PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, HCNN/CMC – Criminal gangs in Haiti have openly established their toll stations to collect money from road users traveling by car or motorcycle, in defiance of police and government authorities, in several parts of the Caribbean country torn apart by a deep political and humanitarian crisis.
Leaders of several drivers’ unions have denounced the tactic by gangs to impose the illegal toll that travelers are forced to pay for safe passage on the roads they’ve taken control of.
Passengers often have to pay the equivalent of several hundred US dollars to be allowed to proceed.
“Recently, the bandits hijacked two buses, one carrying 30 people and another one with 18 people aboard, and those people had to pay money to be allowed to leave,” Mehu Changeux, a drivers’ union leader, told HCNN on Thursday.
The criminal gangs have also made a list of the drivers whose vehicles are authorized to go past roadblocks they arbitrarily set up to control traffic.
“The bandits distribute a small card to the drivers that are forced to pay them an amount of money every Saturday,” said Changeux. “They also have a form they hand out to drivers who have to subscribe and agree to regularly pay a certain amount of money to buy their right to cross safely certain areas.”
“Otherwise, anything can happen. They are ready to use their weapons if you try to defy them.”
Witnesses say several people have been killed during such incidents over the past months.
Haiti has been mired in unprecedented political, social, and humanitarian chaos for some time now, and observers do not see, for the moment, any sign of improvement in the troubled country’s situation.
A 38-year-old driver, Jonas Michel, has explained how organized the gangs are. He said the teams have people assigned to different tasks.
“The bandits are very well organized. They want you to pay a fixed amount; if one dollar is missing, they won’t accept it,” Michel told HCNN.
“They make you pay whether you carry passengers, goods or not,” said Michel, stating that “people driving cars or motorcycles all have to pay to be allowed to go their way through.”
The situation also severely affects the cost of transportation for many people who are requested to pay much more than usual to help the driver find enough money to pay additional fees to bandits.
Bandits often hijack truckloads of food products and construction materials.
“What is worse is that they operate in broad daylight and are unchallenged,” said Michel. Several drivers have refused to be part of this illegal enterprise, which also means they have to leave their vehicles at home and abandon, even if momentarily, their only source of revenue.
“It is practically impossible for us, drivers, to function under such conditions, but given our responsibilities, we must make the sacrifice,” Michel told HCNN.
Usually, gangsters tell drivers to give them money, but others don’t even wait to be approached by gangs. Before being confronted, drivers collect money among themselves to pay the bands.
“I don’t want to take any risk. Since I know the gangs will ask for the money, I prepare and ensure it is available. Otherwise, I’ll be in trouble,” Maxime Dupuy, a minibus driver in Saint-Marc, in the northern Artibonite region.
“I have a friend who almost got killed last week for trying to flee a group of bandits who had stopped him at a ‘checkpoint’ near the Kanaan neighborhood on the northern national road.”How can you imagine that the bandits operate daily in broad daylight and in full view of the authorities who have failed to take the minor action to stop them?” said Dupuy.
Heavily armed gangsters on Wednesday morning attacked a police station in the L’Etère district in northern Haiti. A group of police officers there had to flee for their lives, witnesses said. It is the sixth police station abandoned over the past weeks by police officers under gang pressure in the Artibonite region. The Haitian government, as well as the United Nations Secretary-general, has repeatedly called on the international community to deploy a multinational rapid action force to help cope with the dire security situation in Haiti. A decision is yet to be made about such a possibility.
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