PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — An ex-police officer thought of by many to be Haiti’s strongest gang chief stated Wednesday he would welcome the deployment of a global armed drive to the Caribbean nation however vowed to battle if it commited any abuses.

Jimmy Chérizier, greatest often known as “Barbecue,” additionally urged Haitians to mobilize towards the federal government. “We are asking the population to rise up,” he stated at a information convention.

Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who has led Haiti for the reason that July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, has been pushing for the deployment of a international armed drive since October to assist battle highly effective gangs which might be estimated to now management 80% of the capital of Port-au-Prince.

In late July, the African nation of Kenya supplied to steer a multinational drive, and the U.S. stated earlier this month that it could put ahead a decision within the U.N. Security Council to authorize a non-U.N. multinational mission.

Chérizier stated he would welcome a international drive if it had been to arrest the prime minister and folks he described as corrupt politicians and native police allegedly promoting ammunitions and weapons in Haiti’s slums.

“If the foreign force comes to help and provide security for life to start over again, we will also applaud,” he stated.

But he stated that if any international drive repeated the actions of earlier U.N. peacekeepers, together with committing sexual abuses and inadvertently introducing cholera into water sources, that Haitians would stand up.

“We will fight against them until our last breath,” he stated. “It will be a fight of the Haitian people to save the dignity of our country.”

Chérizier, who has been accused by authorities of masterminding a number of massacres lately and of organizing a gas blockade final 12 months that paralyzed Haiti for practically two months, stated the group he leads, G9 Family and Allies, is not warring with one other group often known as G-Pep.

“We became one,” he stated. “We love life a lot.”

Chérizier is the one Haitian beneath U.N. sanctions, with the Security Council saying he “has engaged in acts that threaten the peace, security, and stability of Haiti and has planned, directed, or committed acts that constitute serious human rights abuses.”

He known as on the Ministry of Education to reopen colleges in Cite Soleil and different slums which have been closed as a result of warring gangs who're raping and killing folks. The violence has displaced practically 200,000 Haitians whose houses have been torched by the gangs.

Chérizier spoke to just about two dozen journalists at an open air development website in Port-au-Prince. He wore sandals, white pants and an orange hoodie emblazoned with a spiritual image utilized in Vodou.

He was surrounded by a number of G9 members carrying small handguns seen beneath their garments, not like earlier his media appearances at which they freely held assault rifles.

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