WORLD NEWS NOVEMBER 29, 2018 / 1:15 AM / UPDATED 5 HOURS AGO

General behind deadly Haiti raid takes aim at Brazil's gangs

Gabriel Stargardter
9 MIN READ

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Thirteen years ago, a Brazilian general named Augusto Heleno led hundreds of United Nations troops into a Haitian slum to bring a powerful gangster to heel.

Over the course of a seven-hour gun battle, the peacekeepers sprayed more than 22,000 bullets into the impoverished Port-au-Prince neighborhood of Cite Soleil. Their target, a warlord known as Dread Wilme, was killed.

The operation, dubbed “Iron Fist,” was the capstone of Heleno’s mission to restore order in Haiti after its president was ousted by insurgents. Heleno declared the raid a success.

But various human rights groups called it a “massacre,” alleging dozens of bystanders were killed in the crossfire, many of them women and children.

The episode, largely forgotten outside Haiti, may provide a road map for the security strategy of Brazil’s next president, far-right former army captain Jair Bolsonaro. He has tapped Heleno to be his top national security advisor and wants the former general and other ex-Haiti hands to tame Brazil’s favelas using methods employed in the slums of Port-au-Prince.

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