Jimmy 'Barbeque' Chérizier More Than a Match For 1,000 Kenyan Kops

NPR justified some of its federal tax money today by interviewing the most interesting figure to come out of Haiti in .. ah .. in ever. 

Read it here.

And Jimmy Chérizier, known as Babekyou in Haitian Creole — or Barbecue — is one of the most powerful and notorious gang leaders. He heads the G9 federation of gangs. He is the man who convinced many of Haiti's gangs to stop fighting each other and start fighting the government.

Then he's a coalition builder. I call that a credential, not a problem.

He claims the system made him who he is. As a policeman, he said, he learned that politicians created the gangs, that they used them and the police to do their dirty work, to target their business rivals and their enemies. And so he started fighting against the political elite to try to change the system.

To put it very mildly indeed, he is not the first leader of an armed movement to think exactly that way. One man's gangster being another man's freedom fighter, and all.

Barbecue said the gangs are preparing for a long fight. He said he expects a lot of bloodshed and eventually, the international forces will get tired and they will leave.

That’s exactly what has always happened in the past, going back to the 1910s and Haiti's occupation by the U.S. Marine Corps. That’s the way to bet today. 

This is no simple criminal. This is the natural leader of Haiti's poor. ‘Not the hero you want but the hero you need.’ 

Furthermore, it looks like Babekyou is more than a match for the motley U.S.-backed Coalition of the Reluctant that is his promised, but not yet arrived, opposition. That force is to be led by Kenya and filled out with troops from the Bahamas, Bangladesh (which BTW brought cholera to Haiti the last time it did good works there), Barbados, Benin, Chad and Jamaica. 

That’s who Jimmy is up against? Really? Barbados has a military consisting of 600 men, and the rest on that list don't have much more. If those places combined their military forces they might raise a couple thousand men and a few goats. Good luck to them if they enter the world of pain that is Haiti.

And what pillars of stability and good government they are! Chad and Benin ought to think twice before entering this conflict, since Babekyou could probably take over those places after he’s done with Haiti.