Documentation for Chimeres / Popular Organisations
Feb. 10, 2001
The Economist
By contrast, Lavalas Family is a tightly-run and powerful movement. It has deep roots in Haiti's poorest communities through such groups as COMICS, as well as rara bands that sing about political and social issues, and the chimeres--violent young agitators who seem to be Mr Aristide's budding version of the Tontons Macoutes, the Duvaliers' notoriously thuggish enforcers.
Jan. 14, 2002
St Petersburg Times
Repression has returned in the guise of militant pro-Aristide street thugs - known as the "chimere." After a hapless Dec. 17 coup attempt by unidentified gunmen, the chimere went on a rampage burning down the homes and political offices of opposition leaders. At least 10 people were killed.
Despite pledges to maintain law and order, the government failed to intervene. Worse, Lavalas Family party officials participated in some of the attacks. Government vehicles were used.
In recent weeks a series of attacks by government supporters and officials have occurred across the country.
Feb. 2, 2002
The Economist
Opposition politicians and journalists have been hounded, and their offices and homes burned, by the chimere, Mr Aristide's hired thugs from the slums.
Nov. 25, 2002
BBC Monitoring Latin America
The business sector has reacted to what happened on Friday 22 November, when all activities in the metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince were paralysed by the violent demonstration by pro-Lavalas people's organizations OPs .
The press and other citizens who witnessed those actions reported that the OPs were using armed violence.
...following the affronts to all forms of public ethics and public justice which continue to occur in our country, particularly in the cases of the Cannibal Army of Gonaives, the Sleepers in the Wood group of Petit-Goave and the Clean-Up group of Saint-Marc;
Nov. 28, 2002
BBC Monitoring Latin America
The situation was tense in Gonaives yesterday, where high school students demonstrated once again to demand the departure of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The demonstration was suppressed by the police with the support of the Cannibal Army led by people's organization (OP) leader Amiot Metayer.
Nov. 23, 2003
The Toronto Star
Aristide's ruling party recruits unemployed youths and children into chimere units - armed squads that activists say are used for drug-running, political intimidation and killings.
The Red Army, also called the Popular Organization for the Liberation of Haiti, is one such gang. Its members have occupied Habitation LeClerc since 1997
Dec. 29, 2003
St Petersburg Times
Yet residents say... their main fear is the daily violence and insecurity from local gangs, known as chimeres, (a fire-breathing monster in Greek mythology) who owe allegiance to the presidential palace.
The gang leaders retain close ties with senior police officers and staff at the presidential palace, according to interviews with two chimere bosses. One said he had been summoned to meet Aristide four times. He said the president urged the gangs to make peace.
But the gang leaders say they frequently receive phone calls from palace staff requesting their support at progovernment demonstrations. Occasionally the gangs also get instructions - and weapons - to attack and beat up opposition targets.
The undermining of chimere loyalty to the palace began with the assassination in mid September of a former pro-Aristide gang leader, Amiot Metayer...The circumstances of Metayer's deat... are shrouded in mystery.
Metayer was a fervent left-wing political organizer for Aristide's Lavalas movement...He fell out with the government after he was arrested and convicted for his role in an attack by the chimeres on opposition political parties in December 2001. Metayer's supporters later broke him out of jail with a bulldozer, and he began speaking out about Aristide's alleged involvement in political crimes.
After Metayer's death the Cannibal Army declared itself in open revolt against the government.
Feb. 25, 2004
The Boston Globe
"None of us is afraid," said Gandyson Prince, a 30-year-old member of the Popular Organizations, or OPs, Aristide's primary backers. "Port-au-Prince is not Cap-Haitien. There are more people here, and we are more organized."
Prince was surrounded by a dozen members of "Militants of La Plaine." He insisted that they were not armed, even though he was seen moments earlier carrying a shotgun.
Feb. 25, 2004
The Miami Herald
Aristide recently handed out some 4,000 weapons to civilian supporters from stockpiles in the basement of the National Palace and bought 2 million rounds of ammunition from a Latin American country, according to one U.S. security expert monitoring Haiti.
Prezidan, who also calls himself "Avenger," claims he heads a group of 30 armed young men that he calls "Solution." With the help of the three other bosses in Cite Soleil, including his older brother, "2Pac," they can quickly mobilize thousands of gunmen into the streets.
Feb. 26, 2004
The Gazette
Since then, Saint-Marc has been under a terrifying lockdown by the police and a gang of armed pro-Aristide civilians called Clean Sweep. The two forces are so intertwined that when Clean Sweep's head of security walks by, Haitian police officers salute him and call him "commandante."
After the rebels withdrew, Clean Sweep and the police targeted the neighbourhood of La Scierie, an opposition stronghold. They poured diesel fuel on some houses and burned down close to a dozen. An unknown number of people burned to death inside, residents said.
March 1, 2004
National Post
Four weeks after rebellion broke out in the north of the country, Haiti's capital exploded into chaos yesterday after the President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, fled the country with the help of the United States, saying he wanted to avoid a bloodbath.
March 7, 2004
The Washington Post
In recent days, Petit-Frere said, he has been meeting with other leaders of pro-Aristide gangs, which served as the funnel for much of the party's patronage in the slums. He said the gangs could count on 3,000 armed men to keep the police and their paramilitary collaborators out of Cite Soleil, indefinitely if need be.
March 7, 2004
The Toronto Star
In a country long policed by brutes, he consorted with thugs. He set up partisan outfits known officially as "popular organizations" but really just armed gangs that roamed Haiti's cities by night, intimidating Aristide's political opponents.
They came to be known as chimere, a Creole word that means a kind of monster in Haitian folklore.
June 1, 2004
The Washington Post
was taken over by an anti-government group, then taken back four days later by armed groups loyal to Aristide, including a gang called Bale Wouze, meaning Clean Sweep in Creole. Residents said most of the killing was done by that group, much of it on a single day, Feb. 11, when witnesses said the militiamen massacred anti-government rebels and their sympathizers
Jan. 1, 2006
Cocaine and Heroin Trafficking in the Caribbean
the chimeres and the apolitical gangs of the urban slums of Port-au-Prince have but one choice for survival: violent crime. The fall of Aristide meant that they lost the patronage and largesse of the state and having been expelled from the Haitian illicit drug trade by the militias that removed Aristide they lost the basis of their daily income necessary for their survival as viable criminal organizations.
Source: Daurius Figueira (2006) "Cocaine and Heroin Trafficking in the Caribbean, Volume 2" p. 15
