Haiti’s Gangs Call for Violence After the President’s Assassination

[Music] so these are the exact same forces that just a week ago were in a fierce gun battle with the people suspected of killing president moise we're heading to his presidential mansion right now they're going to take us there to show us what went down on july 7th haiti's president jovenel moise was gunned down in his home overlooking the city of port-au-prince so far no one knows who's behind the assassination or why he was killed what does it say about a country when the president in his own home is killed we're doing our best but it's not easy for us this is not the army but that kind of battle that that having placed here is i think it's something that might be controlled by an army that's what it would have taken i think so what comes next we'll see we were doing police work and that's it for the rest this is up to the politicians haitian investigators and the fbi have left the scene outside the president's mansion largely untouched not a single member of the president's guard was injured or killed in the attack below the president's house families live in a row of modest homes after the president's been killed do you feel safe [Music] what's your name so this woman's house backs up to president moises presidential mansion and they share a wall and up here on top you can actually see a pretty good view of the president's house now up here on the hill is a police tower a guard tower and we're told that that was unmanned the night that he was assassinated why do you think that guard tower was unmanned it was like a routine so sometimes they have they have people so i'm so sometimes they don't so just look at the draw that that night seems a little strange now well i don't know i don't know and would it have been a haitian national police that would be up in that guard tower we yeah so this really falls really on the haitian national police well we might say that i mean how does that make you feel in the position that you're in very uncomfortable this is a shame this shouldn't have happened no [Applause] so far 18 former colombian special forces and two haitian americans are in custody for the assassination three colombians have been killed and five remain at large two competing prime ministers were both claiming the right to rule until this week and the country's senate has put its own leader forward as the rightful president but haitian politics has for a long time included other power brokers so you can't really talk about the security and political situation here in haiti in recent years without mentioning one gang in particular that's had its grip on port-au-prince g9 is a powerful federation of gangs who rule neighborhoods across the capital jimmy chariziere aka barbecue is their leader he's reported to have had links with moise's government and the president's death is a major blow to his influence in haiti he says that's not the case [Music] is a former cop accused of carrying out neighborhood massacres and overseeing the kidnap for ransom gangs that are terrorizing the city at least for now he rules several neighborhoods in port-au-prince do you see g9 and yourself as a legitimate authority here in haiti sociopolitic sociopolitics a social political movement that carries around pretty large weapons and gets into gun battles with other social political movements influence extends well beyond his neighborhoods since the assassination he's threatened an all-out insurrection against haiti's political class [Music] i see you getting emotional what do you think is bringing tears to your eyes [Music] [Music] foreign but it's the people in poor neighborhoods that often suffer the worst at the hands of the gangs this woman was making between one and ten dollars a day when kidnappers took her five-year-old daughter she's still afraid for her safety so we're hiding her identity can you describe what the people who took your daughter what they looked like it's something you see my youtube [Music] is who do you think is responsible [Music] foreign despite president moise's assassination life in haiti seems to have returned to normal but the normal haitians are used to is violence so we just arrived at the petronville police station we were about to start an embed with the haitian national police right as we were walking out to the car we heard gunshots outside of the gates of the police station they are doing that almost every week and so guys just come up to them and rob them shoot and rub them the cops set up a roadblock in the neighborhood market and officers spent nearly an hour shaking people down what happened for the last 20 years in the state lost his power so people are not afraid of the authorities here and be wrong but we have to restore the authority of the state [Music] they weren't able to find the shooter but we heard later that a suspect had been killed by police and quickly taken to the morgue are the police at this moment able to protect people haitians from from gangs and kidnappers well she's going on a daily basis for us the the institutional needs help you

Channel: VICE News

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Keywords: VICE News, VICE News Tonight, VICE on HBO, news, vice video, VICE on SHOWTIME, vice news 2020

Id: eznwg4cIC7Q

Length: 11min 32sec (692 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 20 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/zombigoutesel]

Normally , I'm not a big fan of vice.

But this is pretty accurate

[u/lotusQ]

Oh, it’s Vice…

[u/nandoux]

Was there not already violence going on before the assassination?? Violence against who? M'pa konprann

[u/marektypes]

Vice is not at all an authority on Haitian criminality and gang politics

[u/chompy7]

We on vice?