The Unit­ed Na­tions Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil is ex­pect­ed to vote Wednes­day af­ter­noon on a res­o­lu­tion that would de­mand an im­me­di­ate end to vi­o­lence and crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty in Haiti and im­pose sanc­tions on in­flu­en­tial gang leader Jim­my Cher­izier, nick­named “Bar­be­cue.”

The res­o­lu­tion would al­so im­pose sanc­tions on oth­er Hait­ian in­di­vid­u­als and groups who en­gage in ac­tions that threat­en the peace, se­cu­ri­ty or sta­bil­i­ty of the West­ern Hemi­sphere’s poor­est coun­try, ac­cord­ing to the fi­nal draft ob­tained by The As­so­ci­at­ed Press.

Coun­cil diplo­mats said the 10-page draft res­o­lu­tion was put “in blue” — a fi­nal form that can be vot­ed on — late Tues­day with a vote to be held Wednes­day af­ter­noon. They spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty ahead of an of­fi­cial an­nounce­ment.

Dai­ly life in Haiti be­gan to spin out of con­trol last month just hours af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Ariel Hen­ry said fu­el sub­si­dies would be elim­i­nat­ed, caus­ing prices to dou­ble. Gangs blocked the en­trance to the Var­reux fu­el ter­mi­nal, lead­ing to a se­vere short­age of fu­el at a time when clean wa­ter is al­so scarce and the coun­try is try­ing to deal with a dead­ly cholera out­break.

The res­o­lu­tion draft­ed by the Unit­ed States and Mex­i­co on­ly sin­gles out Cher­izier, a for­mer po­lice of­fi­cer who leads an al­liance of Hait­ian gangs known as the “G9 Fam­i­ly and Al­lies,” as a tar­get for a trav­el ban, as­set freeze and arms em­bar­go. But it would es­tab­lish a Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil com­mit­tee to des­ig­nate oth­er Haitians and groups to be put on a sanc­tions black­list.

“Cher­izier and his G9 gang con­fed­er­a­tion are ac­tive­ly block­ing the free move­ment of fu­el from the Var­reux fu­el ter­mi­nal — the largest in Haiti,” the draft says. “His ac­tions have di­rect­ly con­tributed to the eco­nom­ic paral­y­sis and hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis in Haiti.”

Cher­izier al­so “has en­gaged in acts that threat­en the peace, se­cu­ri­ty, and sta­bil­i­ty of Haiti and has planned, di­rect­ed, or com­mit­ted acts that con­sti­tute se­ri­ous hu­man rights abus­es,” the draft res­o­lu­tion says.

While serv­ing in the po­lice, it says, he planned and par­tic­i­pat­ed in a dead­ly at­tack in No­vem­ber 2018 in the cap­i­tal’s La Saline neigh­bor­hood where at least 71 peo­ple were killed, over 400 hous­es de­stroyed, and at least sev­en women raped by armed gangs.

In a video post­ed on Face­book last week, Cher­izier called on the gov­ern­ment to grant him and G9 mem­bers amnesty and to void all ar­rest war­rants against them. He said in Cre­ole that Haiti’s eco­nom­ic and so­cial sit­u­a­tion is wors­en­ing by the day, so “there is no bet­ter time than to­day to dis­man­tle the sys­tem.”

He out­lined a tran­si­tion­al plan for restor­ing or­der in Haiti. It would in­clude cre­ation of a Coun­cil of Sages with one rep­re­sen­ta­tive from each of Haiti’s 10 de­part­ments to gov­ern the coun­try with an in­ter­im pres­i­dent un­til a pres­i­den­tial elec­tion could be held in Feb­ru­ary 2024. It al­so calls for re­struc­tur­ing Haiti’s Na­tion­al Po­lice and strength­en­ing the army.

“The coun­try is (fac­ing) one cri­sis af­ter an­oth­er,” Cher­izier said. “Dur­ing all these crises, the first vic­tim is the pop­u­la­tion, the peo­ple in the ghet­tos, the peas­ants.”

The draft res­o­lu­tion ex­press­es “grave con­cern about the ex­treme­ly high lev­els of gang vi­o­lence and oth­er crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties, in­clud­ing kid­nap­pings, traf­fick­ing in per­sons and the smug­gling of mi­grants, and homi­cides, and sex­u­al and gen­der-based vi­o­lence in­clud­ing rape and sex­u­al slav­ery, as well as on­go­ing im­puni­ty for per­pe­tra­tors, cor­rup­tion and re­cruit­ment of chil­dren by gangs and the im­pli­ca­tions of Haiti’s sit­u­a­tion for the re­gion.”

It de­mands “an im­me­di­ate ces­sa­tion of vi­o­lence, crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties, and hu­man rights abus­es which un­der­mine the peace, sta­bil­i­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of Haiti and the re­gion.” And it urges “all po­lit­i­cal ac­tors” to en­gage in ne­go­ti­a­tions to over­come the cri­sis in Haiti and al­low leg­isla­tive and pres­i­den­tial elec­tions to be held “as soon as the lo­cal se­cu­ri­ty sit­u­a­tion per­mits.”

Po­lit­i­cal in­sta­bil­i­ty has sim­mered ever since last year’s still-un­solved as­sas­si­na­tion of Hait­ian Pres­i­dent Jovenel Moïse, who had faced op­po­si­tion protests call­ing for his res­ig­na­tion over cor­rup­tion charges and claims that his five-year term had end­ed. Moïse dis­solved Par­lia­ment in Jan­u­ary 2020 af­ter leg­is­la­tors failed to hold elec­tions in 2019 amid po­lit­i­cal grid­lock.

Haiti has been gripped by in­fla­tion, caus­ing ris­ing prices that have put food and fu­el out of reach for many Haitians, and ex­ac­er­bat­ing protests that have brought so­ci­ety to the break­ing point. Vi­o­lence is rag­ing, mak­ing par­ents afraid to send their kids to school. Hos­pi­tals, banks and gro­cery stores are strug­gling to stay open. Clean wa­ter is scarce and the coun­try is try­ing to deal with a cholera out­break.

The pres­i­dent of neigh­bor­ing Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, which shares the Caribbean is­land of His­pan­io­la, re­cent­ly de­scribed the sit­u­a­tion as a “low-in­ten­si­ty civ­il war.”

U.S. Am­bas­sador Lin­da Thomas-Green­field said Mon­day the U.S. and Mex­i­co are prepar­ing a sec­ond U.N. res­o­lu­tion that would au­tho­rize an in­ter­na­tion­al mis­sion to help im­prove se­cu­ri­ty in Haiti, whose gov­ern­ment is­sued a “dis­tress call” for the peo­ple of the cri­sis-wracked na­tion.

Thomas-Green­field said the pro­posed “non-U.N.” mis­sion would be lim­it­ed in time and scope and would be led by “a part­ner coun­try,” which was not iden­ti­fied, “with the deep, nec­es­sary ex­pe­ri­ence re­quired for such an ef­fort to be ef­fec­tive.” It would have a man­date to use mil­i­tary force if nec­es­sary.

She said the pro­posed mis­sion was in re­sponse to an Oct. 7 call by Prime Min­is­ter Hen­ry and the Hait­ian Coun­cil of Min­is­ters for in­ter­na­tion­al as­sis­tance to help re­store se­cu­ri­ty and al­le­vi­ate the hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis. It al­so re­flects one op­tion sug­gest­ed in a let­ter from U.N. Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al An­to­nio Guter­res to the coun­cil Oct. 9 that called for de­ploy­ment of a rapid ac­tion force by one or sev­er­al U.N. mem­ber na­tions to help Haiti’s Na­tion­al Po­lice, she said.

Mex­i­co’s U.N. Am­bas­sador Juan Ra­mon De La Fuente Ramirez said ear­li­er Tues­day that he ex­pect­ed ac­tion “very, very soon” on the sanc­tions res­o­lu­tion, “and then we’ll have to start work­ing on the sec­ond one which is go­ing to take a lit­tle more work and a few more days.”

Rus­sia’s deputy U.N. am­bas­sador Dmit­ry Polyan­sky told the coun­cil Mon­day that Moscow can’t sup­port “at­tempts to push through a sanc­tions res­o­lu­tion” and agreed to look in­to im­pos­ing re­stric­tive mea­sures on­ly af­ter con­sid­er­ing their “ef­fi­cien­cy,” tar­get­ed na­ture and hu­man­i­tar­i­an con­se­quences.

By EDITH M. LED­ER­ER-As­so­ci­at­ed Press