Two terrible events over the weekend of Dec. 6-8 threw light on the deplorable state of justice and security in metropolitan Port-au-Prince, predictably fueling renewed calls by U.S. officials for even stronger foreign military intervention.
The first event occurred in the blighted neighborhood of Wharf Jérémie, a garbage and sewage-covered swath of Cité Soleil where Monel “Micanord” Félix heads an armed group which is part of the Viv Ansanm (Live Together) coalition, the principal enemy of the Haitian National Police (PNH), the Armed Forces of Haiti (FAdH), and U.S.-funded Multinational Security Support mission (MSS), made up of 430 mostly Kenyan policemen.
Numerous conflicting press reports claim that between 110 to 184 people were killed in Wharf Jérémie on Micanord’s orders in retaliation for the death of his only child, a boy whom he allegedly believes died due to an evil spell put on him by Vodou practitioners living in the area. The grieving Micanord carried out the alleged revenge killings “on the advice of a local Vodou priest who accused the community’s elderly residents of being responsible for the child’s ailments,” reported the Miami Herald.
The surge of press reports began following a statement given to Haiti’s daily newspaper Le Nouvelliste by Pierre Espérance, the head of the National Network for the Defense of Human Rights (RNDDH), an infamous National Endowment for Democracy (NED)-funded human rights group, which has repeatedly offered erroneous and outright fabricated accounts of human rights abuse in years past, including its reports on massacres in La Scierie (2004, when it was called NCHR-Haiti), La Saline (2018), and Delmas 32 (2021).
Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier, Viv Ansanm’s leader and principal spokesman, told Haïti Liberté that once again the RNDDH was up to its old tricks.
“The first thing is that people died, but the numbers they are giving are not true,” Cherizier said. “It didn’t even come to 20 people, although I can’t give an exact number. Pierre Espérance and RNDDH are playing their political game. If 100 people died, just like they said happened in the so-called La Saline massacre, let them come with the list of the people who died. Pierre Espérance just gives out any figure that comes to his mind.”
Pressed on whether the killings were in retaliation for the death of Micanord’s son, Cherizier simply said that “what happened was connected to the acts of wrongdoers (malfektè),” without providing any further details.
However, many people who have had hope for the potential of Viv Ansanm to win the Haitian people’s trust and become a viable player in Haiti’s national liberation struggle have been sorely dismayed by the deaths, whatever their circumstances and number, in Wharf Jérémie.
“Even if only one person was executed due to a foolish, superstitious belief or baseless allegation, it is a crime,” said one Haitian intellectual who has been sympathetic to the Viv Ansanm’s stated goals. “There is no justification for the extrajudicial killing of people who are not committing a crime or being aggressive in some life-threatening way, particularly if they are elderly. Even though there was no political motive in these killings, if true even in part, it is appalling and will greatly damage the reputation, which was already very controversial and fragile, of the Viv Ansanm, especially after they issued a joint statement just last week that Haitians were free to circulate and go about their business in their neighborhoods without any fear or worry.”
Kervens Louissaint, a popular livestream host on several social media platforms, also gave Haïti Liberté a statement decrying the killings in Wharf Jérémie.
“For absurd accusations of witchcraft, fratricidal vendettas tear apart what remains of a social fabric already in tatters,” he wrote. “This reasoning is insane because it seeks to give meaning to the insane, a logic to what is only fear, ignorance, and despair.
“In a society in full decay, where order and reason have given way to the survival instinct, absurd explanations like this one take on a terrifying force. A belief in witchcraft, rooted in ignorance, history, and culture, here becomes an outlet for rage, an excuse for violence. But this pretext poorly masks the reality: these wars are not only spiritual. They are the result of an accumulation of frustrations, suffering, and a total state vacuum.
“This explanation also diverts responsibility. Accusing a rival of witchcraft to explain the death of a sick child is refusing to confront the real causes: poverty, lack of medical care, famine, insecurity. It transforms a human tragedy into a spectacle of incomprehensible barbarity. The accusation becomes a weapon, a means of perpetuating blind and devastating violence.”
The killings come after a period of unprecedented peace in Cité Soleil following the Viv Ansanm coalition’s formation in September 2023 and a follow-on truce in the giant slum forged in July 2024, sparking large street celebrations.
Even the violence monitoring network ACLED (Armed Conflict Location and Event Data) issued a report saying that in Cité Soleil “there were signs of progress in 2024″ and “a sharp drop in deadly gang-on-gang violence and targeting of civilians.” In Cité Soleil, “the Brooklyn and Nan Boston gangs even agreed to a truce and removed barricades that had divided their turf, allowing residents to move more freely,” ACLED continued. “Reflecting the non-aggression agreements between gangs, ACLED data shows that, prior to the [alleged Dec. 6-8] massacre, fatalities stemming from gang activities in Cité Soleil in 2024 had decreased by 91% compared to the previous year.” An accompanying chart shows deaths of over 300 in both 2022 and 2023 dropping to about 25 in 2024, before the alleged events in Wharf Jérémie.
USAID chief Samantha Power used the incident to issue a thinly-veiled call for more foreign intervention via a tweet, writing: “Horrific news – and an urgent reminder that lasting progress in Haiti will require an international effort to help the [Haitian] people achieve peace and security.”
Brian Nichols, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, also tweeted: “Appalled by reports that gangs massacred nearly 200 people in Haiti. We strongly condemn these brutal murders by gangs who continue to deepen the suffering of the Haitian people. We urge the international community to strengthen support for the MSS mission.”
The other violence that shocked Haitians across Haiti and its diaspora was the arrest and violent beating of two young unarmed Haitians who had gone to Tabarre, a Port-au-Prince suburb, to scavenge for scrap metal – iron and copper – to resell when they were stopped around 1:30 p.m. on Fri., Dec. 6 by PNH cops and FAdH soldiers, who accused them of being soldiers for Vitel’Homme Innocent’s Kraze Baryè (Break Down the Wall) armed group, part of Viv Ansanm.
The two men were Mackenley Saint Fleur, 21, of Delmas and Carlos Tity, 27, also of Delmas.
Cell-phone video footage shows the two bloodied men laying handcuffed, face down on pavement being kicked and stamped on by the boots of FAdH soldiers, cursing and interrogating them.
In many cases, according to dozens of people, such incidents end with the PNH or FAdH officers killing or disappearing their young victims.
But the incident happened near the U.S. Embassy, prompting it to tweet out the following statement: “We are aware of the incident that occurred near the Overseas Engineering & Construction Corp (OECC) compound in Tabarre. We closely monitor the security situation in the vicinity of the U.S. Embassy for the security of Haitian and U.S. staff and alerted the [PNH] and the FAD’H to the incident. The U.S. Embassy did not request the release of any individuals nor did we take any individuals into custody. The [PNH] took two individuals into custody and removed them from the area.”
Neither friends nor family could find out the fate of Saint Fleur and Tity from authorities until Tue., Dec. 10, when they found the two young men at Hopital Lape (The Peace Hospital) on the Delmas 33 road.
“I think they’re lives were spared due to the U.S. Embassy personnel who were involved in the incident,” said Jason “Zeke” Petrie, a U.S. citizen who lived in Haiti for many years and wrote a book, Reach and Fall, about his experiences there. Petrie was best friends with Mackenson “Jha Jha” Saint Fleur, Mackenley’s father, who was killed in Cité Soleil on Mar. 24, 2023.
“There was a lot riding on this incident,” Petrie continued. “If those two kids were murdered or just disappeared, there would be a lot of heat on the U.S. Embassy. That’s why I think that Pierre Espérance and company have now taken this story about Micanord and inflated and exaggerated it so that the shock value of that will make people forget about what happened to these young kids the other day and the involvement of the U.S. Embassy.”
Meanwhile, the Yon Ayiti, Yon Sèl Pèp YouTube channel reported that the U.S. Embassy has asked for charges to be brought against the soldiers who arrested and beat Saint Fleur and Tity. The channel also asserted that, according to Haiti’s Defense Ministry, U.S. Embassy personnel had come to the spot where soldiers had arrested the young men, and that the soldiers then transported their prisoners to the PNH.
Meanwhile, the PNH has been less than transparent in its issuance of warrants against three Haitian expatriates last week, including Kervens Louissaint, accusing them of “criminal association” because of their political views. One of the expatriates, Ralph Laurent (Max Louissaint), the producer of the popular YouTube channel “Tele Live Tanbou Verite a” (Truth Drum Live Television), had his lawyer in Haiti go to the Central Direction of the Judicial Police (DCPJ) to retrieve a copy of the charges against Laurent, but the police either could not or would not provide the legal documents.
