Jimmy ‘Barbecue’ Cherizier, a former Haiti cop turned gang boss, has ascended to Haiti’s “Most Powerful Man” amidst the country’s instability. The gang-led insurrection against Haiti’s government has brought the 47-year-old mobster into the international spotlight.
Murals in the impoverished Haitian slums he governs compare him to the Argentine guerilla Ernesto “Che” Guevara. In interviews, he portrays himself as a devout Caribbean Robin Hood, praising agitators and liberation fighters such as Malcolm X, Thomas Sankara, and Fidel Castro.
“I like Martin Luther King, too,” the Haitian gang boss Jimmy Chérizier told The New Yorker journalist Jon Lee Anderson during last year’s meeting. “But he didn’t like fighting with guns, and I fight with guns.”
Who is Jimmy ‘Barbecue’ Cherizier?
Jimmy Chérizier, the outlaw from Haiti, has gradually emerged as the major voice for the gang uprising against Prime Minister Ariel Henry. Over the last five years, he has brought a lot of foreign media into his gangland region to defend his so-called noble, albeit bloody, crusade to protect his nation’s starving urban poor.
“I’m not a thief. I’m not involved in kidnappings. I’m not a rapist. I’m just carrying out a social fight,” Chérizier told the Associated Press last year while sitting outside a bullet-pocked house.
Chérizier referred to his motley crew of favela soldiers as “a sociopolitical structure and force that is fighting on behalf of the vulnerable” in a 2022 interview with Vice. According to experts, Chérizier, often known as just Babekyou (Barbecue), has a significantly darker and more nuanced backstory.
Rise of Jimmy ‘Barbecue’ Cherizier from a harsh childhood in Duvalier’s Haiti
Chérizier previously revealed that he was one of eight siblings and lost his father when he was five years old. He was born in the 1970s, during the brutal and corrupt reign of Baby Doc Duvalier. He was raised by a woman who sold fried chicken on the streets of Delmas, one of the decaying Port-au-Prince areas that he now administers.
Chérizier says that his moniker “Barbecue” comes from his mother’s occupation, but many believe it stems from his habit of burning his victims alive.
Chérizier served in Haiti’s national police force before becoming the country’s most powerful gang leader. He worked for the Unité départementale de maintien d’ordre, a riot squad, whose members are suspected of killing demonstrators with their guns.
“Proteger et servir” means to protect and serve, and it is the slogan of the Haitian police. However, Chérizier doesn’t seem to have upheld those ideals; he has also openly expressed his respect for Baby Doc’s father, François “Papa Doc” Duvalier.
He was fired from the force in 2018 after being suspected of participating in multiple crimes, including a horrific slaughter that year in the La Saline slum that killed 71 people, raped seven women, and burned down 400 homes.
Chérizier, the leader of the G9 Family and Allies group, has denied any responsibility. The former police officer, however, has been sanctioned by the United States and the United Nations for his alleged wrongdoing. The G9 controls some of Port-au-Prince’s largest slums and main thoroughfares, allowing Chérizier to frequently paralyze the nation by shutting off fuel supplies and forcing clinics and schools to close.
The head of the Haitian nonprofit Lakou Lapè, Louis-Henri Mars, declared, “He is a criminal businessman.”
Jimmy Chérizier’s leap from gang leader to political influencer amid Haiti’s turmoil
Chérizier, like many of Haiti’s criminal lords, has substantial political ties. It was reported that he was close to Jovenel Moïse, the previous president whose killing in 2021 created the current crisis. Many believe Jimmy Chérizier has personal political ambitions.
Diego Da Rin, an expert with the International Crisis Group in Haiti, said Jimmy Chérizier’s attempt to portray himself as a sympathetic but firm defender of the ghetto had some credibility. On Mother’s Day, he gives gifts to ladies. He offers financial assistance to families who cannot afford to send their children to school. However, they are aware that he is one of the primary perpetrators of the horror they are living through,” Da Rin stated.
This week, the misery reached new heights when Chérizier said he was leading a large gang attack against Henry’s administration and ordered his gunmen to go into the streets and sow mayhem. Since the attacks began on February 29, criminals have burned down multiple establishments and police stations, forced the international airport to close, released hundreds of seasoned criminals from prison, and besieged the port.