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The United Nations Security Council is set to vote on a resolution calling for an immediate end to violence and crime in Haiti and to impose sanctions on influential gang leader Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier.
The resolution would also impose sanctions on other Haitian individuals and groups engaged in actions that threaten the peace, security or stability of the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, according to the final draft obtained by The Associated Press.
Security Council diplomats said the 10-page draft resolution was voted “in blue” late on Tuesday — a final form that can be voted on — on Wednesday afternoon.
Daily life in Haiti began to spiral out of control last month after Prime Minister Ariel Henry said he would scrap fuel subsidies, doubling prices.
Gangs have blocked access to the Varreux fuel terminal, leading to a severe shortage of fuel at a time when clean water is scarce as the country grapples with a deadly cholera outbreak.
The resolution drafted by the U.S. and Mexico targets only former police officer Cherizier, who leads a coalition of Haitian gangs, with a travel ban, assets freeze and arms embargo.
But it will set up a Security Council committee to designate other Haitians and groups on a sanctions blacklist.
“Cherizier and his coalition of G9 gangs are actively preventing the free flow of fuel from the Varreux fuel terminal, the largest in Haiti,” the draft said.
“His actions directly contributed to Haiti’s economic paralysis and humanitarian crisis.”
Cherizier also “participated in acts that threatened the peace, security and stability of Haiti and planned, directed or committed serious human rights violations,” the draft resolution said.
While serving in the police, he planned and participated in a deadly November 2018 attack in the Lazarin area of the capital, Port-au-Prince, which killed at least 71 people, destroyed more than 400 homes and killed at least seven women by armed gangs, reports say rape.
In a video posted on Facebook last week, Cherizier called on the government to pardon him and G9 members and lift all warrants against them.
The economic and social situation in Haiti is deteriorating day by day, he said in Creole, so “there has never been a better time to dismantle this system”.
He outlined a transition plan to restore order in Haiti. It will include the creation of a Council of Sages, with a representative from each of Haiti’s 10 departments to run the country, led by an interim president until presidential elections in February 2024.
It also calls for restructuring the Haitian National Police and strengthening the army.
“This country (faces) one crisis after another,” Cherizier said. “In all these crises, the first victims are the population, the people in the ghettos, the farmers.”
The draft resolution “addresses extremely serious gang violence and other criminal activities, including kidnapping, human trafficking and migrant smuggling, homicide, and sexual and gender-based violence, including rape and sexual slavery, as well as the continued impunity of perpetrators, corruption and gang recruitment of children and the impact of the situation in Haiti on the region”.
It called for an “immediate cessation of violence, criminal activity and human rights violations that undermine peace, stability and security in Haiti and the region”.
It also urged “all political actors” to engage in negotiations to overcome the crisis in Haiti and allow legislative and presidential elections to be held “as soon as the security situation on the ground allows”.
Political instability has been brewing since the unresolved assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise last year, who faced opposition protests demanding his resignation over corruption allegations, claiming His five-year term has ended.
Mr Moyes dissolved parliament in January 2020 after lawmakers failed to hold elections in 2019 due to political gridlock.
Haiti has been plagued by inflation, driving up prices, denying access to food and fuel for many Haitians and fueling protests that have pushed the society to the brink of collapse. Violence is rampant, making parents afraid to send their children to school.
Hospitals, banks and grocery stores are struggling to stay open. Clean water is scarce and the country is grappling with a cholera outbreak.
The president of the Dominican Republic, which borders the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, recently described the situation as a “low-intensity civil war”.
The United States and Mexico are preparing a second U.N. resolution that would authorize an international mission to help improve security in Haiti, U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said, in a message from the Haitian government to the people of the crisis-ravaged country. “Call for help”.
Ms Thomas-Greenfield said the proposed “non-UN” mission would be limited in time and scope and would be led by an unidentified “partner country” with “the deep, necessary experience that such an endeavour would require” to be effective “.
It will have the right to use military force if necessary.
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