A powerful Haitian gang leader on Tuesday warned that the chaos engulfing the capital, Port-au-Prince, would lead to civil war and “genocide” unless Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry steps down.
The stark comments from Jimmy Cherizier, known as “Barbecue,” came as Henry appeared to be struggling to fly home, with the main airport under attack and the neighboring Dominican Republic refusing permission for him to land.
Henry — who was supposed to step down last month — was out of the country last week when armed criminal gangs, who control large swathes of the country, launched a coordinated assault to oust him.
Photo: Reuters
“If Ariel Henry doesn’t resign, if the international community continues to support him, we’ll be heading straight for a civil war that will lead to genocide,” Cherizier, a former police officer who is under UN sanctions for human rights abuses, told reporters in the capital.
“Either Haiti becomes a paradise or a hell for all of us. It’s out of the question for a small group of rich people living in big hotels to decide the fate of people living in working-class neighborhoods,” the 46-year-old said.
As the latest crisis in the violence-wracked Caribbean nation spiraled, gunfire shut down some flights at Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Haiti’s capital.
Henry was denied entry into the Dominican Republic, Dominican news group CDN reported.
On Tuesday evening, a spokesperson for the governor’s office in nearby Puerto Rico confirmed his plane had landed there, at least briefly.
“I don’t know if he’s still in Puerto Rico,” Sheila Anglero said by telephone.
In power since the 2021 assassination of Haitian president Jovenel Moise, Henry was due to step down in February, but instead agreed to a power-sharing deal with the opposition until new elections are held.
Earlier on Tuesday, a police academy in the capital where more than 800 cadets are training came under attack by an armed gang.
The attack was repelled after the arrival of reinforcements, said Lionel Lazarre of the Haitian police union.
The unrest has left 250 Cubans stranded in Port-au-Prince after their flights were canceled, the Havana office of Sunrise Airways said.
“When we were about to board the plane, they realized that the plane had a bullet hole,” a 34-year-old Cuban passenger said via WhatsApp, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Cherizier, who leads a group of gangs known as the “G9 Family and Allies,” cites as a chief inspiration former Haitian president Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier, who ruled Haiti with ruthless brutality in the 1960s and 1970s.
He said gunmen had committed harmful acts, but “I believe that society must forgive them and unite to rethink a new Haiti.”
Haitian officials have been pleading for months for international assistance to help their overwhelmed security forces, as gangs push beyond the city and into rural areas.
Henry had traveled to Kenya to push for the deployment of a UN-backed multinational police mission to help stabilize his country when the attempt to oust him began.
With him away, the gangs raided two Port-au-Prince prisons, in attacks that resulted in a dozen deaths and the escape of thousands of inmates.
“They’re showing us that the police don’t matter,” Bertony Junior Exantus, a resident of Delmas in Port-au-Prince who fled the violence, told reporters.
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