Haiti warlord ‘Barbecue’ calls for uprising after PM ousted

Leader of the Vivre Ensemble gang alliance warns residents to stay at home to avoid the bloodshed

Haiti’s most powerful warlord has called for an escalation in the gang violence against the interim government after it moved to oust the prime minister.
The transitional council, a temporary body charged with organising the Caribbean nation’s first elections in a decade in 2026, announced that it was dismissing Garry Conille as prime minister on Friday.
Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier, the leader of the Vivre Ensemble gang alliance that controls much of Port-au-Prince, the capital, responded on Sunday with a video in which he called on residents to stay at home to avoid the bloodshed.
“The time for monitoring [the political situation] by the gangs of Vivre Ensemble is over,” said Cherizier, the target of both UN and US sanctions for his alleged human rights abuses.
“The time has come to take the destiny of this country into our own hands.”
Cherizier, a 47-year-old former police officer, allegedly gained his nickname from his habit of setting fire to his opponents’ homes while they are still inside.
Mr Conille’s dismissal and Cherizier’s response are serious blows for the US-backed attempts to restore order in Haiti and for ordinary Haitians whose lives have been devastated by the rampant gang bloodletting.
Almost 5,000 people have died in the fighting this year, often in the most brutal ways, including being hacked to death or having their homes set ablaze.
An estimated 700,000 people have been internally displaced while half the population is suffering acute food shortages.
Mr Conille’s apparent ousting comes after months of infighting with the transitional council, which was appointed last April in an attempt to fill the political vacuum that has allowed street gangs like Vivre Ensemble to control more than 80 per cent of the country of 12 million people.
The prime minister had sought to fire three of the council’s members accused of demanding a $750,000 bribe to confirm the head of a state-owned bank.
The council, meanwhile, has repeatedly pressured Mr Conille to change his cabinet.
A medical doctor and former head of Unicef’s Latin American and Caribbean operations, Mr Conille was regarded as a key ally of the US efforts to restore order in Haiti through an international security mission made up of police and troops from the Caribbean, Africa and Asia.
He is refusing to accept his dismissal, claiming the council has the authority to appoint prime ministers but not fire them.
In a letter to the Haitian people, signed “Prime Minister”, he said he would “challenge any illegal action motivated by narrow political interests that only add to the suffering of our people”.
The council, however, has already named Mr Conille’s successor, Alix Didier Fils-Aime, a former head of the national chamber of commerce and senatorial candidate who owns a chain of dry cleaners.
The latest political upheaval has dismayed Bob Rae, Canada’s ambassador to the UN, who leads an advisory committee on Haiti.
“Just when we are trying to find support for the security, economy and well-being of the country – the instability within the transitional council does not help the Haitian people or the confidence of your partners,” he said.