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(Tory Field) |
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Last week,
the United Nations peacekeeping mission fired tear gas and rubber
bullets into a crowded refugee camp, leaving at least six hospitalized
and others suffering respiratory problems. Citizen organizations plan
demonstrations for today, the sixth anniversary of the U.N. armed
presence in Haiti. The march is part of growing protests against the
military forces which have amassed in Haiti since the January 12
earthquake and the lack of attention to displaced people’s needs.
Then
at about 3:00, MINUSTAH troops began firing in the internally displaced
people’s camp in the downtown parks around Champs de Mars, where many
thousands of people are crowded into tight quarters. The firing
continued for hours, according to residents interviewed for this
article and other reports. Camp residents reported that babies and
small children choked on the gas and passed out, as did at least two
women with preexisting heart conditions. Three doctors with Partners in
Health at the University Hospital reported treating at least six
victims of rubber bullet rounds. Two children were wounded in the face,
one of them requiring about ten stitches, according to one of the
doctors.[1]
When the attack began, camp residents, including
many elderly and infirm people, and babies and small children fled. “I
saw one woman running with her twins that are three or four months
old,” said Eramithe Delva. “She had one in each arm, and with every
step as she ran they banged against her chest. Is this what they want
for us?” Many spent the night in the streets, for fear of returning to
the camp. Residents interviewed said they had no idea why MINUSTAH
fired on them.
MINUSTAH has since issued an apology for entering
in the School of Ethnology. The statement did not mention the attack on
the camp.
Demonstrations in Port-au-Prince and other areas of
the country have become a daily occurrence. Most of them protest the
government’s handling of the disaster and the heavy political and
military presence of foreign powers since January 12. Within days after
the earthquake, 12,600 U.N. troops, 20,000 U.S. troops, 2,000
Canadians, 600 French, and more from other countries amassed there.
Rural
organizer Selina Pierre-Louis said, “We don’t know what these soldiers
came to do. They have batons and guns in their hands. They zoom up and
down in their huge vehicles all day. We’re not at war and we’re not
armed. We need technical support, we need reconstruction, we need
psychological help. They’re not doing anything to help the rebuilding.
They’re just adding to our trauma.”
Troop levels overall have
abated since the first months after the earthquake. The most recent
figures on MINUSTAH’s web site show that just over 9,000 MINUSTAH
forces remain there. The mission’s cost for the current fiscal year is
$611.75 million.[2]
The Security Council-approved MINUSTAH was
established on June 1, 2004 with a triple mandate of ensuring a “secure
and stable environment,” promoting a constitutional political process,
and strengthening human rights. Francky Etienne Remy, who owns a small
craft shop in Jacmel, said, “The Haitian police are totally ineffectual
so MINUSTAH fills a vacuum.”
Yet MINUSTAH troops have repeatedly
been accused of killings, arbitrary arrests, and human rights
violations throughout the duration of the mission. (See, for example,
the reports of Harvard Law Student Advocates for Human Rights and
Human Rights Watch.) These charges include an attack by MINUSTAH forces
in Cité Soleil on April 15, 2005, killing several[3]; an attack on July
6, 2005, resulting in an uncertain number of deaths[4]; the killing of
at least five, and possibly many more, people in Cité Soleil in
December 22, 2006[5]; and the shooting death of a young man at the
funeral of a prominent priest on July 14, 2009[6].
In February,
2008, the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services released its
findings from an investigation into accusations against Sri Lankan
MINUSTAH troops. It found that acts of sexual exploitation and abuse of
children were "frequent" and occurred "at virtually every location
where the contingent personnel were deployed."[7]
MINUSTAH forces have also been shot at and killed. MINUSTAH claims it has suffered 152 troop fatalities.[8]
Beyond
charges of unnecessary force, others like the student, small farmer,
worker, and popular organizations who are organizing today’s march,
oppose MINUSTAH because they claim the mission undermines Haitian
sovereignty. The May 26 press statement for the march, signed by ten
organizations, states, “After the January 12 catastrophe, the
occupation has been strengthened with other foreign soldiers and
MINUSTAH, on the pretext that they are helping us… [T]hey did nothing
to help prevent more than 300,000 people from dying under rubble… Now
on the sixth anniversary of the occupation, we are taking to the
streets of Port-au-Prince to get the country out from under the rubble
of MINUSTAH.”[9]
Community organizer Nixon Boumba with the
grassroots organization Democratic Popular Movement said in an
interview, “We’re asking for Haitians to be the true actors in their
future, and for an end to the occupation to allow the country to have
dignity and autonomy for the development and transformation of the
country. We need schools, we need people in the camps attended to.
After January 12 there have been a lot of opportunities to resolve the
problems in the country. Instead, Canada, France, the U.S., Brazil, and
others have acted like imperialists, strengthening their power and
trying to undermine our chance to change the quality of our country.
The U.S. wants Haiti to serve as a military base for the Caribbean, to
control resistance from Latin America. And they want to prevent a
massive emigration toward the U.S. and Canada.”
Notes:
[1] Information
gathered from author interviews as well as first-person testimony
collected by Melinda Miles, KOMPAY, and reported in a May 25 email to
the author; and by Ansel Herz, Inter Press Service, reported in “U.N.
Clash with Frustrated Students Spills into Camps,” May 25.
[2] MINUSTAH Facts and Figures, http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/minustah/facts.shtml
[3] Eyewitness testimony, AP television news story, April 15, 2010.
[4] http://www.cod.edu/people/faculty/yearman/cite_soleil.htm
[5] http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/12-another-massacre-in-haiti-by-un-troops/
[6] http://www.sfbayview.com/2009/secret-funeral-for-a-minustah-victim/
[7] Human Rights Watch, “Haiti: Events of 2008,” http://www.hrw.org/en/node/79214
[8] MINUSTAH Facts and Figures, http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/minustah/facts.shtml
[9]
Gwoup 77 et al., “Press Release: Let’s mobilize to get the country out
of the rubble of foreign aid and the rubble of the occupation,”
Port-au-Prince, May 26, 2010.
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Upside Down World