Government Drone Attack on Delmas 6 Neighborhood Kills Two, Wounds 14

(Français)

Several pro-intervention media breathlessly reported on Mar. 1 that a Haitian National Police (PNH) drone attack had killed several soldiers of Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier, the main leader and spokesman of the Viv Ansanm (Live Together) Political Party, in the Delmas 6 neighborhood where he is based. They even relayed “unconfirmed” reports that Cherizier himself was killed.

In reality, an operation carried out by two weaponized drones at about 1:30 p.m. that day only wounded four of Cherizier’s soldiers but also 12 other Delmas 6 residents, according to Cherizier.

The attack began when snipers based in the Fort National neighborhood fired on a pick-up truck Cherizier was driving in through Delmas 6, wounding two soldiers riding in the back of the vehicle. They were shot as the pick-up passed through a large intersection in which snipers had targeted passers-by during previous periods of war over the past six years.

“When the guys were hit, I got out of the truck, applied tourniquets to their wounds to stop the bleeding, and sent them to a hospital,” Cherizier explained to Haïti Liberté. “The guys watching from Fort National didn’t know I was in the pick-up, because it wasn’t mine. But when they saw me get out of the vehicle, that’s when they deployed the first drone.”

When two of Cherizier’s soldiers saw the drone approaching, “they pushed me into a house and fired on the drone, hitting it and causing it to explode,” Cherizier continued. “When the [bomb-carrying] drone exploded, [the cops] thought that they had wounded me, so they sent a second drone to finish me off.”

“When the second drone came down, my guys saw it, and they went to take it, but it had a bomb that exploded,” Cherizier explained. “So four of my soldiers were wounded, and the one who had already taken a bullet in the leg was in a very serious state.”

The second drone exploded by a house with both young and older handicapped people. A total of 16 people were wounded, and two of them died later at the hospital from their injuries. Cherizier said he will organize funerals for them.

The snipers in the Fort National neighborhood, Cherizier believes, have been shooting from the garrison that sits on the top of downtown Port-au-Prince’s highest hill. It was originally built by the British after they briefly captured the city in 1793. In recent decades, it housed a detachment of the UN Mission to Stabilize Haiti (MINUSTAH) from 2004 to 2017 and then was transformed into a base for the PNH’s Brigade for Departmental Operations and Intervention (BOID).

Fort National snipers have fired on numerous people passing through that particular Delmas 6 intersection. “I’ve had to build an alley (kòridò) that will allow people to pass through that area,” Cherizier said.

The same day at about the same time, another PNH drone attacked the Village de Dieu neighborhood, which is the base of the Viv Ansanm’s largest and best-equipped armed group headed by Johnson “Izo” André.

“They landed a drone near Izo the same way they sent one near me,” Cherizier explained.

Two small pieces of shrapnel from the exploding drone apparently hit Izo in the forehead and chest, according to an online video. At least one media, Nouvel Planèt, incorrectly reported that Izo had been wounded by a PNH bullet, “but he didn’t die” although “the bullet’s impact had grave consequences.” In the video, the medical examiner looking at the shrapnel in Izo’s chest said “it isn’t serious.”

Current Transitional Presidential Council (TPC) president Leslie Voltaire is scheduled to pass the presidency on Mar. 7 to the Montana Accord’s delegate Fritz Alphonse Jean, who already in December announced that he would seek to make a “war budget” to fight the Viv Ansanm armed groups.

However, there continues to be bad blood and friction between PNH Chief Rameau Normil and Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé, who would like to put in a PNH commander of his own choosing.

In a Mar. 3 video, Cherizier questioned whether the attack on his neighborhood was carried out by the PNH or rather by the Prime Minister’s office in conjunction with the Leslie Voltaire-headed TPC, which have formed their own  “Task Force” to combat Haiti’s armed groups.

In a video on the night of Mar. 1, Cherizier told Haiti’s de facto leaders that he was ready to respond in kind.  “Remember that I always say force should be proportional,” he said. “If you are going to use drones with explosives to assassinate me, I can use a drone with explosives against [you] too. Because the world sells everything. I can buy one too.”

“I’m going to respond” to this attack, he said in the Mar. 3 video. “The reaction should be stronger than the action. You attacked me. I’m going to hit back… We have nothing to lose. We are field slaves.” But he also added a conciliatory note.

“The only thing that can extract Haiti from the hole it is in right now is dialogue,” Cherizier concluded. “Let us talk to each other and explain what we need.”