Heavily armed agents of the BSAP are escaping state control

Recruitments considered arbitrary, the dubious origin of the weapons and the lack of control by the authorities over the activities of BSAP agents worry the manager

Between 2017 and 2024, the workforce of the Protected Areas Security Brigade (BSAP) increases from around a hundred agents to 3,000, according to data from the human resources department communicated to AyiboPost by Jean François Thomas, current Director General of the National Agency for Protected Areas (ANAP), a department attached to the Ministry of the Environment which supervises the BSAP.

According to the official, this count may not reflect reality, because “disorders” that have occurred within the brigade prevent his management from accurately determining the total number of agents in the brigade.

While the number increases, the process of arming these agents escapes the authorities, according to three interviews conducted by AyiboPost with people familiar with the situation.

Between 2021 and 2024, two commissions were created: one responsible for restructuring the Environmental Surveillance Corps (CSE), on which the BSAP depends; and the other, the National Agency for Protected Areas (ANAP) which supervises the two bodies.

As the number increases, the process of arming these agents escapes the authorities

The second commission could not be installed due to resignation abrupt by Ariel Henry in April 2024.

“Significant disorders and shortcomings were noted within this environmental surveillance brigade,” Frantz Daniel Pierre, who was part of the first commission, reveals to AyiboPost.

Pierre is also director general of the Environmental Inspection and Surveillance Directorate (DISE) at the Ministry of the Environment.

Recruitments considered arbitrary, the dubious origin of the weapons and the lack of control by the authorities over the activities of BSAP agents worry the manager.

For his part, Jean François Thomas denounces an “instrumentalization of the body for political purposes”.

This situation takes place in a context marked by the spread of armed violence across the country, at a time when the authorities are still unable to stem the influx of weapons into the national territory.

In 2024, more than 5,000 people will be killed, according to the United Nations.

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BSAP agents must ensure the protection of protected areas, which include all types of areas dedicated to nature preservation.

In Haiti, there are 24 protected areas grouped into World Heritage, National Park, Reserved Area and Protection of Biological Diversity.

When it was created in 2006, the CSE had 32 agents, according to Jean François Thomas, who participated in its launch.

When the late President Jovenel Moïse elevated the ANAP to the rank of general directorate by the decree of May 10, 2017, all the agents of the CSE fell under the control of the ANAP, which until then had only been a simple directorate barely operational technique.

“There were only 47 agents within the CSE at the time. They formed the first contingent of BSAP agents newly placed under the ANAP umbrella. They were all adequately trained former soldiers,” Frantz Daniel Pierre, current holder of the DISE who heads the CSE, told AyiboPost.

Figures relating to the total number of BSAP agents vary according to the officials interviewed by AyiboPost.

If the number rises to 3,000 according to human resources, Frantz Daniel Pierre, member of the restructuring commission, speaks instead of 6,072, citing data communicated to the commission by the former general director of BSAP in 2022, Jeantel Joseph.

This number represents almost half of the workforce of the Haitian National Police (PNH), whose recruitment process differs from that of the BSAP which poses almost no age or academic level restrictions.

Contacted by AyiboPost on December 19, 2024, Jeantel Joseph denies having communicated these statistics to the commission.

The former manager did not grant an interview to the media.

According to Frantz Daniel Pierre, in 2022, the former director general of ANAP declared during a meeting with the commission « to have no control over the number of agents with a firearm within the BSAP”.

A meeting between Jeantel Joseph and AyiboPost aborted on December 21, 2024 due to his unavailability.

This article will be updated if there is any reaction from him.

“BSAP agents are volunteers who do not come from the ANAP budget,” explains Jean François Thomas to AyiboPost. The manager adds that in 2024, “only 140 contractual members within the ANAP office are covered in the institution’s budget.”

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According to Frantz Daniel Pierre, the establishment of the first restructuring commission of the BSAP was linked to reprehensible acts committed by certain agents of the brigade, which indirectly tarnished the Ministry of the Environment.

“Several BSAP agents have been involved in kidnapping cases,” Pierre reveals to AyiboPost.

Sometimes, he continues, “these slip-ups have been blamed on the Ministry of the Environment even though the names of these agents are not recorded in the institution’s archives as civil servants”.

The occurrence of BSAP agents involved in abuses or acts deemed “blameworthy” have often made the news.

An AyiboPost investigation published in January 2024 mentioned three corps agents who beat and injured a deaf and mute in Camp-Perrin in the south of the country during a scuffle.

BSAP agents also forced van drivers providing traffic between the town of Les Cayes and Cavaillon, Maniche, Camp-Perrin to abandon the intersection between the first Grande rue and the boulevard des Quatre Chemins used as a parking point in accordance with a municipal directive.

In 2023, agents of the brigade, present on the Ouanaminthe canal site, were accused by the spokesperson for the canal committee, Wideline Pierre, of having tried to monopolize cement intended for construction.

Smuggling charges on the Haitian-Dominican border were also issued against the body.

At the same time, several agents were observed by AyiboPost ensuring road traffic in the town of Les Cayes at the end of last year.

In 2023, agents of the brigade, present on the Ouanaminthe canal site, were accused by the spokesperson for the canal committee, Wideline Pierre, of having tried to monopolize cement intended for construction.

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The issue of weapons carried by BSAP agents raises serious concerns, particularly regarding their caliber and origin.

“Most BSAP agents armed themselves,” reveals Jean François Thomas to AyiboPost.

One of the sources contacted within the Ministry of the Environment by AyiboPost affirms that “many of these agents possess large caliber weapons of dubious provenance”.

Interviews collected by AyiboPost did not provide any official statistics on the number of illegal weapons in circulation within the BSAP.

Many of these agents possess large caliber weapons of questionable provenance

Even the restructuring commission failed to quantify the illegal weapons within the environmental brigade.

The CSE restructuring commission highlighted the problem of armaments, the inadequacy of the training of agents of the environmental body, as well as the inappropriate use of these types of weapons.

Codio Osthène has been a volunteer with the BSAP for almost five years.

Originally from Ouanaminthe, he is the spokesperson for the platoon of agents assigned to surveillance at the Massacre River.

Faced with the criticisms made against illegal armament within the BSAP, Osthène responds that “most of the BSAP’s weapons are former equipment from the armed forces of Haiti”.

“Moreover,” the agent continues, “a weapon is never legal, it is the person who carries it who must rather be legal. As soon as you join the BSAP, you are a leader, and this new status gives your weapon a legal aspect. Your badge entitles you to it,” he insists.

In the case of weapons already registered with the police and the army, “the renewal of papers is not necessary for an agent who joins the BSAP”, continues Osthène.

Because, according to him, “this weapon will be regularized simply because it will now serve the brigade”.

Fritzner Jean-Baptiste, commander of the BSAP at Ouanaminthe, takes the opposite view of these statements.

While he recognizes that many BSAP agents actually do volunteer work, the manager tells AyiboPost that the institution does not legalize weapons for its agents and that their use at the corps level must be sanctioned by a certificate. of legality granted by the PNH.

“The BSAP does not supply weapons, so it cannot legalize them,” he emphasizes.

In Haiti, only the Haitian National Police and the army can legalize weapons.

Former soldier of the Armed Forces of Haiti, Fritzner Jean-Baptiste also admits the contribution of former soldiers to the arming of the BSAP.

In Haiti, only the Haitian National Police and the army can legalize weapons.

Jean François Thomas, who headed the Environmental Surveillance Corps, recognizes that the latter, from which the BSAP derives, had small defense materials registered in the relevant police departments.

“But for ANAP, there is no official inventory of weapons or ammunition registered at the level of the authorities concerned,” he recalls.

“I have about two months at the head of ANAP, and my investigations give me no clue that the agency has any armory or weapons depot,” he declares.

The Environmental Surveillance Corps, composed of agents trained by the Carabineros Corps of Chile, was inaugurated in 2006.

Its members were specialized in the protection of biodiversity in Protected Areas.

When they were remobilized under the control of the ANAP to become the pioneers of the BSAP, these agents and their equipment were transferred to the agency.

According to Frantz Daniel Pierre, “a synergy existed between the environmental surveillance body and the Ministry of Justice, allowing agents to have 12 caliber weapons for the surveillance of protected areas between 2007 and 2010”.

But according to Pierre, these materials were not numerous.

“We had listed less than ten 12 caliber weapons at the restructuring commission level,” Pierre underlines to AyiboPost.

“Only these weapons were transferred to ANAP when it became a general directorate,” he says.

Former soldier, Ashley Laraque, also a member of the Haitian Military Association (AMH), also does not recognize the army’s issuance of weapons to the BSAP.

“The army does not provide weapons to the BSAP or any other institution,” he told AyiboPost.

According to the former soldier, the army did not even have certain types of weapons, and « it was impossible for a former soldier to be in possession of weapons as sophisticated as those often seen in the hands of BSAP agents. » .

According to two officials contacted by AyiboPost, BSAP agents should only be entitled to 12 caliber rifles at the level of Protected Areas – apart from other considerations linked to organized crime.

According to Frantz Daniel Pierre, the restructuring commission identified the problem of illegal weapons at the BSAP level as a corollary of a recruitment system riddled with gaps.

“A lot of recruitment within the corps involves individuals who wish to legalize illegal weapons in their possession. It’s a real problem,” laments the manager.

In recent years, the BSAP has often been caught in the backdrop of political movements.

In January 2024, dozens of members of the corps served as arms of the “revolution” initiated by former rebel leader Guy Philippe against the government of Ariel Henry, shortly after his release from American prison for conspiracy to launder money from drug trafficking.

The same month, several angry agents started protest movements in the towns of Hinche and Ouanaminthe after the dismissal of Jeantel Joseph at the start of the year.

A month later, the Haitian government banned BSAP agents from carrying firearms and canceled the badges of all members of the corps.

“Many officials within the institution issued BSAP badges to individuals for money, and some agents made their own badges,” reveals Jean François Thomas to AyiboPost.

Interviews conducted by AyiboPost suggest that BSAP agents did not follow through on the government’s decision.

“We would never have agreed to give up our badges and our weapons,” Fritzner Jean-Baptiste confides to AyiboPost, describing this decision as “political”.

For Jean-Baptiste, “weapons allow agents to effectively protect protected areas and the environment, but they in no way give them the right to sow disorder.”

The BSAP body is often criticized for the “lack of training” of its members and the excesses in relation to their environmental policing mission carried out in places which do not fall within their jurisdiction of action.

But, for Fritzner Jean-Baptiste, the badges of the brigade agents give them the right to travel armed anywhere in the country, given that “the environment is present everywhere”. “Even people’s living room or backyard represents an environment,” he adds.

“Most BSAP agents don’t even know what a protected area is,” Ashley Laraque told AyiboPost.

To date, the government ban on BSAP agents carrying weapons remains in place.

For Laraque, “this means that all BSAP agents who still carry weapons are illegal.”

The former soldier pleads for a real vetting within the brigade and the placing of the body under the supervision of the Armed Forces of Haiti.

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In the meantime, friction between PNH and BSAP agents often takes shape in certain places in the country.

One afternoon in October 2024, while he was on a motorcycle, Jukael Pierre, a volunteer BSAP agent, was “attacked” by around eight police officers from the Intervention Brigade (BI) during of a road check near the town of Ouanaminthe.

“They didn’t even give us time to identify ourselves. They jumped on us and beat us badly,” Codio Osthène, who accompanied Jukael Pierre, told AyiboPost.

Osthène himself says he experienced a sadly memorable moment: his glasses were broken under the force of a brutal punch from the police officers.

In retaliation, BSAP agents blocked the Diro road in the commune of Ouanaminthe for hours.

During the anti-government demonstrations instigated by Guy Philippe on February 7, 2024, five BSAP agents were killed by the police and three others arrested at Laboule.

“Until now, these agents have still not regained their freedom,” underlines Fritzner Jean-Baptiste. AyiboPost was unable to independently verify this claim.

A few days after the incident, on February 9, 2024, BI police officers invaded the BSAP base in Ouanaminthe to try, in vain, to bring about peace between the two bodies.

If, for Jean François Thomas, the BSAP can only support the army or the police in matters of security following “an official state decision”, Codio Osthène considers that the brigade proves to be very effective in the machine of justice of the country.

“Sometimes, we manage to arrest individuals against whom arrest warrants have been issued, where the police are often powerless,” he claims.

By Junior Legrand

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