A former Haitian lawmaker and political party leader whose tight grip on the Artibonite region has helped fueled a climate of gang terror has been sanctioned by the Biden administration, along with the head of a powerful gang he reportedly helped form in the region.
Prophane Victor, a former member of Haiti’s Lower House of Deputies, was added to a growing list of Haitian political leaders and gang chietftains on Wednesday “for his role in forming, supporting, and arming gangs that have committed serious human rights abuse in Haiti,” the U.S. Treasury Department said.
The U.S. also imposed sanctions on Luckson Elan, the leader of the Gran Grif gang, “for his involvement in serious human rights abuse related to gang activity in Haiti’s Artibonite department.” Known as General Luckson, Elan is accused of committing murders, kidnappings, rapes and attacks on agricultural property, livestock and transport vehicles. He has also contributed to the displacement of more than 578,000 Haitians who have been forced from their homes in the last three years.
“Victor and Elan, through their influence over or leadership of the gangs in Haiti, have sought to perpetuate the horrific violence and instability,” said Bradley T. Smith., Treasury’s acting under secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.
Victor is the current head of Bouclier, the political party that the late President Jovenel Moïse belonged to before he was named a candidate under former President Michel Martelly’s Haitian Tèt Kale Party. As a member of parliament between 2016 and 2020, Victor became one of Haiti’s most powerful and wealthy politicians, with control over the country’s main seaport in Port-au-Prince.
While running for elected office in 2016, Victor allegedly started arming young men in Petite Rivière, in the Artibonite region, to secure control over the area and his election. Those men went on to form the Gran Grif gang, currently the largest gang in the Artibonite area and the main perpetrator of abuses, including sexual violence, a United Nations Panel of Experts said in a report on Haiti’s gang violence.
After a falling out with Gran Grif, Victor began arming rival armed groups and self-defense groups in the Artibonite area, U.N. experts said.
“Victor materially supported Gran Grif until at least 2020,” the U.S. Treasury Department said. “Victor has also trafficked weapons to Haiti and is known to have relationships with and provided funds to other gangs throughout Haiti, including rivals of Gran Grif. Prophane Victor’s gang affiliations and material support to them contribute to the climate of terror as the gangs engage in an array of cruelty and violence, fight for control, and leave residents to pay the consequences.”
The Artibonite area, considered Haiti’s rice basket, has been beset by gang violence.
The sanctions, which freeze all bank accounts in the U.S. and make it illegal for anyone to do financial transactions with anyone blacklisted, were announced on the same day Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States, plans to provide an additional $160 million to help combat gangs.
“We’ve already delivered well over $300 million to support the Multinational Security Support mission - armored vehicles, radios, night-vision goggles, drones,” Blinken said during a meeting attended by Haiti Prime Minister Garry Conille and Edgard Leblanc, head of the Transitional Council in New York.
There are currently over 380 Kenyan police officers in Port-au-Prince, and in the past week a contingent of over two dozen Caribbean security personnel from Jamaica and Belize have deployed to help the Haiti National Police fight armed gangs.
“This is a very serious situation that requires urgent support,” Conille said. “And it’s very, very important that we all come together to make sure the police and the multinational force have the resources that is required for us to intervene in the most effective and urgent way possible. We worry that without the urgent implication of everyone to support this effort, we will lose the little success that we’ve been able to obtain at a very large price.”
Dominican President Luis Abinader, in his address to the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday, said a year from when Haiti is supposed to hold elections to elect a new president and parliament, “the conditions are still not in place to do so.”
“More than three years of instability in our neighboring country has put significant pressure on our security,” he said.
READ MORE: This seaside Haiti town used to attract tourists. Now it draws refugees from gangs
Victor and Elan are highlighted in two separate report of the U.N. Panel of Experts as being significantly responsible for the crisis in Haiti. The report states that the “levels of violence and the depths of cruelty that gangs will go to in violating human rights are unprecedented, with regular indiscriminate attacks against the population and the obstruction of humanitarian assistance. Sexual and gender-based violence and rape, in particular, have become one of the most horrific expressions of violence over the past two years.”
The State Department issued the sanctions as the high-level debate at the U.N. General Assembly in New York is ongoing. While Haiti is scheduled to address the assembly on Thursday, several leaders from around the globe have mentioned the country in their speeches, calling on the world to help the Caribbean nation in overcoming its current gang-fueled crisis.
On Monday, during a meeting on Haiti by the U.N. Economic and Social Council, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, whose government sanctioned Victor last year , called for more countries to impose sanctions on Haiti’s political and business elites involved in destabilizing the country.
According to the U.N., there were 3,638 documented homicides during the first half of this year —an increase of nearly 74% over 2023.
“Despite the imposition of the arms embargo in October 2023, gangs and other non-State actors continue to procure arms and ammunition illicitly,” Earle Courtenay Rattray, chief of staff to U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, said Wednesday during a high-level meeting on restoring security in Haiti.
In a statement about the sanctions, State Department Spokesman Matthew Miller said that “promoting accountability for gender-based violence is a top priority for the U.S. government.”
“We will continue to use the tools at our disposal to expose those who commit such heinous crimes anywhere they occur,” he said.
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