Portrait
Who is Jimmy Chérizier aka “Barbecue”, gang leader in Haiti who is plunging the country into chaos?
He has been sowing terror for years in Haiti and is currently openly appearing as the leader of a revolution that wants to oust the Prime Minister from power.
Jimmy Chérizier, nicknamed "Barbecue", threatened to start a civil war that would lead to genocide if Ariel Henry did not resign.
Who is this gang leader, a 46-year-old former police officer?
Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier, in Port-au-Prince, March 5, 2024. AFP - CLARENS SIFFROY
By: Achim Lippold Follow
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Some call him "
the most powerful man in
Haiti
."
And at the moment, this qualifier is not far from reality.
The violence provoked by his men prevents the Prime Minister from returning to the country, creating a power vacuum from which Jimmy Chérizier intends to take advantage.
This former police officer is the leader of one of the most powerful gangs, called “G9 and Family”.
He also doesn't like the word gang and prefers to speak of "
armed group
".
Still, “G-9 and family” is largely responsible for the violence into which the country has fallen since 2020.
Support from the authorities
Following the assassination of former President
Jovenel Moïse
in July 2021, Jimmy Chérizier called for a revolution against the country's political elite, an elite of which some members nevertheless supported him in his criminal activities.
According to UN experts, the Moïse government and part of the police gave him money and weapons.
With his men, he controlled in particular the poor neighborhoods of the capital, with a majority anti-government tendency.
According to the site
InSight Crime
, until the assassination of Jovenel Moïse, half of the financing of “G9 et famille” came from the Haitian authorities.
Financial support would have fallen by 30% after July 2021. Still according to InSight Crime, “Barbecue”, in order to protest against the interim government of Ariel Henry (appointed after the assassination of Jovenel Moïse) and perhaps to “
regain the "lost political and economic influence
", launched operations to block Haiti's largest oil terminal, the Varreux terminal, causing a gasoline shortage across the country.
Today, it is difficult to know whether “Barbecue” is still supported by political and economic figures, like other gang leaders.
Haitian gang leader Jimmy Chérizier, aka “Barbecue”, photographed on March 5, 2024. AFP - CLARENS SIFFROY
From policeman to gang leader
Before asserting himself as the leader of a criminal group, Jimmy Chérizier served as a police officer.
And it is in this role that he begins his rise in the gang world.
Still a police officer, he was one of those responsible for the La Saline massacre.
More than 70 people were killed in this poor neighborhood of Port-au-Prince in 2018, during a joint operation between the police and gangs.
Other massacres follow in 2020: this time, “Barbecue” officially becomes a gang leader.
Proof of his influence, he is the first to be included in October 2022 in the brand new UN
sanctions regime
against Haitian gangs – travel ban, asset freeze and targeted arms embargo.
A UN expert committee draws up a list of the criminal activities of “G-9 and family” and its thousand members: murders, thefts, extortion, rapes, targeted assassinations, drug trafficking, kidnappings and arson.
Speaking of fires: the nickname “Barbecue” comes from the fact that Jimmy Chérizer likes to burn the houses and the corpses of his victims.
Targeted by sanctions from Washington and the UN, he shows himself on social networks as a revolutionary, automatic weapon slung over his shoulder.
Moreover, the Haitian media have often published his videos and statements, most of the time without putting them in context.
What future for Barbecue?
Now at the head of a coalition of gangs, the one who killed so many people claimed to be fighting for the “
liberation of the Haitian people
”.
Rejecting all criminal charges against him, he does not consider himself a gang leader, a gangster, but rather as a defender of working-class neighborhoods, a sort of “Haitian Robin de Bois”.
An image that he showcases on his YouTube channel or digital platforms like TikTok.
It is also there that he recruits new members and launches calls to overthrow the government.
What will be its fate when the international force arrives in Haiti?
No one knows.
“Barbecue” had warned that she would be welcome only if she arrested Ariel Henry and “
if she helps us restore order
”.
In the meantime, the number of victims of the gangs which control almost all the neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince continues to increase.
In one week, the La Paix university hospital in Delmas 33 received more than 68 people injured by bullets.
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Haiti
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