Broken and collapsed buildings remain in every neighborhood. Men pull oxcarts by hand through the street. Women carry 5 gallon plastic jugs of water on their heads, dipped from manhole covers in the street. Hundreds of thousands remain in grey sheet and tarp covered shelters in big public parks, in between houses and in any small pocket of land. Most of the people are unemployed or selling mangoes or food on the side of every main street. This was Port au Prince during my visit with a human rights delegation of School of Americas Watch – more than a year and a half after the earthquake that killed hundreds of thousands and made two million homeless.
What I did not see this week were bulldozers scooping up the mountains of concrete remaining from last January’s earthquake. No cranes lifting metal beams up to create new buildings. No public works projects. No housing developments. No public food or public water distribution centers. Read more »
MINUSTAH has more than 8,700 soldiers and 3,500 police in the French-speaking Caribbean country. Its mandate expires October 15.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Monday September 19, 2011 – UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has announced plans to discuss with the Haitian government, the gradual reduction of MINUSTAH’s peacekeeping force in the country.
This follows violent protests about a sexual assault on an 18 year old resident, allegedly by five Uruguayan peacekeepers who left the country on Friday.
In a broadcast, Ban apologized for the incident, which he termed “totally unacceptable.”
While he praised MINUSTAH’s contribution to the country since 2004, he said he also understands the frustrations of the Haitian people. Read more »
[The US, sponsor of the 2004 coup d'etat in Haiti which removed the government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and the overseer of the occupation of Haiti ever since, responds to the protests demanding an end to the occupation with another call--for more occupation. The mis-information in the US call is wearing thin as even the most slavish supporters of the occupation--from the puppet president of Haiti, to the occupation forces from Brazil and Honduras, to even the UN Secretary General--are calling for reductions and retreats on forces in Haiti. -- Frontlines ed.]
Monday, September 19, 2011
NEW YORK, USA (CMC) — The United States is calling on the United Nations to keep its peacekeeping troops in Haiti even as it note that strong rules of engagement will be important to deal with a stable but fragile security situation in the French speaking country.
In an article in the Herald Tribune, the US Alternate Representative for Special Political Affairs to the United Nations, Jeffrey DeLaurentis, said Washington supports the renewal of the United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Haiti’s (MINUSTAH) mandate for another year under broadly the same terms as the 2010 mandate.
“MINUSTAH has been working tirelessly in Haiti to restore a secure and stable environment, to promote the political process, and to strengthen Haiti’s Government institutions and rule-of-law-structures, as well as to promote and to protect human rights.
“MINUSTAH has provided vital security and logistical support during presidential and legislative elections, supported programs designed to strengthen the rule of law, and conducted capacity building work with the Haitian National Police (HNP) through the 2006 HNP Reform Plan.
“The United States commends the UN role in previous elections, and underscores the importance of UN assistance with the next round of partial national and local elections in Haiti”. Read more »
Independent reports concur that the cholera outbreak that has killed 6,200 Haitians was caused by reckless sewage disposal by Minustah troops. Photograph: Ramon Espinosa/ AP/AP
How much is a Haitian life worth to the UN? Apparently, not even an apology.
On 6 August, a unit of the 12,000 member United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Haiti (Minustah) based in the central plateau city of Hinche was caught dumping faeces and other waste in holes a few feet from a river where people bathe and drink. After complaints by locals and an investigation by journalists, city officials burned the waste near the Guayamouc river. The mayor of Hinche, André Renaud, criticised Minustah’s flagrant disregard for the community’s health and called for the expulsion of some foreign troops.
On 21 August, the UN was again accused of improper sewage disposal, 10 miles from Hinche.
As is their wont, Minustah officials simply deny dumping sewage. Last week, the UN released a statement claiming they had no reason to dump waste since the base in Hinche built a treatment plant and sewage disposal on 15 June.
“The United Nations Mission for Stabilisation in Haiti (Minustah) formally denies being responsible for the dumping of waste in Hinche or elsewhere in the territory of Haiti.”
For anyone who has followed Minustah’s operations this denial rings hollow. Ten months ago, reckless sewage disposal at the UN base near Mirebalais caused a devastating cholera outbreak (pdf). In October 2010, a new deployment of Nepalese troops brought the water-borne disease to Haiti that has left 6,200 dead and more than 438,000 ill. Read more »
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Protesters calling for the withdrawal of U.N. peacekeepers from Haiti clashed with police Wednesday outside the earthquake-damaged Haitian National Palace.
The protesters hurled rocks at Haitian police in riot gear as they wanted to see a withdrawal of the U.N. troops who have helped keep order in Haiti since 2004, when political violence engulfed the country. The officers responded by firing volleys of tear gas canisters toward the crowd of several hundred demonstrators.
As the crowd dispersed, many protesters fled into the Champs des Mars, the park that became a huge encampment of tents and shanties following the January 2010 earthquake, and camp residents rubbed lime on their nostrils in an effort to keep the stinging gas at bay.
Several local journalists told The Associated Press that two of their colleagues were beaten by riot police. One of the injured reporters was taken to the hospital for a broken bone in his right foot, the journalists and Haitian newspaper Le Matin reported. Read more »
Port au Prince, Sep 16 (Prensa Latina) The civilian organization that organized the protests to demand the pullout of the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) announced that demonstrations will continue as long as those forces remain here.At least one person was wounded in clashes with police on Wednesday, as protestors chanted slogans demanding the withdrawal of the international military body.In a communiqué sent to Prensa Latina, the Group for Compensation of Cholera Victims explained that the objective of the mobilization is to change de stand of senators and of President Michel Martelly, who defend a phased pullout.
“We cannot give more time for MINUSTAH to continue its violations,” says the document.
Protests were triggered by release of footage of five soldiers subduing a young boy in a barrack in southern Port Salut, 174 km from the capital. Read more »
[Brazil's role and interest in the occupation of Haiti is given historic background in this article issued at the time of growing protests of MINUSTAH (the UN occupation force funded and largely directed by the US). -- Frontlines ed.]
Brazil’s leadership in the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) may be coming to its end. The newly-appointed defense minister, Celso Amorin (most recently he served as foreign affairs minister from 2003 to 2011) recently declared to the Brazilian media that he “supports the withdrawal of Brazilian troops from Haiti.” Should this happen, it would be a major departure from the status quo, and would greatly affect MINUSTAH’s operations, as well as jolt Brazil’s role as the Caribbean’s major arbiter of security. Furthermore, Brasilia’s quest for a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has been partially based on its role in MINUSTAH as an example of its readiness for a UN seat, which may now be called into question.
Brazil’s role in Haiti
Brasilia racked up a huge leadership role in MINUSTAH, which had as its mission to aid the transitional government that gained control of Haiti (via the UNSC’s resolution 1542) after President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted in early 2004. The mission was controversial at the time and drew heavy criticism from its inception as it was regarded as a type of colonial government by the UN in the wake of Aristide’s abrupt forced departure from power, following major national protests and violence. At the time, there were persistent accusations that the U.S., Canada and France had a role in the Haitian head of state’s ouster.
Brazil has provided the military commanders for MINUSTAH along with a significant number of its forces over the past seven years. Read more »
Port-au-Prince (Reuters) – Haitian police on Wednesday clashed with demonstrators who demanded the withdrawal of United Nations peacekeepers in a protest against the alleged rape of a local man by a group of Uruguayan Marines.
Police in the capital Port-au-Prince used teargas to stop about 300 protesters from entering a square in front of the damaged presidential palace where survivors of Haiti’s 2010 earthquake are still sheltering in a tent and tarpaulin camp.
Traffic was disrupted as pedestrians and camp dwellers, many clutching small children, fled to escape the swirling teargas. Some demonstrators hurled stones at police officers.
The UN Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) has faced a public outcry since the emergence earlier this month of a video shot by a cellphone camera that shows laughing Uruguayan Marines pinning a young Haitian man face down on a mattress and apparently assaulting him sexually. Read more »
Kim Ives and Ansel Herz in The Nation | August 5, 2011
US officials led a far-reaching international campaign aimed at keeping former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide exiled in South Africa, rendering him a virtual prisoner there for the last seven years, according to secret US State Department cables.
The cables show that high-level US and UN officials even discussed a politically motivated prosecution of Aristide to prevent him from “gaining more traction with the Haitian population and returning to Haiti.”
The secret cables, made available to the Haitian weekly newspaper Haïti Liberté by WikiLeaks, show how the political defeat of Aristide and his Lavalas movement has been the central pillar of US policy toward the Caribbean nation over the last two US administrations, even though—or perhaps because—US officials understood that he was the most popular political figure in Haiti.
They also reveal how US officials and their diplomatic counterparts from France, Canada, the UN and the Vatican tried to vilify and ostracize the Haitian political leader. Read more »
Residents of Caracol, a village in Haiti’s Northeast department, say they were never consulted or even warned about plans to build a huge new “free trade zone” (FTZ, a complex of assembly plants) on land where many of them have been farming for some 20 years. “It’s the most fertile area we have at Caracol,” resident Renel Pierre told journalist Sylvestre Fils Dorcilus. “It’s inconceivable and unacceptable that the government could choose this part of the land to set up an industrial park.”
The Parc industriel du Nord (Northern Industrial Park, PIN) is a joint project of the US government, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB, or BID in French and Spanish) and South Korea’s leading apparel manufacturer, Sae-A Trading Co. Ltd. Together, they are putting some $300 million into the FTZ, which promoters claim will generate 20,000 jobs in the short term and 65,000 jobs over time. The Haitian government provided the land, which it says is state property; the administration of former president René Préval (1996-2001 and 2006-2011) promised to compensate the peasants who have been using it. Read more »
On April 4th, Haiti’s electoral council announced that, according to preliminary results, Michel Martelly had been selected Haiti’s new president. A kompa singer and long-time proponent of Jean-Claude Duvalier, Martelly worked with the dreaded FRAPH death squads that killed over 5000 people in Haiti after the first coup against President Jean- Bertrand Aristide in 1991. Martelly supporters had announced they would “burn down the country” if he were not selected. Only a small number of Haitians – around 20% by most estimates – voted in the elections, the smallest percentage in 60 years to participate in any presidential elections in the Americas. Fanmi Lavalas, the party of Aristide and by far the most popular in Haiti, was banned from participation. Why should people vote? It was a “selection,” not an “election,” we were told over and over again. By the second round on March 20th, Haitians had to choose between Martelly or Mirlande Manigat, a right-wing member of Haiti’s tiny elite. One Haitian friend told us, “This is a choice between cholera and typhoid. You cannot make such a choice.”
Yet the bitter taste of the dismal elections could not diminish the joy of “the return.” As the plane carrying President Aristide and his family back from a 7-year forced exile in South Africa approached the Port-au-Prince airport on March 18th, there were about 50 of us in the inner courtyard of his home. A day before, we had watched quietly as dozens of Haitians methodically painted walls, swept the same floors over and over again to make sure they were spotless, and fixed any last remnant of the destruction that took place at this house after the coup on February 29, 2004.
We had heard that President Aristide (called Titid throughout Haiti) would arrive at the airport around noon, but we had gone to the house earlier to avoid the crush. I had come with a dear friend, Pierre Labossiere, representing the work of the Haiti Action Committee. We were both honored and overwhelmed to be there. Read more »
Former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide will arrive in Port-au-Prince
early on Friday, ending seven years of exile in South Africa, an aide said.
The planned return of Aristide (57) comes just two days ahead of Haiti’s
crucial run-off presidential vote, and risks re-opening old wounds and
reviving deep political grudges related to his being overthrown and
forced out of the country.
“It’s going to be an event. He will arrive on a private plane,” his
spokesperson Maryse Narcisse said.
Members of his Lavalas party, which long has pined for the deposed
president’s return, is planning a huge rally Friday at the international
airport in Port-au-Prince to welcome him home. Read more »
[This move--the latest in many such moves--to prevent the return of Aristide to Haiti is an eloquent clarification of the US' promotion of democracy in Haiti, and throughout the world. -- Frontlines ed.]
By REUTERS, March 14, 2011
The Obama administration said Monday that the former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide should refrain from returning to Haiti before the presidential runoff election on Sunday. A State Department spokesman, Mark Toner, said that Mr. Aristide, above, had the right to return, but doing so this week “can only be seen as a conscious choice to impact Haiti’s elections.” A delay, Mr. Toner said, would “permit the Haitian people to cast their ballots in a peaceful atmosphere.” He said the United States was asking South Africa, where Mr. Aristide has lived in exile since 2004, to delay his departure. Mr. Aristide’s lawyer, Ira Kurzban, said the United States “should leave that decision to the democratically elected government instead of seeking to dictate the terms under which a Haitian citizen may return to his country.”
In this photo taken March 2, 2011, civilian volunteers receive military instruction from veterans of Haiti's former army in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Haiti has been without an army since 1995, when President Jean-Bertrand Aristide disbanded the military after he was deposed in a coup and then restored to power with the help of U.N. forces. The two candidates who will face off in Haiti's presidential vote on March 20 say they support restoring the armed forces in some form. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
Haiti’s next president expected to revive military, worrying some who recall past with dread
BEN FOX, Associated Press, March 9, 2011
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Their military fatigues faded and their grizzled faces stern, the squad of veterans barks out orders to rows of young men and women who sweat as they run through exercises under the blazing Caribbean sun.
The more than 150 volunteers who have gathered on a hilltop outside the capital are desperate for a chance to serve their country. Many say they are anxious to bring security to Haiti and help end its long series of troubles.
But the would-be recruits don’t really have any place to go: Haiti has no army — or any other military forces for that matter.
The drill leaders and ranks of volunteers who have eagerly assembled here represent nothing more than an informal movement of Haitians eager to re-establish an army — an idea that unnerves Haitians who remember times darkened by military coups, oppression and abuse.
The Haitian army was disbanded in 1995 by President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, after he had been deposed in a coup and then restored to power with the help of U.N. forces. The continuing presence of U.N. troops is a sore point for many Haitians. Read more »
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