(Port-au-Prince) Since April 24, police and residents have joined forces to block the way for armed criminal groups in Haiti, dramatically reducing the number of kidnappings. In May, there were a handful in the cities of Port-au-Prince, Delmas and Pétion-Ville, compared to five to ten per day since the start of 2023. But in the process, more than 150 public lynchings of people accused by the mob to be linked to gangs have also been recorded in the country.
The Press returned to the very place where the new movement of self-defense brigades nicknamed Bwa Kale (branch without bark, pronounced “wood wedged”) was born, in Cité-Gabriel, on April 24th.
The children of Sonson Luma* (who prefers to conceal his real name) will long remember this sad morning when armed gangs landed to sow terror. “They saw long weapons and people being burned,” the young 30-year-old explained to The Press. We are sitting on the side of a ravine overlooking the Cité-Gabriel district, built on the mountain a few decades ago behind the old historic quarters of the city. “My son is traumatized. My little girl [de 8 ans], it was not until the third day that she managed to sleep. »
Defend your home
That night, men with assault rifles arrived shortly before midnight in vehicles on the only paved road that climbs to the Cité-Gabriel district. While shooting in the air to celebrate their action, they entered several residences and violently ransacked them.
“Around 2 a.m., I felt like the shots were right at the back of my house,” recalls police officer in his twenties Jean Marie Joseph*, who lives nearby. He prefers to conceal his name to protect his employer.
In panic, thousands of residents were forced into hiding or fleeing. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) counted more than 1,500 displaced people in Port-au-Prince for that day alone.
PHOTO ÉTIENNE CÔTÉ-PALUCK, SPECIAL COLLABORATION
The Cité-Gabriel district
“During the night with fellow police officers from the area, we first, on our own, located the shots by calling and sending messages to each other,” continues the police officer. Awakened in the middle of the night, they set up surveillance of “sensitive points” while waiting for reinforcements.
At dawn, several police tactical response teams arrived and mounted a more forceful response.
“The real battle started at 6 a.m. when the sun was up,” recalls Mr. Luma.
Almost at the same time in a neighboring district, a dozen armed men were arrested during a police check on a bus. Suspected of being possible reinforcements to support the attackers of Cité-Gabriel, they were almost immediately burned alive by an angry mob.
The message was now clear, and the multiple videos went viral: citizens are giving themselves permission to organize forcefully to protect their neighborhood.
“Everyone realized that the population had to support the work of the police,” says Mr. Luma, to explain this rage that mobilized people in his neighborhood. Self-defense brigades were then formed everywhere around Cité-Gabriel before spreading in the following days to other places in the city and the country.
“Fear has changed sides”
Last Wednesday, it was part of the southern suburbs of Port-au-Prince that saw the erection of these popular barricades with men armed with machetes and sticks. The city of Carrefour had also been spared by the great insecurity, but a new incursion of armed men occurred there at the beginning of the week.
PHOTO ÉTIENNE CÔTÉ-PALUCK, SPECIAL COLLABORATION
Makeshift barricades like this have been erected in some streets of Port-au-Prince.
Makeshift barricades are now found in many parts of the Haitian capital, sometimes even accompanied by searches of people wishing to access protected areas.
Since the events of April 24, curfews have also been imposed at night in some places, usually around 8 or 9 p.m.
Numerous hunts were also organized to track down possible assailants of Cité-Gabriel on the run, with or without the support of the police. These beatings spread to Port-au-Prince and elsewhere in the country.
On the hill leading to Cité-Gabriel, the crowd began to systematically seize the alleged assailants. Most often, she executed them without any other form of trial. Several dozen people were reportedly killed there throughout the week.
“Fear has changed sides,” headlined a Port-au-Prince daily at the end of April, in reaction to the latest incidents.
“Although we shouldn’t have the right to life or death over someone, the crowd was far too large,” explains Constable Joseph. All along the coast there were charred bodies. »
“And right now in some areas, if people want to do a kidnapping, they’ll never be able to get out. [vivants], he concludes. Even the bandits began to be afraid. »
“The decrease in kidnappings is also due to the fact that the majority of small passages between neighborhoods are closed,” explains Mr. Luma, who is also a taxi driver. He has just raised funds in his community for the purchase of five solar street lights which will be installed shortly.
“We’re going to do this until the country is completely cleansed,” he said. That’s how it should be. We have to regain our freedom. »
“Lost Territories”
According to the UN and numerous human rights organizations, most of the territory in the Port-au-Prince region is now under the control of armed groups. Some of these areas are even “lost territories”, as the Minister of Justice and Public Security, Emmelie Prophet, said a few weeks ago.
Self-defense brigades: A worrying movement
PHOTO ÉTIENNE CÔTÉ-PALUCK, SPECIAL COLLABORATION
Port au Prince
Five questions for Rosy Auguste Ducena, program manager at the National Network for the Defense of Human Rights (RNDDH) in Port-au-Prince*
Q: How do you interpret the drop in kidnappings over the past month in Port-au-Prince?
R. By this rage demonstrated by citizens who believe they must take their destiny into their own hands, the Haitian State having shown, for several years, no desire to put an end to the situation of insecurity in the country. On the contrary, the state has always protected armed gangs. Now members of these gangs have realized that even with the protection of state authorities, they too can be lynched.
Q: Where does the lack of public confidence in the justice system come from?
R. For several years, massacres and armed attacks have been recorded in the country. People have been murdered, women and girls have been raped, other people have been abducted from the streets or from their homes. No individual has been tried and sentenced for these acts. On the contrary, the rare bandits arrested were released, in particular by the prosecutors of the courts of Port-au-Prince and Croix-des-Bouquets. In these circumstances, it is no surprise that the population has lost confidence in this justice system which does not protect them against their attackers.
Q: What changes have you observed in the streets of Port-au-Prince following the popular movement of self-defense brigades?
R. There has been a significant drop in acts that attack lives and property in the Ouest department. Although the armed gangs remain active and continue to sow grief, they are not so arrogant in their modus operandi since the Bwa Kale movement.
However, this decline in violations of the rights to life, security and physical and mental integrity of the Haitian population does not prevent the RNDDH from being concerned about this movement as well as the self-defense brigades.
It has been reported to us that unknown persons encountered in neighborhoods they were brought to frequent were subjected to summary interrogations before being executed.
We have indeed seen several videos where people have been executed for not having provided the correct answer, that is to say the one expected by the crowd.
Q: How should the police respond to this movement?
R. The police should invite citizens to provide them with precise information in order to allow them to intervene themselves.
It is also the right time for the police institution to show intelligence and show that it can solve the problem of insecurity itself.
Q: What are the limits of a move like that?
R. Such a movement cannot be a palliative to the problems of insecurity. Even if, for the moment, it seems to us the only possible answer, the Haitian State must understand that this spiral of violence generates unacceptable violations of the rights to life and to the legal guarantees of those lynched.
For us, it is clear that the Bwa Kale or the self-defense brigades cannot replace the criminal chain in general and the Haitian judicial system in particular.
*Answers have been shortened for brevity.