April 11th, 2009
Haiti Liberte: Violence Spikes in Cité Soleil
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by Kim Ives & Jean Baptiste Jean Ristil
One week after the inauguration of a refurbished police station there, gang wars have erupted in the seaside shanty town of Cité Soleil. The violence began on the morning of April 6 when sweatshop magnate Andy Apaid visited Cité Soleil.
On that morning, several raras, the mobile musical bands that chant topical refrains to throbbing horns and pounding drums, began circulating around Cité Soleil playing songs to protest Apaid's presence in Cité Soleil, which was a bastion of support for former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
Prior to and during the February 29, 2004 coup against Aristide, Apaid had financed gang leader Thomas Robinson, alias Labany , who battled pro-Lavalas groups in Cité Soleil. Apaid was also the leader of the so-called Group of 184, a National Endowment for Democracy-supported "civil society" opposition group which played a key destabilizing role in the 2004 coup. Labany was betrayed and killed by one of his lieutenants, Evens Jeune, in 2005. Jeune is in the National Penitentiary since early 2007 awaiting trial.
Among the raras in the streets of Cité Soleil that morning were Bay Kaw t, Shalom, Afrikrara, and Medellin. As the bands arrived near the former base of Evens Jeune, a gang leader and former soldier of Jeune named Jimmy forbade Bay Kaw t, the rara from the Bo Kanteen neighborhood, to circulate in the area of Upper Boston, the neighborhood of Medellin. For an unknown reason, Jimmy then struck another man named Ricardo, a bodyguard for Haitian hip-hop artist Wyclef Jean and a member of Jean's NGO, Yele-Haiti. Jimmy then drew a pistol and began shooting, causing others in the large crowd to do the same.
Soon there was a full-scale war between Upper Boston, the neighborhood of Jimmy and Medellin, and Lower Boston, the neighborhood of Ricardo and Bay Kaw t. Jimmy's gang came into Lower Boston and began destroying houses and shops, beating up people, and shooting in the air. Jimmy went to Ricardo's house on Rue La Bonté, behind the National School, and completely destroyed it. Jimmy also beat up another man named Frantz Siyou, also a member of Wyclef Jean's Yele-Haiti. Many people around Rue La Bonté hid in their homes or fled the neighborhood altogether.
Meanwhile, a gang from Lower Boston, headed by a leader called Toutouba, went to Upper Boston where they fired shots, threw bottles, destroyed property and made threats. Despite much shooting, which continued through the day and late into the night, there were no reported deaths.
Quickly the police and occupation troops from the UN Mission to Stabilize Haiti (MINUSTAH) intervened. They arrested several people, but most of them were released after being briefly detained at the new police station (see Ha ti Liberté, Vol. 2, No. 37, 4/1/2009)
On the morning of April 7, the police and MINUSTAH made another show of force in Cité Soleil, driving around in trucks and armored vehicles.
Haitian Police Inspector Rosemond Aristide declared that the police would conduct such operations in all of Cité Soleil's hot spots until the disturbances were quelled.
But historically, such police repression and intimidation tend to make matters worse.
For example, since April 5, gangs in the Cité Soleil neighborhoods of Cité Lumi re and Ruelle Sonson have been battling gangs in the Revolcy neighborhood. Heavy police and MINUSTAH intervention has had little or no effect in stemming that fighting.
Meanwhile, insecurity is growing. On April 7, around 8 p.m., gunmen armed with 9 millimeter pistols robbed two small food merchants, Madame Jean and Madame P , in Projet Drouillard. Route National 1, which runs by Cité Soleil, is also still controlled by bandits, despite the new police station only one hundred yards away.
Some have speculated that the spike in violence is a reaction to the reinforced police and MINUSTAH presence in Cité Soleil, where money is being spent on repression rather than relief of the population's every deepening misery. Others conjecture that the police and MINUSTAH may be fomenting the violence to justify their presence and the use of their new anti-riot gear and equipment, provided by the U.S. military contractor DynCorp.
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