Up First from NPR - The Sunday Story: On the Ground in Haiti

Episode Date: June 30, 2024

NPR's Eyder Peralta reports from a country caught between criminal gangs, a broken government and a multinational police mission with a history of brutality. In this episode of The Sunday Story, Eyder asks what that current situation means for Haitians facing spiraling gang violence and the arrival of an international security force in a nation with a legacy of disastrous foreign interventions.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

I'm Aisha Roscoe, and this is a Sunday Story. During the past several months, Haiti's been pushed to the edge of anarchy. A coalition of gangs has taken over 80% of the capital, Port-au-Prince. They closed the main port and attacked the country's main airport. They even forced the prime minister out of office. At one point, the violence got so bad, most international journalists were unable to get in. But recently, NPR's Ada Peralta managed to go there and report on the situation on the ground. So we're off on a motorcycle again, and we are headed toward a barbecue for an interview.

He was also able to talk with Jimmy Cherizier, better known as Barbecue, a gang leader who's become one of the most powerful men in Haiti. So a little bit ago we passed the National Palace, and once you pass the National Palace we are in territory that Barbecue controls. These streets are pretty desolate. Most of the stores are closed here. Very few people on the streets. Some of the buildings look burnt out. Ader eventually gets dropped off by the side of a pink house.

We are here. The roof and the walls are covered in soot. And then the man he's come all this way to meet shows up. He came in just in a white shirt, jean shorts, and in a black Land Cruiser. Looks brand new with no license plates. But things don't begin the way Ader expects. He, I have to say, does not look like he's in a good mood. An older woman approaches Barbecue. She puts both her hands out and bows her head.

We're asking you for money. Yeah, she asked me for some help. Barbecue rolls his eyes, but she keeps insisting. And he just handed her a wad of cash. Ada was with a photographer, and Barbecue insisted that before he would talk, he needed to clean himself up. So he's worried that he doesn't look good for pictures.

So Ader waited as he took a bucket bath. I want a glass. Right there in the middle of the street. The U.S. and the United Nations have both accused this man of multiple massacres and helping to throw Haiti into chaos. I challenge the politicians and the oligarchs and the U.S. to prove even once that I burnt someone. All of this is to destroy my character in front of the Haitian population and the world. To Barbecue, what is happening in Haiti is a revolution. He says gangs that used to take orders from the rich have now rebelled and are fighting for the poor. Either Haiti becomes a hell for everyone, or it becomes a paradise for everyone.

Today on The Sunday Story, armed gangs, a broken government, and what it all means for Haitians caught in the middle. Stay with us. Now Our Change will honour 100 years of the Royal Canadian Air Force and their dedicated service to communities at home and abroad. From the skies to Our Change, this $2 commemorative circulation coin marks their storied past and promising future. Find the limited edition Royal Canadian Air Force $2 coin today. We all hear things differently, and that can be tough when there's so much noise. This election year, we're a space to speak up and to listen.

Listen to 1A for the latest on election 2024, only from NPR. We're back with a Sunday story. Joining us now is international correspondent, Ader Peralta. Hi, Ader. Hey, Aisha. So earlier this year, gangs surrounded the airport in Port-au-Prince, and they actually started shooting at planes. So how did you manage to get into Haiti? You know, I had tried once before by land, but there were too many

roadblocks run by the gangs. But this time I found a pilot, a private helicopter pilot from the Dominican Republic who was willing to take me. So in May, I flew to Cap-Haitien, a city in northern Haiti, and then I got on this chopper. I'm about to get on a helicopter to go into Port-au-Prince. I was immediately in awe of the beauty of Haiti. We fly over these emerald mountains, and they reach so far up into the sky that it feels like we're just barely able to get

above them. 30 minutes later, we start descending into an alternate universe, the Petienville Club, where the rich people of Port-au-Prince live. Basically, the only strip of land that has yet to be taken over by gangs. And we literally land on a golf course. Manicured lawns, gorgeous trees. People, the rich and powerful of Haiti, are playing tennis on pristine courts. They're still playing tennis. Like even with everything going on, they're playing tennis. Wow. Yeah.

So what's your plan after you land on the golf course? We start driving around. We're in an armored SUV. But what I'm seeing through these thick windows is a lot of normal. Businesses are open. Kids are going to school. But it wasn't long before we saw a body just thrown in the middle of the street. And then another one on a different street. It was the body of an older lady just thrown next to a pile of trash. Her body was like half a block away from one of the clinics still open in Port-au-Prince. This tiny place tucked in a commercial strip next to a little food shop. Bonjour, how are you? I'm fine, and you? Very good. Dr. Francois Berthigny, who runs this clinic, told us the older lady was looking for medical treatment.

No one could help her, and she died, and the morgues were burnt down by the gang, so her body was just left there in the middle of the street. This clinic used to be a maternity center, and now they've basically turned it into a trauma center. My producer, Yvon Villessa, interprets. Yesterday, there was like a massacre. Several of them got killed. He tells us that the day before, gangs had tried to force their way into a nearby neighborhood. Sometimes, he says, this clinic can get up to 10 gunshot victims in one day. And because gangs have also closed down the port,

they don't even have gloves or enough anesthesia to treat them. You know, the UN puts out these occasional reports on the situation in Haiti. And in the first three months of this year, nearly 700 civilians were killed. Almost 400 were injured and some 700 gang members were also killed or injured. And the displacement is just massive. So far, 600,000 people have had to leave their homes. And that's about 5% of the population. I mean, with massive numbers like this, it's hard to wrap your head around it.

And obviously, there's been so many stories out of Haiti that involve tragedy. You know, one of them, of course, being the 2010 earthquake that just really devastated the country. But is this the worst that it's been, Ader? It's the worst I've seen it. And everyone I spoke to, people who have lived here their whole lives, say they've never seen a worse period, at least politically, in Haiti. So how did Haiti get here? We could go all the way back to Haiti's independence, but the current situation traces back to 2021. And that's when Haiti's democratically elected

president, Jovenel Moise, was assassinated. And there was this scramble for power. Ultimately, a man called Ariel Henry emerged the victor. He became the de facto prime minister, and he had one job, stabilize Haiti enough to get to elections. But month after month, he kept delaying. And people took to the streets to call for his ouster. The ones who created the problem cannot be part of the solution. We don't want them. At the same time, Haiti's gangs were coming into their own.

And Aisha, the word gang for American audiences might mean something else. But in Haiti, researchers, including a UN group of experts, found that gangs and politicians depended on each other. If you wanted to put a competitor out of business, you sent your gang. You wanted to pacify an opposition stronghold, you sent your gang. Even former presidents funded and armed these gangs. And this is where Jimmy Cherizier, aka Barbecue, comes in. It's the corrupt political system based on lies that made me the person I am today. Before he was a gang leader, Barbecue was a cop, part of the Haitian National Police.

As he tells it, sometime around 2020, he had an epiphany. Like the gangs, police were also being used by politicians to settle scores. I spent 14 years in the police, and I was part of a unit called UDMO West. It's traditional politicians who want you to do the dirty job of destabilizing a government that is in place. And Barbecue decided to switch sides. He joined the gangs and then he took it a step further. He convinced several gangs who had been fighting each other to instead fight against the government. Today the armed groups have awakened. I've made them understand that

listening to the oligarchs and politicians will not lead them anywhere. So it is better if we turned our guns on politicians and the oligarchs. It is better to use these weapons to give the country another independence. He held a press conference and he joined the people calling for the fall of the government. The Sunday Times reported on it. If Ariel Henry doesn't step down,

the country will suffer a genocide. And then in March, he brought an even broader coalition of gangs together. They called themselves Vivant Somme, or Live Together in Haitian Creole, and they unleashed coordinated attacks. They destroyed police stations and attacked prisons, releasing thousands of inmates. They attacked hospitals and morgues, and the National Palace came under fire.

And this past April, they scored a massive victory. They gave the Haitian people what they wanted. Prime Minister Ariel Henry stepped down. So barbecue is coming in with this populist message, but oftentimes that's a double-edged sword, especially when someone is coming to power through violence. How do Haitians see barbecue and the gangs? I mean, I think at this point, barbecue and the gangs have caused so much death, destruction and chaos that Haitians don't view them as a force for good or for change. The gangs used to get their money from politicians and the elite, but as they broke away, they started becoming entrepreneurs, if you want to call it that. They start making money by terrorizing the local population, mainly through

extortion and kidnapping for ransom. And you see that immediately. People in Port-au-Prince go home as soon as the sun sets. And a few days into our trip, we drove to this big building. It was yellow with Roman columns at the front. It used to be the offices of the Ministry of Communications. But when we go inside, it's dark and hot and humid. The electricity was cut off. There was no running water. Some of the thousands of people who have been displaced by the violence have turned it into a camp. So in every corner, people are just living life.

People are cooking here in the offices. Little coal stoves. Every little inch of this place is full of people and their belongings. I find Lina Femil. She's just sort of slumped over in a corner. We sit on the floor, and she tells me that in her neighborhood, there were constant shootouts between the gangs. Her husband, she says, had no choice but to keep going to work to feed his family.

And one day, he didn't come back. He was shot? She never saw the body, but she assumes he was shot dead. The violence got so bad that she had to leave her house, and then the violence followed her, and she had to flee two more times. Now she's here with her three kids. Food is scarce, her kids are sick, her leg is inflamed. Do you have any hope that you'll be able to go back home?

I keep moving through the building, and as we get away from the windows, we have to use the flashlights on our phones. We're in a stairwell here, and there's another family cooking here. Kids hanging out on the stairs. We move past offices. We start climbing. Now we're on the roof where people have built tents here. And up here, I hear the same story. People caught in the crossfire and they fled. When they came back, they found their homes looted and burnt to the ground. One family has set up a rug outside their tent and they invite me to sit and a few others gather around. Alma Francois-Hubert has moved three times because of the violence.

He had spent decades making his house a home. He'd bought a couch and a TV. He'd filled it with photographs. But now it's all gone. All of it was burnt. I ask him if he has any hope that this will change. And he says there's already been some change. So you want to see if the situation will be changed. At least the government is taking shape, he says.

Since all of this violence kicked off in Haiti, what was left of the government asked the international community for help. In October, the UN approved what it called a multinational security support mission. Thousands of foreign police officers to restore the rule of law and give the government a fighting chance. Kenya agreed to lead it. And it's kind of left Haitians holding their breath. Will the situation change?

But as he expresses that bit of hope, everyone around us laughs. Why does everybody laugh when nobody believes that's true? Marie-Lena answers. She's this skinny, smiley woman, obviously with strong opinions. And she said the reason why she laughs is because Haiti never had a serious government. If they had a serious government, their houses wouldn't be burned. Is there anybody that they trust or believe in? It's only God who can change this. From that roof, you can see a huge swath of Port-au-Prince.

And at that very moment, American Air Force planes were landing at the airport. They were flying in supplies to pave the way for the international mission. American soldiers were building barracks for Kenyan police. But Haitians have seen this before. In 1915, the U.S. invaded Haiti and occupied it for nearly 20 years. After that, the Canadians, the French, and the Americans have all sent in military forces. And in 2004, the U.N. approved a security mission that unintentionally caused a cholera outbreak, killing nearly 10,000 Haitians, and they left behind allegations of sexual abuse. That mission ended 13 years later,

and Haiti was left perhaps weaker than when the international troops came in. So people in Haiti laugh at the prospect of yet another intervention. After the break, the gang send a message. We're back with NPR correspondent Ada Peralta. So, Ada, at one point in your trip, you went to a gang-controlled area because you heard there was a demonstration. What did you find? The gangs had told us this would be a protest against an international intervention. I thought it would be regular Haitians protesting.

We got back on motorcycles and we were weaving through the streets and then we arrive at a surreal scene. There is just a bunch of dudes with their face covered. There's a band at the front and people with what look like assault rifles. What we find isn't a protest at all. It's a gang parade. This group of men and even some young boys just sort of trot through the neighborhood led by this band.

Some of them are wearing colorful ski masks that make them look like Lucha Libre wrestlers. There's a woman on a bullhorn telling her neighbors to come out and protest, but no one really joins them. And I keep looking into homes and all I see are terrified faces. As we walk, one of the gang leaders who goes by Passe calls me over. Passe insists the current chaos was not created by the gangs. He places the blame on the international community, especially the U.S. and the U.N., in part because they've supported local corrupt politicians,

the same ones who created the gangs in the first place, and in part because the weapons being used in Haiti are mostly being smuggled from the U.S. So we don't make weapons and bullets here in Haiti. So they give us their weapons. So if they want to get their weapons back, they have to sit down with us to find a solution. So basically, we need a seat at the table.

And the table that he wants a seat at is the Transitional Council. Months ago, after the gangs forced Prime Minister Ariel Henry to resign, the international community put together a transitional government. It was made up of the traditional political parties in Haiti, some civil society groups, and some religious organizations. But this new transitional government presented two massive problems for the gangs. First, they were not given representation in the government. And second, everyone in that government, everyone who took a position in that government,

had to promise that they would not oppose the international security mission that is being sent to Haiti to fight the gangs. Back at the protest, the band sort of disappears into a side street and the neighborhood starts to go quiet. So some guys just pointed at us and said, tell them what you see. They will die with our weapons. They want the international community to know what they are getting into.

They want the Kenyan troops to see how well armed they are. This is quite simply a show of force. We start making our way out, and we end up in front of an old police station. Wow. It's just like everything stopped, right? There's purses on the floor, shoes that people just left as they ran away. Every building had been gutted. Cars were flung in the middle of the street.

The power lines were down. It looks like Ukraine. And when we talk about gangs in Haiti, maybe it conjures an image of this ragtag group of criminals. But standing there, I thought, my God, this is a war. So, Ader, at this point, we got to get back to one of the men at the center of what you just called a war, Jimmy Cherizier, or Barbecue. But I want to stop for a second and say, you met this man face to face. A lot of people will be thinking, why in the world would you want to meet this brutal man who's accused of these horrible crimes? Why meet him face to face? I would be terrified.

I mean, it's obviously scary. He surrounds himself with guys with big guns. And barbecue has a serious rap sheet. According to the UN and human rights groups, barbecue the cop helped the government at the time attack opposition strongholds. The massacre in neighborhood was a 14 hour siege. Victims were pulled from their homes, executed, and then their bodies dismembered and burned. It was so brutal, his own government issued an arrest warrant. Barbecue, it's worth noting, denies the allegations. So all of that was on my mind when I went to meet him. Because when you take an interview like that, even if it's scary, you make a deal with yourself that you have to ask the tough questions. And what did Barbecue have to say about all of the pain and the suffering that Haitians are living through?

Well, I asked him that very question point blank. All I see here are dead poor people. The rich in this country are not dying. The poor people are dying. And you are part of that. Our first enemy in the fight we are leading today is people who are poor like us because the rich use them to fight us. That's why I say this fight will be very long.

So what he's saying is that the poor in Haiti are necessary collateral damage. And as we're sitting there, we can hear gunfire in the distance. Barbecue barely pays attention. And right then, I get a sense of who Barbecue really is. He's a commander in the middle of a fight for power. And in his head, he's making calculations as to how he survives and how he might be able to hold on to power. This transitional council has asked the Kenyan police to come. We're seeing airplanes, American Air Force airplanes, landing here every day. What are you expecting in the next few weeks here? On the pretext of fighting gangs, they will massacre the population. A few months after they arrive, they will start raping women and boys,

just like the soldiers did in 2004. And then the Haitian people will say enough, and they will ask them to leave the country. Do you think you're going to survive this? Do you think that you will be alive in a few months? The question of whether I will live or not live is not what

is important. What is important today is to fight against the existing unjust system. I only know that I will fight and I will fight with all my strength. And earlier this week, we saw a prelude to that fight. The first group of Kenyan police officers arrived in Haiti, but it happened at the same time that big protests erupted in Kenya over an increase in taxes. So, on the one hand, you have an arrival ceremony at the main airport in Port-au-Prince,

and on the very same day, you have the Kenyan police responding with overwhelming force against the protesters in Nairobi. The GSU, the very same paramilitary police unit sent to Haiti, opened fire in Nairobi. More than 20 people died in the protests. The Kenyan Human Rights Commission says some were shot by police. So here we are. The gangs seem to be getting ready to fight the Kenyans if necessary. That does not sound good. Where does the country go from here?

So before I left Haiti, I talked with a member of the Transitional Council about the country's future. I didn't meet him at the National Palace, as you might expect. It's too dangerous there. Instead, the council is set up at this old mansion in Petienville, where I first landed on the golf course. It's the one place where you see a massive security deployment. Cars with blacked out windows, men in crisp uniforms with sniper rifles. And that's where I meet Leslie Voltaire, one of the seven voting members in the council. Can I begin? Yeah.

Okay. Our number one priority is to establish security in order to have a rule of law. He says their mission is clear. Make sure Haiti holds elections as soon as possible. But... But now, if we do an election right now, the gangs will be in the parliament, they will be in the presidency, they will be in the prime minister's office. As he describes it, at the moment the government is weak and the gangs are strong, and that means in an election the gangs could quite simply force Haitians to vote for them.

But the Kenyan-led international force, it's a solution cobbled together outside of Haiti. So I ask him, can it actually work? We know that the U.S. will not take the lead because they are afraid because of that election that is coming. And we accept the Kenyans. We accept the Kenyans because we have seen in the agreements that their officers and their soldiers have to be vetted by the United Nations and then by the U.S. according to their human rights rules of engagement. I lived in Kenya for years and I got to see their police force up close. And the violence in Nairobi this past week is not out of the ordinary. Kenyan forces have a history of violence and abuse. I asked Voltaire, doesn't that worry you? And his honesty took me by surprise.

It worries me. We know that it's not the best thing that we have, but it's what we have. I asked him if that's what it feels like. Why would you even want to be in the transitional council right now? I took this job because my children think that the older person have failed Haiti. And I want to prove them and prove my people that we have not managed the situation very well, but we can repair that. And we can offer a better life for the next generation. And I think we have an opportunity to do that. Now, I got to ask you, like, what could be the opportunity that he sees coming out of this just terrible situation? I don't think there's great options in Haiti. But, you know, I visited a field clinic in Sidi Soleil.

It's a neighborhood with a long history of neglect. Back in 2022, gang violence had gotten so bad that it was impossible to actually get in there. So for the first time in history, experts had found famine conditions in the Americas. When I got there this time, I saw a lot of suffering. The women at the clinic, and it's really just tables and chairs set up outside this clinic, they had no idea what they were going to feed their babies that night or the next day. But I also saw life. There were cows and goats grazing next door. I could even hear laughter.

Haitians were surviving. At the end of the day, I took a car back to the hotel, and the driver put on this old Haitian song about a breakup. And I fell into a kind of trance. Come, come take me from my sadness, the song goes. Whenever you ask a Haitian, how are you doing? They almost invariably say, I'm surviving, I'm alive. I kept thinking about the way Haitians always resist.

It's what writer Edwidge Dantica has written about, how Haitians take pride in their history of resistance. I thought about how they were being asked to survive once more, to live through one more foreign intervention. And history tells us that they will. But at the moment, as Dantica writes, Haiti, Haitians are breaking. Ader, thank you so much for bringing us this reporting. Thank you, Aisha.

That was NPR correspondent Ada Peralta. This episode was produced by Abby Wendell and edited by Luis Trejas. Jenny Schmidt is the senior editor for the Sunday Story. The reporting for this episode was brought to us by NPR's international desk. Yvonne Villis was the producer and Tara Neal was the editor.

Emmanuel Igunza reported from Kenya. Didi Skanky is NPR's chief international editor. Thanks to Jory George, Jean-Enaud, and Ruben Garcia at KSTX in San Antonio, voiceover work by Cal C. Additional thanks to NPR's managing editor of standards and practices, Tony Cavan,

and to Micah Ratner for legal support. Our fact checker was Greta Pittinger. Our engineer was Gilly Moon. The Sunday Story team includes Justine Yan and Andrew Mambo. Hazel Feldstein is our intern. Our supervising producer is Liana Simstrom. Irene Noguchi is our executive producer. And Colin Campbell is our senior vice president of podcasting strategy. I'm Aisha Roscoe. Up First is back tomorrow with all the news you need to start your week. Until then, have a great rest of your weekend. Thank you.