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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial | |
ARTICLE VIEW: | |
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Gangs forced out Haiti’s government. This FBI ‘Most Wanted’ gang | |
leader claims they’re liberating the country | |
By Caitlin Stephen Hu, David Culver and Evelio Contreras, CNN. | |
Updated: | |
1:31 PM EDT, Tue April 30, 2024 | |
Source: CNN | |
Vitel’homme Innocent’s picture on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted” | |
list of fugitives suggests a crazed man – eyes wide and wild, teeth | |
bared. It’s the photo you might expect for a gang leader who claims | |
to be under divine protection and who has a $2 million bounty on his | |
head for alleged kidnappings. | |
In person, he projects a different image, at least to guests. Powerful, | |
yes, surrounded by armed acolytes who jump at his glance – but also | |
carefully solicitous, with a cooler full of sandwiches for his | |
visitors, and a tendency to wax philosophical in conversation. | |
After weeks of negotiations, CNN entered Haiti’s gangland earlier | |
this month to speak with Innocent, whose armed group Kraze Baryé is | |
among the allied armed groups that have plunged Haiti into a crisis of | |
lawlessness. He is an influential voice among the country’s gang | |
leadership, and one who believes that peace must be restored. But under | |
what conditions? | |
On the edge of the Tabarre district of Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince | |
last week, a truck led us through a warren of twisting dirt roads, | |
passing checkpoints manned by armed guards in balaclavas and Halloween | |
masks. We bumped through what was once a well-heeled neighborhood; pink | |
bougainvillea still spilled over high walls and a green soccer field | |
opened onto glorious views of the city below. | |
Now, it is almost a ghost town. Cars and motorbikes began to follow our | |
car, their drivers masked, long guns poking out the windows. Some | |
vehicles bore the fluttering red and blue Haitian flags of a ragtag | |
diplomatic convoy. | |
After about 45 minutes, a gold car pulled in front and stopped. | |
Innocent himself stepped out. He was slight and apparently unarmed, | |
dressed in a bright striped batik suit and soft loafers, with a tangle | |
of gold chains and a cross draped round his neck. He led the way into a | |
rococo mansion, where elaborate gold velvet chairs and settees, crystal | |
in display cases and arrangements of plastic flowers hinted at previous | |
owners. | |
We sat, removing stuffed teddy bears from the seats to make room, and | |
talked about the future. | |
“The Haiti we had, Haiti, the pearl of the Antilles that we grew up | |
in, could still return to being the most beautiful,” Innocent said, | |
speaking mildly in Haitian Creole. “One day, someone could sit in | |
Champ de Mars and have an ice cream.” | |
Today, the capital’s iconic Champ de Mars park is a war zone between | |
gangs and police. After years of political turmoil, institutional | |
neglect and a series of brutal natural disasters, Haiti’s ill-fortune | |
was pushed to its nadir last month with an unprecedented wave of gang | |
violence that has effectively shut down Port-au-Prince. | |
The city’s main seaport and airport are dark. Government ministries | |
have been taken over by refugees fleeing gang attacks. Bodies lie among | |
uncollected trash in the streets and the neighborhoods still free of | |
gang control have seen , who kill and burn suspicious outsiders. | |
Signs of the city’s dysfunction were evident within the Kraze Baryé | |
stronghold. Inside Innocent’s sprawling house, the air was still and | |
hot; his foot soldiers labored to get a generator running to power | |
air-conditioning or a fan. No one had bothered to remove the wrecked | |
sedan that still sat next to the pool, with its blown-out windows and | |
four flat tires. | |
But the man on the gold sofa preferred to talk about a brighter future | |
– one that he claims Haiti’s gangs are prepared to usher in. | |
To sit down with one of Haiti’s gang leaders is controversial in the | |
country, given the suffering and terror that armed groups have long | |
sown. Arson and collective rape are preferred gang tactics to subjugate | |
civilians, experts say, and the United Nations has recorded the | |
gang-linked killings of least 1,660 people and kidnappings of at least | |
438 people – including 21 children – in the first 90 days of the | |
year alone. | |
Innocent himself is under for extensive human rights abuses committed | |
by Kraze Baryé under his leadership, and is wanted by the Haitian | |
National Police for . His group is known to target the Haitian | |
National Police directly, and has sought to seize some of the | |
wealthiest neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince. | |
In his first interview with foreign press, Innocent did not deny the | |
deaths, the arson, the rape or the kidnappings committed by the | |
city’s allied gangs, and told CNN that he has made some mistakes.� | |
But he framed the recent months of deadly street violence as collateral | |
damage. Deaths, both accidental and extrajudicial, have also been | |
caused by the police, he points outs, claiming they refuse to engage in | |
dialogue. | |
His only regret, he said, is getting involved with politics. | |
The gangs and the oligarchs | |
Innocent, 37, portrays the broad alliance of gangs attacking Haiti’s | |
institutions as a progressive venture. “Our dream is to get rid of | |
the oligarchs who prevent the country from progressing,” he said of | |
the gang coalition that calls itself Viv Ansanm or “Live Together.” | |
In February, Viv Ansanm launched an unprecedented assault on the | |
Haitian state, attacking police stations, prisons, government | |
buildings, hospitals, the national palace, the national library, cargo | |
ships, and the public electricity company. Their attacks coincided with | |
a visit by then-Prime Minister Ariel Henry to Nairobi for to bolster | |
Haiti’s National Police. | |
Henry eventually resigned, as Viv Ansanm demanded – but Innocent says | |
the gangs now oppose created to replace him. | |
Innocent’s solution: “Sit and listen to Viv Ansanm.” | |
Then, he suggested, “there will be a resolution as soon as | |
possible.” | |
He criticizes the governing council as more of the same, and says | |
it’s time for the old political elites to go – a view held by many | |
in Haiti. But the gangs have long had a symbiotic relationship with the | |
nation’s rulers, who used armed groups to exert pressure on rivals | |
through kidnapping and other attacks. | |
The relationship continues today – though Haiti’s gangs are | |
increasingly acting independently to amass money and power, according | |
to experts, | |
“Yes, I have an armed group. I direct them,” Innocent said, when | |
asked about Kraze Baryé’s involvement in kidnapping. “But when you | |
really think about it, would these guys really have any clue who to | |
kidnap and who not to kidnap? Not at all.” | |
“It’s really the same people sitting with (regional organization) | |
CARICOM to represent the country. If you choose to block them, | |
they’ll call us and say: ‘I have such and such a job… Fix it for | |
us.’ And then you hear so-and-so has been kidnapped. Or so-and-so has | |
been taken hostage,” he says. | |
It’s the corrupt officials who funnel arms and ammunition to gangs | |
today, he said. | |
“Let’s take a clear example. We aren’t able to travel. We | |
aren’t able to import. We aren’t able to export. Yet there are | |
always weapons coming in. There are always bullets. And we don’t have | |
any representatives at the border. We don’t have any representatives | |
at customs. Yet all these materials go through exactly these channels. | |
How do they get to us?” he says. | |
The corruption he describes is no secret. Haiti currently ranks 172 out | |
of 180 countries on the World Corruption Perceptions Index. Over the | |
past year, sanctions by Canada and United States have – of | |
corruption and financing the country’s gangs, among other crimes. | |
Leading CNN through his territory, Innocent said he remembers local | |
elders farming in Tabarre during his youth in the 1980s and 90s. “Of | |
course, we were able to harvest then,” he recalls. Today, he blames | |
Haiti’s dependence on imported food as yet another sign of how the | |
country has been mismanaged by upper class, robbing ordinary people of | |
every economic opportunity. | |
Before he took up arms, he claims, his own legitimate businesses, | |
including a construction business, a hotel and rental car enterprise, | |
were destroyed by powerful business interests in the area. | |
‘Why attack ordinary people if you’re trying to stand up for the | |
people?’ | |
, 55, a well-known radio and television journalist who once lived in | |
Tabarre, has a different view of what transformed the neighborhood to | |
the desolate place it is today. | |
She was robbed by Kraze Baryé members in June last year, she says, | |
then kidnapped and brought to meet Innocent himself. “It was the | |
middle of the night, and I was sleeping, when suddenly I heard a | |
tremendous commotion downstairs,” she recalls. “Around 30 armed | |
people broke into my house and began to pillage it, taking things, even | |
food from the kitchen.” | |
The burglars demanded money, and then, apparently unsatisfied, took her | |
away with them. They drove for about 45 minutes, according to Opont. | |
“I was so scared, bandits coming into my house. Shocked that this | |
could happen in my own home. I know they are rapists, they have | |
committed atrocious rapes and other crimes,” she says. | |
Eventually they came to a stop in the dark. Opont tells CNN that� | |
Innocent himself then came to her car and asked her if she recognized | |
his voice. “Of course I did,” she says. “He used to give press | |
conferences and was very active on social media.” | |
He seemed to recognize her too, addressing Opont by name. “Of course | |
he knew who I was,” she says. “Everyone in the neighborhood knows | |
that’s our house. But why they took me, I don’t know. I still ask | |
myself.” She was released early the next morning without explanation. | |
Her husband, kidnapped a week later, was not treated as well. Held by | |
force for several days without his medication, Pierre-Louis Opont was | |
released by Kraze Baryé only after they extracted a heavy ransom | |
payment from his family, she says. | |
They moved out of Tabarre immediately. “It’s what we call in Haiti | |
a territoire perdue,” she says of her old neighborhood – a lost | |
territory. | |
“It’s a red zone,” Opont elaborates. “A few days after my | |
husband’s kidnapping, gang members installed themselves in a house | |
near the main road and were firing at passing vehicles.” | |
She has no patience for gang leaders’ claim to be fighting to | |
liberate Haiti. | |
“Why attack ordinary people if you’re trying to stand up for the | |
people?” she asks. “The whole neighborhood is being constantly | |
terrorized by armed bandits. How can the gangs say they work for the | |
good of the country when they also commit kidnappings, when so many | |
women have been the victims of brutal rape?” | |
‘Predator and protector’ | |
Several of Innocent’s peers have established public personas through | |
the press and social media. Ex-police officer Jimmy Chérizier, known | |
as Barbeque, styles himself as a Robin Hood-type figure. Izo, of the | |
“Five Second” gang which operates near the country’s main port, | |
is also a musician, who shares music videos online. And Lanmo Sanjou, | |
leader of the 400 Mawozo (400 Idiots), was recently pictured smoking | |
cigars with a social media influencer. | |
While they are allies, sometimes meeting by video conference, the Viv | |
Ansanm alliance doesn’t necessarily mean friendship. Escorting CNN to | |
the edge of his territory, Innocent showed us a broad riverbed and lush | |
tree-lined landscape beyond. But he repeatedly warned that we should | |
not linger long, as his troops fanned out in sneakers and flip-flops, a | |
motley assortment of guns at the ready. | |
We would learn later that on the other side of the riverbed was the | |
territory of 400 Mawozo, which has allegedly cooperated with Kraze | |
Baryé on kidnappings and also tried to kill Innocent over a land | |
dispute, according to two security experts in the country. | |
Elsewhere in his neighborhood, Innocent was keen to show his leadership | |
in the local population – a posture that matches the “predator and | |
protector” role that UN experts describe of Haitian gangsters, who | |
function as local authorities while also extorting money from local | |
businesses to make payroll. | |
Kraze Baryé employs around 100 men and women, according to | |
Innocent’s lieutenant and cousin, the bleach-blond Dezod Augustin, | |
34. On the day that CNN visited, several gang members wore custom | |
t-shirts with teddy bears on the front and lettering on the back that | |
read “Tabarre Area Security Unit.” | |
Walking slowly down an unpaved street full of vendors, Innocent could | |
have been any politician at a local meet and greet, stopping to massage | |
the injured foot of an elderly market woman, and introducing CNN to two | |
blind men that he had taken under his protection, blaming the Haitian | |
state for failing to care for them. | |
But as a nighttime curfew approached, bottles of beer and liquor began | |
to appear in the hands of our entourage. Innocent stopped our | |
procession at a food stall on the side of the road, and ordered piles | |
of stewed pork and fried plantains to share. The vendor, a middle-aged | |
man, complied silently, showing no reaction to Innocent’s armed aides | |
or the foreign visitors. | |
Rights experts in Haiti warn against taking displays of community | |
leadership at face value. | |
“Gang leaders talk about liberation and representing the people in | |
order to attract popular support,” cautions Gedeon Jean, a human | |
rights analyst in Port-au-Prince who has tracked the rise in gang | |
kidnappings for years. | |
“But all they want is more power and a state that accommodates their | |
crime.” | |
An American island in gangland | |
Less than a mile from all this is the US Embassy, soldiers positioned | |
on its roof to constantly scan the scrubland surrounding it. Just last | |
week, Kraze Baryé members attacked a nearby civilian neighborhood, | |
driving about 150 people from their homes in the dark and shooting one | |
man in the heart, according to an eyewitness. | |
As an island inside Innocent’s territory, the diplomatic complex is | |
an inversion of Haiti’s relationship to the US itself; here, Kraze | |
Baryé is the fearsome regional power, dominating neighborhoods | |
Torcell, Tabarre and Delmas through which Americans must cross to reach | |
their embassy. | |
This uneasy geography also means Innocent stands between the rest of | |
Haiti’s gangs and Washington, whose capacity and appetite for | |
military intervention in the country’s blood-soaked chaos are the | |
subject of constant speculation in the country. | |
So far, the US has sought to sidestep any military entanglement in | |
Haiti. Rather, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced in March | |
that the US would contribute $300 million to a multinational security | |
support mission to the country. But so far, just $18 million has | |
deposited into a UN-managed Trust Fund for the mission, with $8.7 | |
million provided by Canada, 3.2 million provided by France and $6 | |
million provided by the United States. | |
The Kenya-led mission, which would also , is currently on hold due to | |
concerns over Haiti’s political instability. | |
And despite – or perhaps because of – his “Most Wanted” status, | |
Innocent seems interested in keeping Kraze Baryé’s relationship with | |
the embassy neighborly. “It’s an honor when a country has its | |
embassy in our vicinity, it’s because it wants to collaborate with | |
us,” Innocent said. | |
Last month, dozens of helicopters conducted for US citizens, landing | |
and lifting off next to the embassy building – a high-risk operation | |
that would have been easy for any Kraze Baryé member to upend with a | |
few rounds. But the flights came and went without incident. | |
Innocent deflects when asked about allegations by US authorities that | |
he was involved in the 2021 kidnapping of more than a dozen US and | |
Canadian missionaries, including young children, ; and in a 2022 | |
attack on the home of an elderly American couple which left and saw her | |
husband taken hostage for ransom before his eventual release. | |
Innocent says simply that the justice system has not given him the | |
chance to answer the US allegations, but that he would be willing to | |
defend himself in court. | |
“We believe in the law. We want to make the best choice, consult with | |
legal counsel and do due process,” he says. | |
In Haiti, he says, he would be willing to face the justice system as | |
long the corrupt elite do too. “We have to get rid of the | |
oligarchs’ system, and we are ready too to answer the justice system | |
of our country, so that we can see where the worst evil was hidden.” | |
The State Department did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment or | |
to speak with US Ambassador to Haiti Dennis Hankins. | |
What it would take to lay down arms | |
For all their shows of force, the grip that Haiti’s gangs have is | |
tenuous and their soldiers generally poorly disciplined and trained, | |
experts say. Many longtime observers, including believe it would | |
only take a small specialized fighting force – say, a few hundred | |
Marines – to halt the entire crisis, and to create the right | |
conditions for a larger multinational security mission to arrive and | |
begin assisting Haiti’s police. | |
Haiti does now have a transitional government, sworn in on Thursday. | |
Still to come are the tasks of appointing a new head of government and | |
a cabinet; coordinating the arrival of a multinational security force | |
to reclaim the capital; and eventually to hold long-overdue elections. | |
But Haiti’s gangs maintain they deserve a seat at the negotiating | |
table. If they do not get it, Viv Ansanm will exercise its say by other | |
means, Innocent warns. | |
“You will understand that when you realize that planes cannot fly. | |
When you see that investors cannot come in. When you analyze that there | |
are a bunch of foreigners who were already in the country with projects | |
who were forced to flee to their countries to wait for stability,” he | |
says. | |
Jean, the rights expert, says ex-Prime Minister Henry’s resignation | |
in March at the urging of the international community was a huge | |
mistake that set Innocent and others down an impossible path. | |
Henry’s resignation seemed to validate gangs’ claims that they are | |
legitimate political actors; today, they feel they have not been given | |
due credit, Jean says. | |
“They think: ‘We made Henry resign, so we should be involved in the | |
political transition,’” he says. “But to give them that would | |
only further validate them.” | |
Among their demands, the gangs want amnesty under any future | |
government, Innocent says, and a plan for the future of the many young | |
people currently following his orders – both issues that have also | |
been raised by members of the governing council. | |
“When we drop our weapons, we must know that we have a state that | |
will bring a framework for the future. Can I tell someone to drop his | |
weapon and take a rock to eat? Not at all,” Innocent says. | |
Edited by CNN’s Rachel Clarke in Atlanta. | |
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