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A video that circulated widely on the internet recently showed a Haitian gang leader, Joseph Wilson, shirtless, happily showing off belts of .50 caliber ammunition, mockingly saying he used the armor-piercing bullets to groom his hair.
“We have enough combs for our hair to last a year,” he joked.
So how did he get them?
Guns are not manufactured in Haiti, and it’s illegal to ship any there, but the gangs terrorizing the country’s capital, Port-au-Prince, never seem to be short of them — or of ammunition.
Experts estimate that there are about 20 armed groups operating in Port-au-Prince, some who carry AR-15 and Galil assault rifles, shotguns and Glock handguns. The U.N. estimates that between 270,000 and 500,000 firearms are circulating illegally in Haiti, with most weapons in the hands of gangs.
Their superior fire power has overwhelmed the thin ranks of Haiti’s ill-equipped police and contributed to an astonishing death toll last year of more than 5,600 homicide victims, a jump of more than 1,000 from the year before.
The United Nations imposed an arms embargo on Haiti three years ago, yet most weapons on Haiti’s streets are from the United States, where they are purchased by straw buyers and smuggled into the country by sea or sometimes by land through the Dominican Republic, according to the United Nations.
The issue has become so serious that Haiti’s government has restricted imports along its land border with the Dominican Republic. Only goods that were originally produced there are allowed; any products that didn’t originate in the D.R. have to enter through Haiti’s gang-infested seaports.
