Haitian activist describes grisly killings in the streets as residents rise up against gangs
'If anybody wants the definition of hell, they can come and experience it in Haiti,' says Vélina Élysée Charli
Warning: This story contains graphic depictions of violence.
Vélina Élysée Charlier says the streets of her home city have become a living hell.
Charlier is a human rights activist in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, where well-armed gangs have been steadily gaining power since the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. The United Nations has compared the situation to a war, and estimated last week that gangs control 80 per cent of the city.
But in recent months, residents have fought back. In a bloody reprisal last Monday, a vigilante mob killed more than a dozen suspected gang members, hauling them from a police minibus, beating them, and burning their bodies with gasoline-soaked tires in the city's Canapé-Vert neighbourhood, according to The Associated Press.
The following day, residents in the nearby Turgeau area armed themselves with rocks, bottles and machetes and fought alleged gang members who were reportedly trying to seize control of the neighbourhood.
Charlier works in Turgeau and has seen some of the violence first-hand. Here is part of her conversation with As It Happens host Nil Köksal.
How did local residents react last week when gang members tried to move into the Turgeau neighbourhood in Port-au-Prince?
The gang members, they came to Debussy, which is on the upper hill of the Turgeau area in Port-au-Prince.
And for the very first time, the population was not having it.... They started shooting back. Whoever had guns and enough ammunition, they started shooting back on the gangs.
And then the population came out with machetes, rocks or wooden sticks — whatever they could find to fight back.... They started pursuing all the bandits and the gang members down the hill in every area that they went to hide.
And very quickly, as well, what happened is that the police came to support the population.
People have been living under such difficult conditions for so long. What was the moment, do you think, people wanted to take matters into their own hands in such a drastic way?
Many neighbourhoods were already fighting back, and brigades were already organizing themselves in different neighbourhoods ... so the population has been quietly organizing themselves. And I think what really made the difference is the fact that the police also showed up for the people, which is a very big development, and one of the very few times that we saw [the] population going hand-in-hand with the police to fight back against the bandits.
The alleged gang members, they didn't see this coming?
They didn't see this coming. And also, for those who know Haiti, upper-hill Turgeau, Debussy, is a hillside that's very difficult. If you don't know the area, you'll get lost very easily. So we are assuming that the gang members, the bandits who came, weren't familiar with the landscape. So it was very easy for the population to track them down.
We saw a lot of violence. You know, they were killing them and burning them on the spot.... So because that reaction was so violent, the gang members started worrying for their lives and getting lost in the hills.
And you witnessed a lot of that first-hand.
So all of that happened on Monday [April 24]. And on Tuesday, there was still ... people wandering all over and going after the bandits. And I witnessed a lot of it. I saw ... motorbike drivers going with people and getting them killed down the road, burning them. I mean, it was nightmarish and very, very difficult.
You've described it as "hell" in other interviews, and that certainly sounds like an apt description.
It is hell. I mean, we've been going through this for many, many years. But since last week, I think if anybody wants the definition of hell, they can come and experience it in Haiti.
How are you doing? How are you handling all of this?
I'm a human rights activist, so witnessing all of this is very difficult for me. But at the same time, I'm Haitian. I'm a mom of four girls. I've been seeing a lot of violence. I'm feminist. I've been talking to women who have been gang raped. So it puts you in the place where you really have to keep it together to know what's wrong from what is bad.
Because you do have a lot of anger. And I am very furious. And, to say the truth, I do want [the gang members] to die. Because I think if they don't die, we will all die. And I think that it's unfair that only a few gangs are ... killing millions of people with complete, total impunity.
But at the same time, I know that the road that things have taken is not the right road, because it's not the road for justice. But it's the result of years of violence towards a population who lacks everything and was just fed up. If you live in Haiti, you can consider yourself dead. So we might as well die fighting, you know?
So how do I feel? I don't know. I'm just in a very dark place.
WATCH | Haitians flee gang violence:
Where do you think things will go next?
Yes, we are seeing more and more action from the police. But at the same time, it doesn't seem as if the de facto government has a clear security plan in hand.
So I think the violence will just continue to escalate, and it will end in blood and ashes.
What do you make of what Canada and the United States have said and committed to so far — you know, not sending in direct troops, but aid?
My opinion on sending a foreign intervention has always been very clear. Historically, foreign intervention in Haiti has never served the best interests of Haiti. It is, like I said in another media [interview], putting a Band-Aid on cancer.
I do think that we need help. I do think that we need the co-operation. But we need help in the sense of building the police, building the army, so that the Haitians can give security to their population by themselves.
What you said earlier about police finally coming to help the population and how rare it is, as you described it. You know, it's one thing for them to help right now, but under normal circumstances, the police would try to quell that violence as well ... and try to make sure vigilantism wasn't continuing.
Exactly. And then I've been seeing, also, and witnessing many human rights violations from the police. I mean, the police, they question you, and if you are nervous, they kill you. I've been seeing a lot of police officers just deciding if you have the right to live or if you die on the spot just because you are so-called gang members.
And these are conversations that are very difficult to have in Haiti at the moment, because the population has so much anger that when you talk about human rights, they make you look as if you are defending the gangs.
Police also [are] fed up. And the police also [are] seeking revenge for many police officers who were killed — and savagely killed — by the gangs. So it's a very complex situation.
What makes you stay in Haiti, you and your children?
I am home. I'm not going to leave my home just because a couple of guys have decided to turn it into hell. This is my home and I'm staying.
With files from The Associated Press. Interview produced by Chris Harbord. Q&A edited for length and clarity.
