Jimmy Chérizier, the former Haitian police officer-turned-gangster leading the latest violent campaign to seize control of the country, is nicknamed “Barbeque.”
Chérizier insists it’s because his mother operated a fried chicken stand in the slums of Port-au-Prince.
But critics say it’s a moniker Chérizier earned after staging multiple massacres in the nation’s capital from 2018 to 2020 that, according to the United Nations, left dozens of people dead, many of whom were burned alive when their homes were deliberately torched.
“I would never massacre people in the same social class as me,” Chérizier said in a 2019 interview with The Associated Press. “I was born next door to La Saline. I live in the ghetto. I know what ghetto life is.”
But clad in what’s become his trademark bullet-proof vest, Chérizier has made it clear in more recent interviews that he’s willing to shed a lot of blood to achieve his goals.
“We won’t lie to people, saying we have a peaceful revolution,” he told the Reuters news agency on Tuesday. “We do not have a peaceful revolution. We are starting a bloody revolution in the country.”
One of the first casualties of Chérizier’s bloody revolution was Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who said Tuesday that he would resign and his government would dissolve once a transitional council had been set up.
Henry’s announcement came after Chérizier and a coalition of armed gangs loyal to him known as G9 seized control of large swaths of Port-au-Prince.
His forces have laid siege to Haiti’s main international airport, traded fire with troops at government sites, and sparked a mass jailbreak last week from the National Penitentiary in Port-Au-Prince that freed almost 4,000 gang members.
A team of Marines has been dispatched to shore-up security at the U.S. Embassy.
While Henry’s departure was a key demand of G9, Chérizier has given no sign that he intends to cede power to anybody else.
In interviews, Chérizier has likened himself to Martin…
Read the full article here
