We’ll start off with a CONTENT WARNING, because some of this might be legitimately upsetting to people. As we mentioned yesterday, Haiti appears to be in disarray. Things are moving fast on the ground and, from afar, it is hard to sort things out. Here’s an ABC News article from yesterday:
The most prominent leader behind the ongoing armed rebellion in Haiti has a simple message for the country's leader, acting Prime Minister Ariel Henry: Step down and the violence ends, at least temporarily. https://t.co/HvOnUmdcMc
— ABC News (@ABC) March 11, 2024
They give this discussion on the background of what is happening there:
The most prominent leader behind the ongoing armed rebellion in Haiti has a simple message for the country's leader, acting Prime Minister Ariel Henry: Step down and the violence ends, at least temporarily.
‘If Ariel Henry resigns, we are going to call for a truce just to evaluate the situation,’ Jimmy Chérizier told ABC News.
Chérizier, commonly known as ‘Barbecue,’ called it a public pledge.
‘Everywhere around Port-au-Prince that is currently blocked or inaccessible will be reopened and we will automatically stop the attacks on the police stations,’ he said.
That report was from yesterday and it is probably significant that Mr. Henry has said he will resign:
BREAKING: Haiti’s Prime Minister Ariel Henry has agreed to resign, as the country is on the brink of collapse due to gang violence in the capital.@cbenavidesTV and @vladduthiersCBS break down the latest on the Caribbean nation. https://t.co/DPHWAijrZR pic.twitter.com/qkxHKGqRSO
— CBS Mornings (@CBSMornings) March 12, 2024
So, it seems we have a rebellion in Haiti, but we have no idea whether the rebellion was justified or not. Is it July 4, 1776, or Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch? We won’t pretend to know.
As mentioned, the most prominent leader, Jimmy Chérizier, has the popular nickname of ‘barbecue.’ We have seen allegations that he is called that because he likes to burn his enemies alive, but he claims it is because he likes perfectly normal barbecued food.
The ABC News article is also filled with allegations of atrocities:
Barbecue presents himself as a man of the people, a Robin Hood, Che Guevara-esque figure. He sometimes wears a beret.
But he is also a disgraced former policeman now wanted by his former colleagues, accused of taking part and helping plan the massacre of 71 people in Haiti's Saline neighborhood in 2018.
The U.S. Treasury sanctioned Barbecue not long after, writing that during the massacre ‘Gangs removed victims, including children, from their homes to be executed and then dragged them into the streets where their bodies were burned, dismembered, and fed to animals.’
To be very blunt, we feel more inclined to trust information from a Trump era Treasury Department than if it was under Biden or Obama, but we don’t know if they are actually right. And it is a reminder that the highly questionable practice of sanctioning individuals has been done long before this administration. We have heard of such things occurring as far back as Obama, but we are not certain it started in his administration.
Seriously, how is this not a bill of attainder without the nicety of going through Congress—prohibited by the original Constitution? How is this not punishing a person without due process of law? Maybe Chérizier is all the bad things that Treasury says he is, but how can we pronounce that he should be punished without even giving him his day in court?
The other thing worth noting is that the ABC News article repeatedly calls him by the name of ‘Barbecue’ instead of his actual name. We couldn’t recall seeing an article do that before, and we decided to run a quick test: We Googled around for an ABC News article about Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, by using the search term ‘The Rock ABC News.’ We quickly found a piece entitled ‘Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson shares struggles with depression’ and although it mentioned briefly that he was known as ‘The Rock,’ the rest of the story called him Johnson. So, this is at least a strange editorial choice with regard to Chérizier.
That’s all background, but we wanted to talk about a now-famous video has been circulating around the Internet that depicts cannibalism allegedly occurring in Haiti as part of the current conflict. We will repeat our CONTENT WARNING from the beginning.
We were originally going to share a copy of the video but ... the only copy we had seen on Twitter/x has disappeared. Allegedly the post was in violation of Twitter/X's rules, but the only potential violation was posting he video. The text of the post was pretty ordinary. So you will have to be satisfied with a brief description. Skip this paragraph if you don’t even want a description. You see a guy eating something. We have seen people say it looked like a human finger, but this author couldn’t make that out. Then the man picks up what sure as heck looks like a human leg, tears off some of it and eats that.
That was a trivially different version of a video originally posted by Don Lucre, that has since been taken down. Lucre complained about the issue, here:
X removed my video of the Haiti cannibalism and only my video. Every other video on X is still currently live. After El Salvador’s president responded my post was shut down. There is somebody at X that wants me to fail. I’ve noticed it long ago but I refuse to quit.
— Dom Lucre | Breaker of Narratives (@dom_lucre) March 11, 2024
But contrary to what he says, you can’t find that anywhere obvious. Perhaps the search function is suppressing it, or perhaps they are all being removed. We honestly don’t know, although this appears to be the post where Lucre originally shared the video, and you can see something was removed, somehow:
🔥🚨BREAKING NEWS: Here is disturbing footage of the Haitian cannibal gang eating body parts of one of their victims as he cooks in the fire. The Haiti Cannibal Gang leader is named ‘Barbeque’ and is now the most powerful man in Haiti after their Prime Minster Ariel Henry fled. pic.twitter.com/2j41sdPZ4Z
— Dom Lucre | Breaker of Narratives (@dom_lucre) March 10, 2024
But we have been skipping over a more basic question. In law, before a video like that can even be seen by a jury, you have to authenticate it. That is, you have to provide evidence that the video is genuine, that it has not been manipulated (or any manipulation is accounted for) and it is what it is claimed to be. If you can’t meet a minimum showing to authenticate it, the jury doesn’t even look at it—as far as they are concerned, it doesn’t exist.
Obviously, this is not a court of law, but it is still smart to ask basic questions: Who shot this video? When? Where? Who is shown in the video? For instance, in October of last year we shared the story of how a viral video was going around supposedly showing a Palestinian father tricking his daughter into laughing during Israeli airstrikes as a coping technique. As we showed you, the video was real, but it wasn’t from the current war in Gaza: We revealed that the video was actually from fighting in Syria years ago that had nothing to do with any conflict with Israel. We also mentioned that we had created a meme to deal with constant false information coming out of the war in Gaza:
Taps the sign pic.twitter.com/jPqtZY6B5v
— (((Aaron Walker))) (@AaronWorthing) October 24, 2023
If you will notice, that meme we created isn’t limited to Pallywood—what we call the veritable machine that regularly churns out blood libels against the Jews in relation to their fight against Islamofascist terrorism. It just calls out Pallywood as the worst offender.
Applied here, this author is unaware of any person who has presented the video making any specific claim as to when and where the video was shot, who shot it, or who the person seen in the video is. And if you read Lucre’s post where he presented the video carefully, he doesn’t say it was from the current insurrection in Haiti. He merely claims it is from the same gang. But we have seen other people claiming it was from the current conflict, but never with the level of specificity we require.
At the same time, we are seeing many people claiming it is actually from two years ago or over two years ago, depending on the person making the claim. For instance:
DEBUNKED: CANNIBAL VIDEO HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH HAITI UPRISING
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) March 11, 2024
It turns out that this video is from 2 years ago of a battle between the Gran Grif and Ti Mepri gangs in the Artibonite Valley.
It doesn't involve Jimmy "Barbecue" Cherizier or today's uprising.
Source:… pic.twitter.com/uVJRdW9hOz
But Mr. Nawfal has a history of slack-jawed credulity when it comes to Pallywood, so his skepticism is at best selective. To prove the video is not from the current conflict, Nawfal cited ‘Megatron,’ who had this to say:
BREAKING:
— Megatron (@Megatron_ron) March 11, 2024
⚡ 🇭🇹It turns out that this video is from over 2 YEARS ago of a battle between the Gran Grif and Ti Mepri gangs in the Artibonite Valley.
It has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with Jimmy "Barbecue" Cherizier or today's uprising.
The man pictured did this gruesome act to… pic.twitter.com/fZDuPRqKC2
The cut off text says:
The man pictured did this gruesome act to terrorize his rivals.
Reports comming from journalists who covered the Haiti situation several years.
'Megatron' in turn links to his Telegram account, so we actually took the step of signing up for a Telegram Account to see if it gave us a source. However, all it seems to link to his Telegram feed, with no specific link to any specific post and unlike Twitter/X, there is no good way to search his feed that we are aware of. So we don’t know what, if any sources, he has for these claims.
Another person denying that the video is recent is this Twitter/X user:
This video is from over 2 YEARS ago of a battle between the Gran Grif and Ti Mepri gangs in the Artibonite Valley. It has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with Jimmy "Barbecue" Cherizier or today's uprising. It's being spread by those aiming to justify imperialist intervention and… https://t.co/kwyWXOnPXO
— Kim Ives (@kimives13) March 11, 2024
The cut off text says:
... and portray Haitians as savage "cannibals." The man pictured did this gruesome act to terrorize his rivals.
He (?) describes himself in his profile as a ‘Journalist, documentary filmmaker, radio and television commentator.’ But at the same time, we find the use of his term ‘uprising’ troubling because it suggests that he approves of the current rebellion: It doesn’t mean he is lying, necessarily, but it does suggest bias. So does his claim that this video is being used to justify 'imperialist intervention' and depicting Haitians as savages, suggesting he might be more interested in countering these perceived dangers than the truth. In any case, he doesn’t give us any idea how he knows what he is claiming is true.
Further, a number of news outlets that frankly we never heard of before have been raising questions about it. For instance, this guy links to something called Times Now:
Haitian 'Cannibal Gang' Eating Victims' Body Parts? Truth Behind Viral Video https://t.co/V9ow2OTr0m
— Nordin 🏈 🦁 (@nordinmose) March 12, 2024
That is linked to the Times of India, something we have heard of before, and they write:
Times Now has not been able to independently verify the veracity of the video.
However, agencies on social media have shared that the viral video is two years old. While the incident is true, the video has nothing to do with the current uprising in the Caribbean nation. ‘It turns out that this video is from 2 years ago of a battle between the Gran Grif and Ti Mepri gangs in the Artibonite Valley,’ stated one such user of social media platform X.
That quote seems to be coming from Mr. Nawfal and we already pointed out how ephemeral that source is. We also found a story on a website called HBS News, which no one on Twitter/X seems to link to that says:
However, it is important to note that this video is not recent and dates back two years. Therefore, it does not reflect the current situation in Haiti. …
The video does not involve the gang members who are currently involved in ongoing conflicts in the country. The incident depicted in the video is from a past altercation between the Gran Grif and Ti Mepri gangs in the Artibonite Valley, as reported by a user who shared the video online.
But they don’t do anything helpful like actually linking to that user who shared it online who makes these claims. Thus, it comes down to how much you trust this website and we never heard of them before we started researching this story.
We can find a genuine link to this next story, from the Hindustan Times:
Does viral video show Haitian gang eating human body parts? Truth behind the incident https://t.co/zypJsk1sZP
— Pine Tree Flag (@bobbithetabby) March 11, 2024
But that adds very little to the information provided by Times Now, writing:
The video has not been independently verified by any news agency. However, according to Times Now, agencies on social media have revealed that the video is two years old and has nothing to do with the current unrest. Although the incident may be true, it is not related to the current situation in the Caribbean nation. One user shared the video with the caption, ‘It turns out that this video is from over 2 YEARS ago of a battle between the Gran Grif and Ti Mepri gangs in the Artibonite Valley. It has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with Jimmy ‘Barbecue’ Cherizier or today's uprising. The man pictured did this gruesome act to terrorize his rivals.’ The post added that the reports came from journalists who covered the Haiti situation for years.
But again, they don’t do us the courtesy to link to those reports or even to identify their sources, so we are left with no clear idea where they are getting this information from. They simply seem to be playing a game of ‘telephone.’
Still, for us, all evidence is fake until proven true. The video looks real and it could take place in Haiti—we don’t see anything that rules Haiti in or out. But seeing is not always believing, or else we would think that in the 1990’s a company managed to clone dinosaurs that subsequently went amuck.
behold the extremely 1993 original trailer for Jurassic Park pic.twitter.com/HDKUUJiw64
— Netflix Tudum (@NetflixTudum) August 1, 2020
Still, we’re not saying we believe that the cannibalism video is definitely fake, or definitely from two years ago, or whatever. We’re just saying we don’t know, and we refuse to consider it as evidence of anything until we have decent sourcing.
And, of course, that raises the question of what this is being offered to prove. For instance, here’s Ian Miles Cheong responding to a claim that the video is from two years ago:
I guess cannibalism in Haiti isn’t so bad if a video of it happening was taken two years ago.
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) March 12, 2024
Haiti has a long, colorful history of cannibalism. In 2004, a gang called the Cannibal Army also called the Artibonite Resistance Front, seized control of Gonaives. And then they took… https://t.co/sdqEM2ij8F
The cut off text reads:
And then they took over Port-au-Prince.
I’m sure the name was just for show.
We talked a minute ago about the requirement of authentication that all evidence in court has to go meet, but there’s another requirement that all evidence has to meet: Relevance. What does this video tell us that is useful? And the same information might be relevant in very different ways or to very different questions.
For instance, Mr. Cheong seems to think it is relevant to the question of whether or not cannibalism is a problem in Haiti over time—not just in the current conflict. Indeed, many people have seen recent events as vindicating Trump’s famous claim that countries like Haiti are 's—tholes' and maybe that is part of why Cheong is focusing on the state of Haiti over time. In that case, the video doesn’t have to be from the current fight to be relevant to that question—although it still needs to be proven to be genuine.
Mr. Lucre claims that this all involves gangs at least affiliated with Mr. Chérizier. That would be interesting as it tells you something about the character of Mr. Chérizier and his movement if it were true—regardless of when the video was shot—but we can’t find any evidence of that, either.
And, of course, many people shared the video just to say thing have gone to hell in a handbasket in Haiti in general during the current conflict. The coverage definitely suggests that things are chaotic in general, but the video can’t be evidence of it, unless it is authenticated as being part of the current conflict.
So, at the moment we don’t know whether this video is definitely real, or if it is from any current conflict in Haiti. Still, if Twitter/X is removing the video, that also might make it hard to find information about the video to verify or debunk it.
But we’ll do something unusual with this piece: We’ll do some good, old-fashioned crowdsourcing. If you have any leads that will help us nail down any details about the video, please share it with this author. We will check the comments regularly for the next few days and you can also reach out to this author by Twitter/X by the username @aaronworthing. Even if you don’t know how reliable the information is, if you know of someone claiming to know the source of the video, when it was posted or even who the man is in the video—or really anything we could use to figure out what is going on—please share it. Maybe this can lead to some kind of update, or maybe not. And we thank you ahead of time for any help you provide.
But as it stands right now, we don’t think we have any reliable information showing that the video is real and it is what it is claimed to be. This author’s gut says that the people claiming it is old video are right. We think our instincts are pretty good but that’s not really evidence. So, we are left in frustrating ambiguity. And sometimes that is how it is in life. Sometimes you have to accept that you don’t know exactly what is going on.
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