Could the gangs of Port-au-Prince form a pact to revitalise Haiti's capital?

Haiti’s leaders have long made use of armed groups to impose their will in the streets of vibrant but derelict Port-Au-Prince, offering precious little in return. Now some of those communities may have had enough 

Michael Deibert in Port-au-Prince

Tuesday 14 July 2015 12.01 BST

The Guardian

(Read the original article here) 

Sitting inside the Day-Glo-coloured nightclub that he runs on a hillside speckled with squat cement houses, Christla Chery, 32, pushes his baseball cap back on his head and outlines his community’s problems.

“We don’t have water, we don’t have electricity, we don’t have anything here. The state is completely absent from this neighbourhood,” he says, as the Caribbean winds clatter over the zinc roof. “This is a prison where we are deprived of our liberty. We would like the freedom of every person here to enter society.”

The neighbourhood of Ti Bois, where Chery has his nightclub, wraps like a necklace around the southern hills of Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital. From this remove, the city pulses below: a nearly silent tableau of the tumbling azure ocean, curling smoke rising from burning garbage and thousands upon thousands of cars.
 
Though many refer to Chery and his compatriots as gang leaders, they have a different perception of themselves and their armed followers, whom they refer to as the baz – the base of the neighbourhood. Chery and his men enact a role that falls somewhere between political pressure group, warlord and tax collector, gathering tolls from the various supply trucks that pass along the narrow lanes.

The baz within Martissant – the larger neighbourhood of which Ti Bois is part – have often been in conflict among themselves. Despite being in a strategic location in the city – it overlooks the main road to the south of the country – Martissant was offered precious little by the state, even before the country’s devastating January 2010 earthquake. The baz have functioned in that power vacuum for years as a kind of de facto community government. Now, with Haitian elections scheduled for this year, the various baz are working to maintain a tense peace between themselves.

Haiti’s leaders have made use of armed groups, some quasi-regular and some not, to impose their will in Port-au-Prince virtually since the country’s founding. The history of the capital city has in part been the history of the fighting between these groups. Now that may be changing. “For years, [the politicians] would ask us to burn tyres, to cause disorder … but there was no development,” Chery says. “And we don’t want that anymore.”

Among those trying to facilitate a peaceful coexistence between the various baz in the city is the Lakou Lapè (the name means “peaceful community” in Creole). The two-year-old group has a mission to promote a culture of non-violence and dialogue.

“It’s like three steps forward, two steps backward,” says Louis Henri-Mars, Lakou Lapè’s executive director and the grandson of Haitian author Jean Price-Mars, one of the founders of the négritude movement of black consciousness. “But we know it takes time. Change comes from positive encounters and relationships that make positive connections happen. They allow you to get a different world view to come out of the craziness you’ve been living in.”

Under Faustin Soulouque, who crowned himself emperor and ruled Haiti from 1849 to 1859, the armed groups supporting him were referred to as zinglin. Around the same time, the peasant backers of the renegade general Louis-Jean-Jacques Acaau in the south of the country were referred to as l’armée souffrante (the suffering army). Haitian dictator François “Papa Doc” Duvalier, who ruled from 1957 until his death in 1971, formed the denim-clad Tontons Macoutes, a kind of shock troop with the dual purpose of repressing dissent and insulating him from an army coup such as those that had ousted his predecessors. His son, Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, inherited the Macoute system when he became president as a morbidly obese 19-year-old. Duvalier the younger was overthrown in 1986, returned to Haiti in 2011 and died peacefully there last year, having never answered for his crimes (of which those committed through the Macoutes were only part). Under Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who has the unique distinction of being overthrown not once but twice, the (often quite young) gunmen tasked with protecting the regime were called chimère, after a mythical fire-breathing demon.

As much as the better-known slum of Cité Soleil, Martissant has always been a redoubt of such paramilitaries. Roger Lafontant, a feared Macoute leader who died during the 1991 coup against Aristide, formed an armed group that operated in the area in the late 1980s. Later, the most powerful gang in Martissant was run by Felix “Don Féfé” Bien-Aimé, an Aristide loyalist who orchestrated the murder of at least 13 people in the neighbouring Fort Mercredi district, after which he was nevertheless awarded a patronage job as the director of Port-au-Prince’s main cemetery. He was himself later “disappeared” by the police.

Since 2004, an ever-shifting panoply of groups have occupied the various zones of Martissant – Ti Bois, Grand Ravine, Descayettes and 2eme Avenue. One group, the Lame Ti Manchèt (or L’armée des Petites Machettes, the Little Machete Army), was affiliated with rogue elements of the national police. Another of the largest Grand Ravine gangs was run by Dymsley “Ti Lou” Milien, who broke out of jail after being arrested for his alleged role in the 2000 murder of Haiti’s most prominent journalist, Jean Léopold Dominique. Up until recently, from a foreign mobile number, Ti Lou has regularly called his followers who listen, rapt, as a mobile phone is held aloft to transmit his words.

But relations between Ti Bois and Grand Ravine are now relatively calm, which makes many hope that Martissant can perhaps invigorate some of its long-moribund tourism industry. As hard as it may be to envision after the 2010 quake – and despite being levelled by previous earthquakes in 1751 and 1770 as well – Port-au-Prince was once thought of as one of the glorious cities of the Caribbean. Travelling to Haiti in 1929, the British author Alec Waugh wrote that Port-au-Prince was:

One of the loveliest towns in the New World … The walls of houses and the twin spires of the cathedral gleam brightly through and above deep banks of foliage … It is through wide, clean streets, through the open park of the Champs de Mars, through a town that is half a garden, that you drive out toward the hills.

Martissant itself was one of the hubs for visitors to the capital. Just a few streets below Chery’s house is the beautiful Parc de Martissant, a restful space filled with dripping vegetation and bright bird of paradise flowers. The 42-acre park has now been reclaimed by the Fondasyon Konesans Ak Libète (Fokal), a civil society group working on education, human development and economic issues.

Within the park sits the Habitation Leclerc, an early 19th-century building that was allegedly once home to Napoleon Bonaparte’s sister, Pauline, and her husband, French general Charles Leclerc, who was sent to Haiti to stamp out the slave rebellion that ultimately created the world’s first black republic. The property was eventually purchased by the American choreographer Katherine Dunham, whose 1969 autobiography, Island Possessed, remains an essential read. She turned Habitation Leclerc into a lavish hotel that attracted the jet-set, who availed themselves of nearby casinos and bars staffed by Dominican prostitutes (extraordinarily, despite fear of Aids and three decades of political upheaval, many of these bars still exist). But, by the late 1990s, the property – like some other areas of Port-au-Prince – had been overrun by gangs and squatters.

Recent restoration efforts have begun to return the gorgeous old structure to its former glory. Nor is it alone as a zone of possible rebirth. Outside of Martissant, the district of Bel-Air, which rises on the hills above a broad square that once housed Haiti’s National Palace (destroyed in the 2010 earthquake), has a rich tradition of music and art. For many years it was a centre for the production of drapo vodou, or voodoo flags, beautiful fabric-and-sequin creations bearing representations of the various Iwa (spirits). It, too, fell into disrepair and was heavily damaged in the quake, but it someday might have the potential to be a fascinating neighbourhood again.

Haiti’s current political scene, though, gives rise to concern that national politics will once again factionalise the city’s neighbourhood communities. The outgoing president, Michel Martelly – often referred to as Tèt Kale (Bald Head) – delivered a long, obscene rant against his opponents during a huge concert in the Champ de Mars plaza last month. Among those running to replace him are a senator, Moïse Jean-Charles, whose chief occupation as mayor of the northern city of Milot appeared to be bullying political opponents and journalists, and Jude Célestin, who has been accused by a now-jailed gang leader of involvement in the 2009 disappearance of another government employee. One senate candidate for Martelly’s party, Annette “Sò Anne” Auguste, is running despite being named by a judge for her own alleged role in the Jean Dominique killing.

Strange and somewhat menacing symbolism abounds in the city. Last month, supporters of excluded candidates held a suggestive mock “funeral” for Haiti’s election officials. An unseemly revisionism of the Duvalier years has also taken hold, with magazines advertising “Papa Doc Cigars” printed with the number 57 (the year of his inauguration). The election is also taking place as thousands of Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent are being expelled from the neighbouring Dominican Republic, which Human Rights Watch called “ongoing violations of the human right to a nationality”.
In such a context, Mario Andrésol, the head of the Police Nationale d’Haïti (PNH), the country’s national police force, from 2006 until 2012, collected 159,000 signatures to be accepted as an independent candidate for president. On a recent day, he was hosting a meeting of young activists from impoverished regions such as Bel Air and Cité Soleil at his Port-au-Prince home.

“We need to redefine ourselves as a nation, and the vision is to change a corrupted system,” says Andrésol. “We need to have institutional reinforcement. The executive, the legislative and the judiciary are supposed to be independent, but they’re not. The president has too many privileges, too many prerogatives. The president needs to understand that he’s the servant of the people.”

Meanwhile, for many of those in the capital who survived the 2010 earthquake – and were not relocated to the questionable sanctuary of some far-flung new camp – life goes on much as it did before, chache lavi (looking for life). The moto taxi drivers still stand in a line outside of the Djoumbala nightclub. The vendor women still haggle and laugh in the Pétionville market. The residents near the Stade Sylvio Cator still go about their lives in a swirl of dust and exhaust fumes and a cacophony of engines, horns and blaring music. In my old neighbourhood of Pacot, wreathed in bougainvillea and full of houses in Haiti’s distinctive gingerbread style of architecture, delicious cabrit en sauce is still on offer and groups playing Haiti’s plangent rara music still march through the streets.

Haiti’s national character – gentle, kind, good-humoured, quick-witted – stands in stark contrast to the take-no-prisoners blood sport of the country’s political culture. But, beyond the shrill ramblings of its politicians, at a certain hour of the day one is reminded of the words of Jacques Stephen Alexis, one of Haiti’s greatest writers, when he described Port-au-Prince in his 1955 book Compère Général Soleil (General Sun, My Brother):

Towards three o’clock in the afternoon the wind picked up suddenly, galloping and roaring through the city. The pelicans over the port whirled endlessly. The sea put on its fancy green dress and donned shawls of lace foam.

Looking down on the capital from Ti Bois as the setting sun lathers a honeyed light on to the surrounding mountains, one can see what he meant.

And Ti Bois, as it happens, does not appear to be the only baz that is gradually awakening to the fact that Haiti’s politicians have long used them as little more than cannon fodder, providing precious little in return as their districts sank ever-deeper into poverty.

Across town, in the popular quarter of Saint Martin, a rabble-rousing deputy in Haiti’s lower house of parliament – known for his violent background and temper – recently showed up in his constituency to seek support for his political ambitions, as he always had. Instead of finding a receptive audience, he was relieved of his weapon, his money and sent out of the neighbourhood with a message not to return.

Bullet

Photo © Michael Deibert

In July 2006, I picked this shell casing up from the ground in the Port-au-Prince neighborhood of Martissant , during one of the worst bouts of gang warfare Haiti's capital had ever seen. I was there working on an article trying to explain what was going on, why the violence was happening. Two of the people I interviewed during those visits were killed shortly thereafter, and it was there that I finally learned the fate of an old friend who had disappeared the year before. I don't know why I keep it, but I do, right here next to my collection of books on Haiti.

A response to Tom Luce

Recently, I was forwarded an article written about me by Tom Luce, a man who runs something called Human Rights Accompaniment In Haiti, Inc. (Hurah). Generally, I don't respond to these sorts of things. While fringe dwellers and organizations can be an interesting subject in and of themselves, indicative as they are of the often smug condescension and paternalism that wealthy foreigners feel about poor people the world over, an entire article examining them, and their habit of haunting the internet day and night, spoiling for a fight and libeling people, would be an esoteric and tedious undertaking indeed. However, I felt that it might be worthwhile for readers if I took some time to respond to some of Mr. Luce's egregious misstatements and outright fabrications.

Accusing someone of "contributing to a proxy war" is a serious charge, Fortunately, judging by Mr. Luce's ponderous and slanderous diatribe against this member of the press, it evidently does not come from a very serious individual. When Mr Luce writes that my article is supporting "the prolongation of this proxy war, poor people killing poor people, as a way for the more affluent and powerful to keep their hands clean and keep hold of their power," he exposes both an appalling ignorance of the situation on the ground of Martissant and of the article he sets out to critique.

Apparently the statement in my article that "all armed groups in the neighborhood have been implicated in the grossest human rights violations by residents," followed by "the international community must demand human rights for all in Haiti, without distinction for political affiliation, as it is truly the only way forward," suggesting as it does one standard of human rights for all groups to adhere to (echoing my November 2005 Newsday editorial, "Ballots instead of bullets"), isn't explicit enough for Mr. Luce, so I will try and hold his hand a little further.

Visiting Grand Ravine, Ti Bois, and Déscartes with two other journalists in the summer of 2006, we came upon a scene of desolation of violence as bad as anything I have ever seen in Haiti. My colleague Thos Robinson shot hundreds of photos as I interviewed dozens of people (including Esterne Bruner) in all three areas of the community in Kreyol (the tapes are still in my possession). I suppose there is some other explanation for what we saw in Ti Bois - the hundreds of burned homes, the hundreds of people fleeing down the hillside with their meager belongings on their heads and the people who grabbed hold of my microphone to tell the story of rape, murder and arson that Grand Ravine gang leaders such as Wilkens "Chien Chaud" Pierre (whom I also interviewed, and is now deceased) and Dymsley "Ti Lou" Milien (wanted for alleged involvement in the slaying of Radio Haiti-Inter's Jean Dominique) were bringing to their district - so perhaps Mr. Luce should return to Haiti and lecture those poor people on how they are bringing a bad image to the "movement" he holds so dear, to stop spreading these vicious lies and to go back to the ruins of their homes and live quietly so that they do not complicate the rigid ideological view of the world people like Mr. Luce cling to from a safe distance. Are these the "affluent and powerful" people Mr. Luce had in mind? Likewise, when Luce writes that there was "no proof" of inter-gang warfare in the region in 2006, he ignores (or perhaps is unable to read?) the extensive listing of Haitian radio reports I provide in my article, all recorded on the ground, in Kreyol, which attest to the very war whose existence Luce tries to hide.

Luce's reference to "violence on the part of alleged Lavalas people" is pure proof of his intellectual dishonesty. If there was violence committed in the name of the Fanmi Lavalas party, it was by "alleged" affiliates because, naturally, no affiliate of the party whose supposed purity Luce fetishizes to such an extent could ever be guilty of violence. To write that "some Lavalas adherents did take up arms in defense of their lives and property before and after the 04 coup" is a nice way of sanitizing what I and others on the ground during the 2001-2004 era saw: A government policy and program of arming young men, some of them barely into their teens, as a means for one political party to bully and terrorize its opponents into submission. I know this because some of those young men were my friends, and, despite their often violent behavior, I had far greater respect for them and the honor with which they conducted themselves than the rancid politicians or their cynical foreign advocates like Mr. Luce who so used them and continue to do so. As we can see, Mr. Luce continues to use the bodies of those young boys as currency to score political points even today.

Likewise, I am rather sure the courageous priest Max Dominique, whose funeral oration for Pere Adrien in May 2003, where Dominique denounced the repressive system Jean-Bertrand Aristide had put in place and likened the chimere to the attachés and Macoutes of yore (and which resulted in political thugs arriving at his door that night screaming for his head) , must be rolling over in his grave at Luce's attempt to evoke his name to bolster his dishonest and highly partisan attempts to excuse the murder of the residents of Ti Bois because, unlike some of the equally long-suffering residents of Grand Ravine, they were not members of the "correct" political movement. It is a shame that Tom Luce wasn't on hand, as I was, one morning in January 2003 when Dominique delivered the funeral oration for three brothers from Carrefour murdered with impunity by the police, their coffins soon to be taken to the front of the National Palace in protest, and where Dominique thundered "No to impunity! No to insecurity! We demand justice!"

That was a rallying cry worth following.

Michael Deibert