Haiti Crime Boss’ Death Signals Possible Shift in Balance of Power

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The future of Haiti’s most powerful gang alliance, the G9, is at risk following a series of deaths of its gang leaders.

“Black Alex Mana,” leader of the G9-affiliated Belekou Gang, was shot dead by a fellow gang member on November 21, according to local media reports. He led the gang for just one week.

Mana was the successor to Isca Andrice, alias “Iska,” a former teacher and long-serving leader of the Belekou Gang. Iska was also the co-founder of “G9 and Family” (G9 an fanmi – G9), Haiti’s most powerful criminal coalition. He died in unknown circumstances on November 12, with one local charity director reporting on X, formerly Twitter, that Iska had been shot and injured two days before. 

SEE ALSO: The Many Violences Afflicting Haitians

On November 15, Haitian National Police launched an unusual rescue mission at the Fontaine Hospital Center in the Port-au-Prince slum Cité Soleil, following reports that a heavily armed gang had surrounded the hospital, trapping newborn babies and children on oxygen inside. 

The hospital’s founder, Jose Ulysse, told Associated Press that members of the Brooklyn Gang, under command of Gabriel Jean-Pierre, alias “Ti-Gabriel,” leader of the country’s other major criminal alliance, G-PEP, were burning houses close to the hospital and had effectively taken control of the surrounding area, traditionally a G9 territory.

The attack came despite a truce signed in July by the main leaders of G9, Iska and Jimmy Chérizier, alias “Barbecue,” and of G-PEP, Ti-Gabriel and Mathias Saintil. Negotiated by Haitian poverty relief charity Hands Together, the truce stated the gangs’ intentions to “work hard to end violence,” and to “bring peace and security to the island,” following months of extreme gang violence.

In the week since the attacks, violence in Cité Soleil has killed 166 and displaced more than 1,000 people, according to ReliefWeb, the humanitarian information service for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Human Affairs.

InSight Crime Analysis

With Iska’s death and the assault on Fontaine Hospital Center, G-PEP appear to be seeking to exploit the hole in the G9’s leadership and establish themselves as the dominant criminal alliance.

Though not as well recognized as Barbecue, Iska was a feared and powerful gang leader. According to the Associated Press, interviews given to the media by Barbecue had to first be approved by Iska. 

“He is described by people who live in areas dominated by the G9 as the real military leader of the coalition, while Barbecue is the political face,” Diego Da Rin, a Haiti expert and International Crisis Group consultant, told InSight Crime.

Iska was also responsible for the ongoing siege of Brooklyn, the Cité Soleil enclave governed by Ti-Gabriel. The siege successfully restricted the G-PEP leader’s access to major roads connecting the capital city to other parts of the country. 

The assault on Fontaine Hospital Center was the first attack on G9 strongholds since Iska’s death. The loss of Iska and Black Alex Mana, coming soon after the killing of another G9 gang leader, “Tyson,” in late September — reportedly the victim of a “disciplinary execution” by the alliance after he refused to abide by the truce, according to local news outlet HaitiLibre — suggest that the G9 alliance is struggling.

The areas surrounding the hospital, including Iska’s former territory, Belekou, provide access to major infrastructure including Terminal Varreux, the country’s largest oil terminal. The terminal has been the site of previous fighting, and gives whichever group that controls it valuable financing from extortion.

SEE ALSO: Highways and Mills – Haiti Gangs Battle for Control of Key Infrastructure

G-PEP-affiliated gangs have also carried out offensives in disparate parts of Port-au-Prince, including in Bel-Air, north of Port-au-Prince, where several people, including a police officer, were shot dead. Johnson Alexandre, alias “Izo,” who controls Village de Dieu in the south of the capital, has allegedly begun providing help to Ti-Gabriel’s Brooklyn neighborhood as it attempts to break free of the G9 siege, said Da Rin.

“[This is] presumably to create new fighting fronts that would prevent the forces of the G9-affiliated gangs from concentrating on fending off Gabriel’s attacks,” Da Rin explained.