IUndoubtedly, Haiti will not emerge from its political and institutional problems any time soon. They are multiple and complex. And it is certainly not the death of these five agents of the BSAP (Protected Areas Security Brigade), Clersain Thomas, Mackendy Veillard, Chrisner Désir, Zéphyrin Daniel and Dorvil Jean Fontange, killed by the police at Laboule 10, on Wednesday February 7, 2024, which will calm the nerves. The soon arrival of the Multinational Security Support Mission (MMAS) will also not change anything.
These poor Kenyans will only serve as a plaster on an already infected wound or simply as a crutch for a wooden leg. Since 2021, the year of the assassination of the head of state, Jovenel Moïse, the country seems to be losing its compass. In any case, the country is at a standstill. No one seems to be able to provide solutions. The interim government headed by Prime Minister Ariel Henry has decided to only focus on its continued leadership of the country. The rest he doesn’t care about.
The phenomenon of gangs invading almost the entire metropolis of Port-au-Prince and its suburbs has entered the daily life of Haitians seeking to survive. The authorities, in reality, are nowhere. If the gangs crisscross and control the territories that the Minister of Justice, Emmelie Prophète-Milcé considers lost, these criminals can in no way provide what the population needs, which, cynically, could have served to compensate for the failure of this State bankrupt.
On the other hand, the authorities in place who are supposed to administer the country are not throwing in the towel, but they are doing nothing, absolutely nothing, to take control of the situation. As a result, chaos sets in everywhere. But, in chaos, as always, there is life since nature abhors a vacuum. Thus, after more than two years of lethargy, the population seems to be waking up and, little by little, it is beginning to emerge from its torpor. Of his silence. Of waiting for a miracle that will never happen. She begins to understand that from the two evils – gangs and government – nothing will come of it. Therefore, she has nothing to gain.
Worse, they are two sides of the same coin. Exactly, she is brutally murdered, in the face, she dies slowly. So, she decides to react and why not take her destiny into her own hands. It all started with the resumption of construction of the canal on the Massacre River in the Maribaroux plain near the town of Ouanaminthe in the North-East of the country. Against all odds: the threat of the Dominican President, Luis Abinader, the contempt and pressure of the Haitian authorities, she held firm and is moving forward slowly but surely with the construction of the canal thanks to the solidarity of the Haitian social body from within and of the diaspora. From this project and the standoff between power and the population a new actor will also be born. In any case, this actor who has been hiding in the shadows for two years will be put in the spotlight. It is the Protected Areas Security Brigade (BSAP), an armed structure reporting to the Directorate of ANAP (National Agency for Protected Areas) which, itself, is an organization placed under the supervision of the Ministry of the Environment .
Before the resistance movement of the peasants of the North-East against the authorities of Port-au-Prince for the construction of the said canal, almost no one had heard of the BSAP, even less of the ANAP and not at all of its Managing Director, Jeantel Joseph. However, this autonomous public body has existed for at least seven years. Created by the presidential decree of May 10, 2017, ANAP replaced the former state body dealing with “Environmental management and regulation of the conduct of citizens for sustainable development” according to The monitor of January 26, 2006. To ensure its environmental protection mission, it was decided to create, at the same time, an armed branch made up of a few agents established throughout the territory called: BSAP (Protected Areas Security Brigade).
Initially, their strength did not exceed 300 men, most of them former soldiers. Before the assassination of Jovenel Moïse, these armed agents were stationed in the localities of their assignment, more often in the countryside and went almost unnoticed by the population. To tell the truth, at the very beginning, we recorded a few small incidents between citizens and a few bad apples as in any armed force. But, the first movements of rebellion of the BSAP agents against the power concerned a matter of salary which they had not received since their recruitment. It was an operation carried out at the foot of Morne Cabrit, on national road No. 3, blocking traffic to push through their demand. We are still under the presidency of Jovenel Moïse, so it goes back a long time. Once this pay story was resolved, the country heard no more about it. Since in the meantime, it seems that the administration of Jovenel Moïse and then that of the Transitional authorities and the Director of ANAP, Jeantel Joseph, had another mission for these armed men. Some say that the BSAP would become, in the future, a sort of “armed militia” for the authorities in view of the elections.
Radio guest Magik9 on Friday January 26, 2024, Ashley Laraque, spokesperson for the association of former military personnel, believes that the governments of yesterday and today are complicit in what happened with the BSAP. He claims that his association had taken steps to train and support the agents of this armed structure, but no one deigned to respond to him. “ We have written to the former and current Minister of the Environment, to President Jovenel Moïse, to the current Minister of Defense, to the High Staff of the FADH on this subject, so that the association of former soldiers can train BSAP agents to prevent the situation from degenerating. During this training, there would have been a vetting to ensure the integrity of the members and their abilities, to make a pre-selection of the people who will be part of this body. All correspondence remained unheeded. All efforts remained unheeded. Nobody was interested in putting the BSAP in order » remarked Ashley Laraque.
Indeed, in the space of two and a half years, the BSAP’s membership has skyrocketed. According to available information, they have gone from 130 agents when they were created in 2017 to nearly 1,500 today. But, in reality, it seems that no one knows with certainty exactly how many there are at the start of 2024 and who provided them with the weapons they have and who finances them. This was confirmed by the association of former military personnel through its spokesperson on Friday January 26, 2024 who, for the occasion, underlines the responsibility of the authorities “ No one knows how many legal people the BSAP has, how much its actual workforce, the budget planned by the government and its mission. We are waiting for the Commission to restructure this structure so that we can know its true status. Jeantel Joseph is not the only one to blame. We can be complicit in two ways: letting things happen or encouraging them. I believe the government is responsible” supports this former soldier who says he is fighting for the integration or placement of the BSAP under the supervision of the FADH since the presidency of Jovenel Moïse.
The Protected Areas Security Brigade will resurface in 2023 with the Ouanaminthe canal. It is at this moment that the authorities, in particular, Ariel Henry and his Minister of the Environment, will notice that they have lost all control over the BSAP and realize that they were wrong about these agents taking action. and cause for the population in the face of the decision of the Prime Minister who wanted to stop work on the canal to satisfy the wishes of the Dominican authorities. As we said above, it is this popular movement which will reveal to the country the existence of a real armed body that no one suspected. When the Dominican President, Luis Abinader, sent thousands of soldiers to intimidate the defenseless Haitian peasants on the border and who were even preparing to enter Haitian territory, it was the BSAP agents who rushed from everywhere to come to the aid of the population against the wishes of Ariel Henry’s government.
While, at no time, have the national police, the PNH Directorate, despite the motto of the police institution which is: “Protect and Serve”, demonstrated their desire to protect or secure the population. The High Staff of the Armed Forces of Haiti (FADH), quartered in its HQ (General Headquarters) on the Champs de Mars, also did not lift a finger in the face of the verbal aggression and threats of the Dominican President . Thus, abandoned by the Haitian government, the Haitian army and the national police, the peasants were handed over hand and foot to the soldiers of President Luis Abinader. When the population of Ouanaminthe and the Maribaroux plain, in particular, called for help and assistance, it was the BSAP guys who arrived in large numbers, admittedly poorly equipped compared to the armament of the Dominican soldiers who intended to enforce the diktat of their country. But, faced with the determination, the courage, the composure, it must be emphasized, of the BSAP agents, the Dominican soldiers lowered their desire a notch, understanding that the Haitians will never back down and intend to continue work on the canal on the Massacre River.
These feats of arms, it must be recognized, brought prestige, sympathy, national recognition and a certain confidence to the BSAP agents who, quite naturally, became the “darlings” of the population. Oddly enough, it is the heroic attitude of this armed structure towards the population of the North-East which will lead the authorities of the Transition to break the good relations maintained with the parent organization of the BSAP which is : the National Agency for Protected Areas and its head Jeantel Joseph. In fact, since the start of the movement in the North-East, the dispute has been burning between the Prime Minister, the Ministry of the Environment and the leadership of the ANAP which has always refused to apply the sanctions demanded by Prime Minister Ariel Henry against the BSAP agents who supported the peasants in the initiative of the canal on the Massacre River. Despite repeated threats from Port-au-Prince, at no time did the ANAP leadership call the BSAP to order. Better still, the Director of ANAP, Jeantel Joseph, who is in theory the head of the BSAP, even showed his solidarity with the farmers of Ouanaminthe, whom he visited like all politicians and Haitians aware of the merits of the canal for the country.
Since then, relations between the ANAP leader and the government have turned sour. While, throughout the territory, the BSAP bases are increasingly becoming independent from the authorities in the capital and are rallying one after the other to the camp of the Director General. But, despite all this public disobedience, Ariel Henry and his government had not dared to attack Jeantel Joseph or the BSAP head-on, certainly waiting for the right opportunity to strike. It is Guy Philippe, the one who claims to trigger a revolution against what he calls the “system” who will give Ariel Henry the opportunity to crack down on the BSAP and its Director General. This is the last straw. Indeed, since the return to Haiti at the end of November 2023 of the former prisoner of Atlanta and ex-senator of Grand’Anse, the Haitian political landscape has been in turmoil.
In a few weeks, the country has gone from a confusing wait-and-see attitude to a reassuring determinism. Haiti is hit by a wave of demonstrations that wants to sweep away everything in its path. Guy Philippe quickly established himself as leader of this movement, giving the impression that the population was waiting for him. If Grand’Anse, his political stronghold, is conquered in advance, the rest of the territory seems to look up to him. Everywhere, he is proclaimed and imposes himself as the natural leader of a process which was only waiting for the starting signal.
After several demonstrations of force across the ten departments, Guy Philippe, the former rebel leader who led the armed struggle in 2004 on behalf of the Group of 184 against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, today seems to transcend political divisions and positions himself as the only one capable of shaking Ariel Henry and the former GNBist André Michel at the head of the country.
Hence the cascading alliances of opposition leaders, in particular, former Prime Minister Claude Joseph, former senator Jean-Charles Moïse and of course Jeantel Joseph, former CEO of ANAP who are no longer hiding to recognize being allies of the former strongman of 2004. The ex-senator scares Prime Minister Ariel Henry and all the political leaders who support him. However, Pierre Espérance, who is not a contradiction in terms, is concerned about the support of a large part of the population for the appeal of the former Police Commissioner. The Executive Secretary of the National Human Rights Network (RNDDH) calls for the arrest of Guy Philippe who is allegedly involved in the attack on the Les Cayes police station in 2016. “As soon as he arrives in the country, he should be subject to legal proceedings, which has not been done. But today he must be arrested for his actions in several cities across the country. insists Pierre Espérance. However, the revolution proclaimed by Guy Philippe seems to interest the men of the BSAP who had made a show of force by welcoming him to Ouanaminthe who had come to visit the canal under construction.
(To be continued)
