poor like for ransoms that you hear ranging from 50 bucks to a million and beyond.
--:-- Joe Daniels: The gangs are seen as kind of having thrived, in part due to Henri's kind of indifference to the situation, not doing enough to clamp down on them.
--:-- Joe Daniels: Prime Minister Ariel Henri is the head of the government. He has done absolutely nothing for the population. Insecurity is everywhere, the roads are destroyed, and no one can go on with their daily life.
--:-- Joe Daniels: And also there are some accusations that the gangs have connections with Haitian political elites including Ariel Henry including Jovenel Moise.
--:-- Joe Daniels: You're describing a lot of instability, but up until recently the gangs were competing with each other. And then the turn here is that the gangs have united. Tell us what their motive is and what emerged from them uniting.
--:-- Joe Daniels: The honest answer is we don't know exactly why they united, but it is a huge surprise that it took them so long. The consequences are plain to see.
--:-- Joe Daniels: Armed gangs demanding the Prime Minister's resignation have attacked two prisons, allowing thousands of inmates to escape and leaving dozens dead and wounded.
--:-- Joe Daniels: They managed to, through coordinated attacks, shut down the country. The international airport has stopped operating. No flights in or out.
--:-- Joe Daniels: The timing for all of this happening right now, for the gangs coming together right now, is also quite informative of the wider situation.
--:-- Joe Daniels: Ariel Henry had left the country. He left the country initially to go to Guyana, which is the seat of CARICOM, the Caribbean community, a trade block of Caribbean countries.
--:-- Joe Daniels: He went to a summit in Guyana with CARICOM and then went straight from there to Kenya in order to shore up support for an international mission to bolster Haiti's police force.
--:-- Joe Daniels: Kenya's government first pledged 1,000 officers to lead the security mission last July. But the initiative had been tied up in court challenges ever since.
--:-- Joe Daniels: The gangs may have seen that as a kind of opportune moment to launch their strikes. Strikes which have been described as a preemptive strike on any possible mission that could arrive to try and kind of quell the violence in Haiti.
--:-- Joe Daniels: Who are the gang leaders? Well, the most prominent gang leader is Jimmy Teresier. Once a Haitian police officer, he is now the leader of a powerful confederation of gangs called G9, which controls much of Port-au-Prince and its suburbs.
--:-- Joe Daniels: Better known by the alias Barbecue or Barbecue, he claims that that nickname comes from his mother's roadside chicken restaurant.
--:-- Joe Daniels: Analysts say it could well be due to his tendency for burning victims alive. Oh! Yes, he's a gruesome figure.
--:-- Joe Daniels: He is the youngest of eight children. He's from an impoverished neighborhood of Port-au-Prince called La Saline.
--:-- Joe Daniels: He's very media savvy, very charismatic, paints himself as a revolutionary, has a kind of almost a social media operation.
--:-- Joe Daniels: He gives kind of press conferences from the slums of Port-au-Prince, surrounded by his footmen in balaclavas holding assault rifles.
--:-- Joe Daniels: Chirizier says he wants revolution. Now our fight will enter another phase to overthrow the whole system, a system that is 5% of people who control 95% of the country's wealth.
--:-- Noelle King: Can the Haitian government, such as it is, can it do anything? That's not an easy question to answer.
--:-- Joe Daniels: So it's not even that easy right now to kind of have a clear idea of what the Haitian government is.
--:-- Joe Daniels: Ariel Henry, the acting prime minister, is out of the country. Ariel Henry says that he will step down once a transitional presidential council is created.
--:-- Joe Daniels: He has been stranded in Puerto Rico since armed gangs unleashed a wave of deadly violence in Haiti.
--:-- Joe Daniels: He appears unwilling or unable to return. His life would certainly be in danger if he does manage to return.
--:-- Joe Daniels: In his stead, his finance minister is now acting PM. We see a power vacuum there that really kind of gets projected across the whole country.
--:-- Joe Daniels: The Haitian state for decades hasn't been able to really exercise sovereignty over all of its territory.
--:-- Joe Daniels: And so the government as such is very much unable to get the gangs under control.
--:-- Joe Daniels: That is why this international mission was initially requested by the Haitian government, by Ariel Henry.
--:-- Joe Daniels: The police force nominally is around 9,000 members. In reality, that number is likely much smaller.
--:-- Joe Daniels: Many Haitian police would have migrated or just melted away into the communities.
--:-- Joe Daniels: So, the prospects for the Haitian government alone being able to bring the gangs to heel is wildly unlikely.
--:-- Joe Daniels: There is a plan for a government, right?
--:-- Joe Daniels: Yes, that's correct. There is a plan for a government by council.
--:-- Joe Daniels: Now the United States and countries in the Caribbean CARICOM trading block are pushing for a transitional council made up of the country's political parties to appoint a new interim prime minister and lay a roadmap for elections.
--:-- Joe Daniels: The gangs have already said that They won't recognise the council or any body that is kind of mediated or put there by the international community.
--:-- Joe Daniels: Cherizier, talking to Al Jazeera, rejected that council.
--:-- Joe Daniels: We're not going to recognise the decisions that CARICOM takes. I'm going to say to the traditional politicians that are sitting down with CARICOM, since they went with their families abroad, we who stayed in Haiti have to take the decisions.
--:-- Joe Daniels: It's not just people with guns who have damaged the country, but politicians too.
--:-- Joe Daniels: Within the council itself, there appears to be little consensus that it will be made up of members of Haiti's political class as well as the private sector and the church.
--:-- Joe Daniels: And that committee so far hasn't kind of been able to land on the names that it will be made up of.
--:-- Joe Daniels: So the ability for it to then convene elections against a security backdrop as bad as Haiti's really looks like a tall order at this moment.
--:-- Joe Daniels: The United States has over the years at times intervened in Haiti's politics. Where does the U.S. stand today on Haiti?
--:-- Joe Daniels: Well, the U.S. has backed Ariel Henry since he assumed power in July 2021.
--:-- Joe Daniels: That changed this month with these attacks back in Haiti while Henri was out of the country, with the US explicitly calling for Henri to expedite a transition towards elections
--:-- Joe Daniels: And the U has backed the plan drafted by CARICOM the Caribbean Communities Trade Bloc for a transitional presidential council
--:-- Joe Daniels: The U.N. supports that.
--:-- Joe Daniels: So the U.S. is still very much an active participant in mediating Haiti's political crisis.
--:-- Joe Daniels: The argument that the gangs are making is we don't want international observers. We don't want international police forces. We want Haiti to be left alone.
--:-- Joe Daniels: Now, Haiti's been in crisis for generations. There's been a lot of international intervention in the meantime, and not a lot of it seems to have worked.
--:-- Joe Daniels: Is anybody responsible making the argument that perhaps it's time to let Haitians deal with Haiti?
--:-- Joe Daniels: Well, absolutely that argument's being made and that argument's being made by people in Haiti at all levels.
--:-- Joe Daniels: The U.S. has called for a Haitian-led solution of course while itself having a stake but has said that the solution needs to be led by Haiti.
--:-- Joe Daniels: The question analysts have is to what extent can international actors support a Haitian-led solution in a way that actually supports a Haitian-led solution and doesn't become its own problem and doesn't end up supplanting Haiti's ability to build up its own state.
--:-- Noelle King: That was Joe Daniels with the Financial Times.
--:-- Noelle King: Coming up, what gang violence in Haiti looks like from a man living through it just outside of Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince.
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--:-- Noelle King: Support for Today Explained comes from Built Rewards. These days, it seems like everybody has a rewards program. You swipe your card and you get one cent on the hundred dollars. But with your rent, frequently, you just pay month after month. You never get anything from it other than that roof over your head.
--:-- Noelle King: Not anymore, says Built Rewards. Built Rewards says it lets you earn points on your rent. By paying rent through Built, they say you can earn flexible points that can be redeemed toward hundreds of hotels and airlines, perhaps a future rent payment, your next Lyft ride, and so much more.
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--:-- Noelle King: When you're ready to travel, they say Built points can be converted to miles or hotel points all around the world. You can earn points on rent and around your neighborhood wherever you call home by joining built.com slash explained.
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--:-- Noelle King: Support for this show comes from Macy's. It's almost fall, and that means it's time to cycle your wardrobe to the cold setting.
--:-- Noelle King: Because while everyone loves a breezy summer outfit, let's be real, layering is even more fun. That's why Macy's Fall Fashion Guide has everything you need to piece together the perfect look for you.
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--:-- Noelle King: Support for Today Explained comes from Upwork. If you run a business, you know that scaling your business requires the right expertise at the right time.
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--:-- Noelle King: This is Today Explained. I'm Noelle King.
--:-- Noelle King: I'm a founding member and the executive director of La Coula Paix, which is a conflict transformation and peace building community and organization located in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
--:-- Noelle King: I live in the suburbs of Port-au-Prince in a town called Christianville.
--:-- Noelle King: Residents of Louis' neighborhood, him included, were nervously waiting on Friday when we talked as the gangs moved closer and closer.
--:-- Louis-Henri Mars: Well, first of all, we're experiencing a tremendous sense of insecurity.
--:-- Louis-Henri Mars: This morning, I was thinking, I've been thinking a little bit about the fact that if my own neighborhood was attacked, like other neighborhoods are being attacked, you know, what am I going to do?
--:-- Louis-Henri Mars: Yesterday, the chief of police's home was ransacked and looted. Yesterday, also 15 minutes away from my own home, there's the Vitell Aum gang who ransacked a row of houses, looted them
--:-- Louis-Henri Mars: So they 15 minutes away from me Vitell Aum Innocent is a notorious Haitian gang leader wanted in connection with kidnapping 16 American missionaries in 2021 along with an American couple in 2022
--:-- Louis-Henri Mars: I fled my neighborhood when my husband was killed in front of me. But then they set fire to my house again.
--:-- Louis-Henri Mars: I'm 62. I can't take it anymore. If they come over to my side of the town, what am I going to do? Am I going to run? Am I going to resist? Am I going to try to talk to them?
--:-- Louis-Henri Mars: As a peace builder myself, my personal tendency would be to try to talk to them.
--:-- Louis-Henri Mars: But I have family, I have friends, I have relatives, and they're saying, get out, let them loot. You know, don't risk your life.
--:-- Louis-Henri Mars: They're not about talking. They're about killing and burning and maiming and raping.
--:-- Louis-Henri Mars: This woman's sister shot and killed. This one's husband burned alive inside their home. This woman tells us she was raped.
--:-- Louis-Henri Mars: So I hear you saying, I'm in my house, and I understand that if these men get close, I could be in the same position as the people whose houses were looted and ransacked.
--:-- Louis-Henri Mars: How are you watching hour by hour to know where these fellas are?
--:-- Louis-Henri Mars: There's a lot of news on social networks, on WhatsApp. And we keep tabs through the telephone of what's going on.
--:-- Louis-Henri Mars: So I know people that live in the areas that Vidilom is attacking right now. And I touch base with them to see how the night was.
--:-- Louis-Henri Mars: And from my home, I can hear the staccato of gunshots in those neighborhoods throughout the night.
--:-- Louis-Henri Mars: Do you have family living with you? Are you alone in the house?
--:-- Louis-Henri Mars: Actually, we have a family compound with several houses. It's a historic family compound. It's called La Coupe.
--:-- Louis-Henri Mars: And La Coulapé, the name La Coulapé is basically talking about a yard, a peace yard. Haiti should be a big family yard where everybody is living in peace. That's the idea behind La Coulapé.
--:-- Louis-Henri Mars: So I have cousins that are here. We have actually moved the La Culape office in the La Culpe so that we don't have to go into the streets to get to work.
--:-- Louis-Henri Mars: And my children have chosen to stay in Europe and in the United States. They can't even come in and I can't even go see them because the airport is closed.
--:-- Louis-Henri Mars: We are in an open prison right now, open light prison right now because you can't go out to the provinces by the road. You can't go out of the city by air.
--:-- Louis-Henri Mars: So we are totally encircled. And the humanitarian situation is growing even worse.
--:-- Louis-Henri Mars: First of all, because a lot of people have been displaced from their homes and they have nowhere else to go.
--:-- Louis-Henri Mars: Whichever neighborhood they go into, they're going to be displaced again. People are moving from one neighborhood to another.
--:-- Louis-Henri Mars: When they're in that other neighborhood. There's a gang that's moving in in that neighborhood, and then they have to move to another neighborhood.
--:-- Noelle King: I want to ask you, lastly, what you think should be done here.
--:-- Noelle King: You're obviously somebody who spent a lot of time thinking about what Haiti needs and also maybe what Haiti does not need.
--:-- Noelle King: If someone were to hand you a magic wand and say, you can fix this, but it's going to take a really good idea to fix this, what would you want done?
--:-- Louis-Henri Mars: There needs to be a military or police counterweight to the tyranny, the armed tyranny of the gangs.
--:-- Louis-Henri Mars: There needs to be the cutting off of the supply of guns and ammunition that are coming from the United States.
--:-- Louis-Henri Mars: A recent U.N. report states that the principal source of guns in Haiti is Florida. Handguns sold at Florida gun shows for $400 to $500 draw as much as 20 times more in Haiti.
--:-- Louis-Henri Mars: There needs to be a cutoff of that supply. And for me, the best way to do that is to reinforce Haitian customs, reinforce the Haitian border.
--:-- Louis-Henri Mars: Once the supply is brought to a trickle, then the gangs will be more disposed to negotiate also.
--:-- Louis-Henri Mars: The structural violence that exists in this country has to be transformed, but it cannot be transformed by more violence.
--:-- Louis-Henri Mars: We've had 200 years of violence in this country. It's not working. It's never going to work.
--:-- Louis-Henri Mars: What we need to do as a society is talk to each other and decide that we are becoming a different society.
--:-- Louis-Henri Mars: We have to break those cycles.
--:-- Noelle King: That was Louis-Henri Mars in Haiti.
--:-- Noelle King: Special thanks today to author and journalist Michael Divert.
--:-- Noelle King: Today's episode was produced by Miles Bryan and edited by Matthew Collette.
--:-- Noelle King: It was fact-checked by Laura Bullard and Hadi Mouagdi, and our engineer is Patrick Boyd.
--:-- Noelle King: The rest of our team includes Amanda Llewellyn, Victoria Chamberlain, Avishai Artsy, Halima Shah, Jesse Alejandro Cottrell, supervising editor Amina El-Sadi executive producer Miranda Kennedy and my co-host Sean Ramos-Furr whose BBL looks fantastic Sean is back tomorrow.
--:-- Noelle King: We use music from Breakmaster Cylinder and Noam Hassenfeld and we're part of the Vox Media Podcast Network and are distributed to public radio stations across the U.S. by WNYC in New York City.
--:-- Noelle King: I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained.
