The United Nations Security Council on Friday unanimously agreed to clamp down on illicit arms sales and violent criminal armed groups in Haiti by imposing a travel ban, arms embargo and asset freeze on gang leaders — and anyone engaging in actions that threaten the peace, security or stability of the crisis-wrecked Caribbean country.
The U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Linda Thomas-Greenfield, called it an “an important step to help the Haitian people” and said it is “an initial answer to the calls for help from the Haitian people.”
“We’re sending a clear message to the bad actors that are holding Haiti hostage. The international community will not stand idly by while you wreak havoc on the Haitian people,” she said.
In response, Thomas-Greenfield added, one of the country’s most notorious gang leaders, Jimmy Cherizier, who is known as “Barbecue”, has been sanctioned. His actions, Thomas-Greenfield said, have directly contributed to the humanitarian crisis that has caused “so much pain and suffering to the people of Haiti.”
Now in its sixth week, the “G9 Family and Allies” gang alliance led by Cherizier has been blocking the flow of fuel, food and drinking water by preventing tankers from accessing the country’s main fuel terminal, Varreux, and using overturned trailers to block streets in Port-au-Prince.
It’s just the latest in a series of violent criminal acts by gangs that have increasingly grown more powerful since last year’s assassination of the country’s president, Jovenel Moïse. Since then, the heavily armed groups have launched deadly attacks in several neighborhoods, and indiscriminately killing or injuring hundreds while using sexual violence against women and girls to instill fear. They have also overtaken the main courthouse while setting fire to another, and kidnapped locals along with foreign missionaries and U.N. personnel.
Security Council members warned that the sanctions are not a panacea to Haiti’s multidimensional crisis, adding that while the decision to blacklist sends a message to gangs and those who collude with them, it should also send one to the country’s bickering political actors, who until now have been unable to reach agreement on the way forward.
“They must immediately stop their collusion with criminal actors, stop their partisan fighting, put the interests of their country and the people first and bring to a consensus on the nation’s political structure and a transitional arrangement without delay,” said China’s Deputy Permanent Representative Geng Shuang.
The sanctions vote had previously been scheduled for Wednesday but was delayed after some countries raised concerns and the United States and Mexico sought to incorporate their concerns into the final text.
The revised final text, obtained by the Miami Herald, included language for lifting sanctions, and added an ombudsperson to safeguard against adverse effects. It also includes a humanitarian carve out to ensure there are no adverse effects on providing assistance to Haiti.
The revised final text also dropped language on the deployment of a multinational force to help the Haiti National Police take back key infrastructure, as well as a reference to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ Oct. 8 letter supporting the deployment and security options after the departure of such a force.
On Monday, Thomas-Greenfield said that a separate resolution on the deployment of a non-U.N. mission security force was being drafted by the United States and Mexico. Haiti’s permanent represent to the United Nations, Antonio Rodrigue, speaking at the end of the vote, said the country welcomed the sanctions but said “sanctions alone cannot eradicate the high level of violence ravaging Haiti and causing immeasurable suffering on the population, in particular women and children.”
The Haitian National Police, he said, lack the capacity to confront the threat. He reiterated Haiti’s plea for a specialized armed force to be immediately deployed to help Haiti’s own ill-equipped force take back control from gangs.
“We are in a race against time,” Rodrigue said. “This is because, we’re talking about a country that each day plunges further into violence and insecurity. …Each day lost in terms of finding an appropriate response to the situation means more and too many innocent victims who will suffer.”
While Friday’s unanimous decision demonstrates the U.N. Security Council willingness to help Haiti, member countries have been divided on how best to do so, with China and Russia in particular expressing concerns about sending in foreign forces.
The United States supports sending foreign troops to help the national police, but privately officials say they do not want to lead such an effort.
Under the new sanctions resolution passed Friday, a Security Council committee would be established to designate who should be placed on a blacklist. Entry on such a list would mean that individuals would not be able to travel to other countries, except when permitted by the committee.
The top target, Cherizier, is a former Haiti National Police officer who has taken responsibility for the ongoing blockade of the country’s main fuel terminal. Singled out in the resolution, Cherizier is accused of planning, directing or committing “acts that constitute serious human rights abuses.”
But while Cherizier personifies Haiti’s descent into anarchy and the incredible power gangs wield, he also represents the shortcomings of sanctions.
In 2020, Cherizier and two then-government officials, Fednel Monchery and Joseph Pierre Richard Duplan, were sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, the agency in charge of enforcing U.S. sanctions, for their role in a November 2018 massacre in Port-au-Prince’s La Saline neighborhood. At least 71 people were killed and more than 400 houses torched, according to a U.N. investigation.
Despite the sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, a Haitian arrest warrant and repeated calls by members of the U.N. Security Council for Cherizier to be held accountable, he and his cohorts have remained free. In his case, he has been accused of carrying out other deadly attacks since then, including one in Port-au-Prince’s largest slum, where a violent clash between his gang coalition and another left over 470 people either dead, injured or missing. It may have also led to the resurgence of a cholera outbreak.
Russia’s first deputy permanent representative, Dmitry Polyanskiy, summed up the situation, saying despite its support for the U.N. sanctions, the federation is not convinced that international restrictive measures will be an appropriate response to the slew of complex problems in Haiti.
“A long-term solution, in one way or another, must be found in a political process, and socio-economic development in eradicating poverty and inequality,” Polyanskiy said.
