News
and opinions on situation in Haiti |
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| 10/5/05 |
Haiti Report for June 10, 2005 |
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The Haiti Report is a compilation and summary of events as described in Haitian and international media. It does not reflect the opinions of any individual or organization. This service is intended to create a better understanding of the situation in Haiti by presenting the reader with reports that provide a variety of perspectives on the situation. IN THIS REPORT: US Working to Lift Arms Embargo: Butteur Metayer Died: Taiwan Issues Travel Alert for Haiti: Elections: CEP President Max Mathurin announced that the council will not set up voter registration offices in the so-called “popular neighborhoods” through the country — hotbeds of support for the Lavalas Party of deposed President Jean-Bertrand Aristide — where much of the population resides. Mathurin provided no justification for the decision except to say that it will remain in force “until the situation changes.” Only 56,000 people have been registered so far out of 4.4 million eligible to vote. The CEP intends to end its voter registration drive July 31. Brian Concannon Jr. of the Port-au-Prince-based Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti told the World, “The whole point of both the repression [against Lavalas supporters] and the limited registration facilities is to prevent the Lavalas Party from campaigning and its supporters from voting.” He added, “It is important to understand that the opposition to Lavalas, in electoral terms, has never existed. There are no parties that have demonstrated an ability to attract any votes or to effectively compete with Lavalas.” A human rights monitor based in Haiti, who asked that her name not be mentioned, agreed with Concannon that the CEP’s unwillingness to register voters in poor neighborhoods “should be seen as a deliberate attempt to exclude opponents of the current regime from voting.” However, “The question is not simply one of whether voting bureaus will be installed in popular neighborhoods, or of whether on one or two days voting can happen. “The climate of insecurity and frequent violations of the rights of residents of these areas by the interim authorities makes it impossible for anyone to organize,” she said. “Most people are literally struggling to live — death from starvation is on the rise in all of the popular neighborhoods, violence is paralyzing everything, no one can function. Residents of popular neighborhoods, and the population at large, cannot begin to discuss elections given the current situation in the country.” Anthony Fenton, a Canadian-based journalist and analyst, said, “Many of the same organizations that helped engineer the sham elections in Afghanistan and Iraq are hard at work in Haiti. In fact, the very same organizations that helped destabilize the Lavalas government, such as the International Republican Institute, and others who receive U.S. Agency for International Development and Canadian International Development Agency money, are working with other pioneers of U.S.-led ‘democracy enhancement’ projects to ensure a certain outcome. When you ‘enhance’ a democracy by destabilizing it, it follows logically that you should oversee ‘free and fair’ elections by excluding the majority of Haitian voters.” In related news, a Canadian government-funded report by consultant Ron Gould obtained by the World is critical of the CEP’s performance. Gould writes, “Overall, there is a fragmented, piecemeal approach to the carrying out the Haitian election process, a process which only functions smoothly if it is an integrated continuum.” He concludes, “The CEP is not an electoral management decision-making body, but a group of nine individuals, each with separated areas of responsibility and internal conflicts, which negatively affects effective management and decision making.” Haiti’s U.S.-installed government plans to hold local, legislative and presidential elections in November and December, although the CEP stated recently that these dates might be changed. Lavalas, the nation’s largest party, refuses to take part in the elections because of the continuing state-led repression directed against it. (People’s Weekly World Newspaper, 6/9) Despite clear failures by the police and 8,000 United Nations peacekeepers to make the streets here safe from violent gangs, Assistant Secretary of State Roger F. Noriega and special envoys from Canada, France and Brazil expressed confidence during a visit here on Thursday that Haiti’s political transition was on course. They said they expected national elections to be held in four months, as planned. “We want to send a strong message,” said Ambassador Daniel Parfait of France. “We want elections in Haiti. And we want them to happen on time. We know that the elections will not change everything, but without them, nothing will change.” In recent months, entire neighborhoods and major roads have fallen under the control of criminal gangs who have unleashed a wave of killings, kidnappings and robberies. National elections are to begin in October, but infighting has crippled the Haitian agency charged with organizing the vote. A United Nations official helping the government organize the elections said fewer than 100,000 of the 4 million potential voters had been registered. Fewer than a quarter of the registration centers needed have been opened. There are no clear candidates or campaigns. (New York Times, 6/10) Cogent Systems today announced it has been awarded a $2.5 million contract for its Automated Fingerprint Identification Systems (AFIS) solution to be used by the Provisional Electoral Council of Haiti. The contract was awarded by the Organization of American States (OAS) as part of its Special Mission to Strengthen Democracy in Haiti program. The new order for Cogent’s AFIS solution will be utilized in Haiti to capture voters’ fingerprints, create a database and match the fingerprints to authenticate voters’ identities and prevent duplicate registration. The system is expected to support the enrollment of 4.5 million voters for elections in Haiti that are scheduled to be held in the fourth quarter of 2005. Cogent will also provide installation and maintenance services and training to system operators to support ongoing voter enrollment in Haiti. (Cogent Systems, 5/31) Elections in Haiti will take place as scheduled later this year, the troubled country’s interim prime minister told the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday as he renewed an appeal for more peacekeepers. Gerard Latortue said the council had a “very enthusiastic” response to his assurances on elections and a request for U.N. reinforcements, delivered in a closed-door session. But it was unclear whether he won full council support for a 12-month extension of the U.N. peacekeeping mission’s mandate, due to expire June 24. The mandate’s duration “is still under discussion,” Latortue told reporters after the council meeting. The United Nations sent peacekeepers to Haiti to help prop up the interim government appointed after Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the country’s last elected president, fled into exile in South Africa in February 2004 under foreign pressure and in the face of a violent rebellion. To restore an elected government, local elections are to be held on Oct. 9 and legislative and presidential elections are scheduled for Nov. 13, with a run-off set for Dec. 18. But voter registration and other steps are falling behind schedule. The U.N. mission now numbers 6,200 troops and nearly 1,300 civilian police, and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has recommended an additional 750 soldiers and 275 police officers, to help prepare for elections. “What I have suggested is to have more police if possible,” Latortue said. Chinese Ambassador Wang Guangya has objected to a full-year mandate, preferring six months. While China has contributed a contingent of riot police to the Haiti mission, it does not have diplomatic relations with Haiti, which recognizes the self-governing island of Taiwan. Guangya was irritated to encounter Taiwanese officials at a government reception during a recent council visit to Haiti. French Ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sabliere, the council president for June, said the mandate should extend beyond the elections to ensure security throughout the campaign.”I am confident this has been understood and that we will have a good result,” he said. (Reuters, 6/7) Statement from Congresswoman Maxine Waters: “The recent escalation in violence in Haiti, along with an outrageous decision by the Haitian Supreme Court, provides further proof that Haiti is not ready for elections. This past weekend, there were press reports that the Haitian police raided the neighborhood of Bel Air in Port-au-Prince, killing at least four people and burning at least twelve homes. Last week, unknown gunmen shot a French official and stole his car while he was driving from Cap Haitien to Port-au-Prince. The official, Paul-Henri Mourral, died at a hospital in Port-au-Prince several hours later on May 31. At least seven people were killed the same day when armed men opened fire and started a fire that spread throughout a market in Port-au-Prince. The latest violence came less than two weeks after the U.S. ordered all non-emergency U.S. Embassy personnel and their family members to leave Haiti because of rising crime and the lack of security. The State Department also issued a travel warning on May 26, 2005, that urges all U.S. citizens to leave Haiti and warned staff persons who remained to stay in their homes at night. The travel warning was issued the day after unknown gunmen fired five rounds of bullets at a U.S. Embassy van traveling in downtown Port-au-Prince… “Human rights violations occur with impunity in Haiti. Amnesty International has expressed serious concerns about arbitrary arrests, ill-treatment in detention centers, and summary executions attributed to members of the Haitian National Police. It has been estimated that there are over 700 political prisoners in Haiti, and most of these prisoners have been detained illegally for months without formal charges. Several former government officials and prominent supporters of the Lavalas political party, including former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune, former Interior Minister Jocelerme Privert, and Haitian singer Anne Auguste, are among those detained illegally. Yet, instead of ordering the release of illegally detained prisoners, the Haitian Supreme Court has resorted to reversing the convictions that resulted from past human rights violations. It is abundantly clear that free and fair elections cannot take place in the current atmosphere of insecurity and violence in Haiti. Candidates will not be able to campaign safely or even travel from town to town without risking their lives. Nevertheless, the interim government of Haiti is persisting in its plans to hold elections in October and November of this year. “If elections are held under the current conditions, they will not be considered credible in the eyes of the vast majority of Haitians. The Provisional Electoral Council, which is in charge of organizing the elections, is widely regarded as biased and does not include any representatives of the Lavalas party. Furthermore, without a functioning judicial system, allegations of election fraud cannot be investigated and are likely to be ignored. If the interim government does manage to organize elections, they will almost certainly be marred by violence and only the winners will accept the result. Those who insist that Haiti should hold elections this year are setting the country up for a disaster. Free and fair elections cannot occur in any country without a functioning system of justice and a modicum of security. The United States Government should use its influence with the interim government of Haiti to insist that the interim government immediately releases all political prisoners, establishes an independent judiciary, and postpones elections until violent gangs and death squads have been disarmed and security has been restored. Until all political parties including Lavalas can travel safely, they cannot be expected to campaign for office, and until the people of Haiti can walk outside of their houses in peace, they cannot be expected to vote.” (6/7) Max Mathurin, provisional President of the provisional Electoral Council, acknowledged for the first time Thursday that the scheduled dates set for the elections might not hold. “We can always move back the date scheduled for the municipal and local elections”, declared Mr. Mathurin in response to questions from a radio station in the capital. The CEP is not a slave to any date, he said. The CEP’s provisional president also recognized that the voter registration process is not going along very well because, he said, of the climate of insecurity that prevails in the country. Only some 56.000 voters have registered since the start of the process a little over a month ago, with only two months left to go in the registration period. (AHP, 6/3) US Assistant Secretary of State Visits Haiti: “I think we now really need to focus in on making those elections a success in security terms and in political terms,” she said, adding the United Nations would play a key role but the United States was looking to help. State Department officials would not specify which day Noriega was to travel to Haiti, which has been hit by a new upsurge in violence that has claimed some 20 lives in recent days. His visit will come amid speculation whether the United States was considering re-deploying American troops to help maintain order ahead of the elections in the violence-torn Caribbean country. Rice suggested over the weekend increasing the level of foreign forces in Haiti, where a UN stabilization mission commanded by Brazil currently has some 6,700 troops. But the chief US diplomat has sidestepped the question of deploying more US marines, focusing instead on the need to bolster the UN mission, which goes by the French acronym MINUSTAH. Rice acknowledged at the press roundtable Monday that the security situation in Haiti had deteriorated and armed gangs were causing “multiple problems.” She said the United States was discussing with the United Nations and MINUSTAH how to make the stabilization force more effective. “I think it’s extremely important that that mission succeed because it was a real breakthrough for this hemisphere to have Brazil in the lead and then to have other Western Hemisphere states actually engaged in peacekeeping. (AFP, 6/7) US Marines May Go to Haiti: Washington Post Editorial: Send Marines to Haiti At the moment, any international diplomat who sought to save the political situation would first have to save himself from the armed gangs that openly roam much of the capital, Port-au-Prince. One group of carjackers killed a French diplomat last week. Both France and the United States have recently warned their citizens to stay out of the country, and the U.S. Embassy evacuated non-emergency personnel last month. Haitians have nowhere to run, and more than 700 have been killed since last September: some by gangs that support Mr. Aristide; some by their enemies in the former Haitian army; some by the Haitian national police force that nominally operates under the control of the interim government; and some by drug traffickers and other common criminals. A year ago the United Nations mandated a 7,400-member international force led by Brazil to provide security and disarm the gangs. It hasn’t come close to accomplishing its mission. A hodgepodge of Latin American troops supplemented by soldiers from Jordan, Nepal, Croatia and other unlikely friends of Haiti, it lacks the cohesion, professionalism or stomach for taking on the militants. “I insist the problem in Haiti is more social and economical than military,” Brazilian commander Augusto Heleno Ribeiro Pereira claimed recently. That has been Brazil’s consistent excuse for its commanders’ military failing. Haiti’s ills are surely legion — endemic poverty and malnutrition, an absence of resources, and a deep divide between a tiny economic elite and a desperate majority. A paralyzing conflict between Mr. Aristide’s mostly poor supporters and politicians representing the middle and upper classes has survived his removal; the interim government has imprisoned senior officials of the former regime without due process, and Mr. Aristide’s party is threatening a boycott of the scheduled elections. Aggressive outside intervention is needed to address these problems, by jump-starting long-promised reconstruction projects and brokering a political accord that would make elections meaningful. None of that can happen, however, while thugs with automatic weapons roam Haiti’s streets. Many Haitians and international observers in Port-au-Prince believe a small but focused and determined force — say, a few hundred U.S. Marines — could put a stop to such anarchy. The U.S. embassy in Haiti has recommended that the administration consider dispatching such a force, which could work in tandem with the U.N. mission. This has prompted understandable questions from an overtaxed Pentagon: What is the mission? When would it end? As it struggles with too few troops to restore security in Iraq, the U.S. military cannot easily afford another difficult and open-ended assignment. Haiti, however, is not Iraq; it is a small country 600 miles from Florida that has been dependent on the United States for its security for more than a century. The idea that it could be stabilized without American help was optimistic a year ago; by now the fallacy is obvious. If Haiti is to be secured or is to hold a democratic election, it will need the help of at least a few hundred American fighters. The sooner they go, the easier their task will be. (Washington Post, 6/5) Guy Philippe Turns Politician: “That was a shame, because if we’d been able to put Aristide on trial, Haiti would have been much more stable now,” is how Guy Philippe sees it. Supporters of the ousted president are still the cause of much violence because they want ‘their’ leader back in power. The interim government, which is meant to lead the country up to new elections, is not capable of ending the divisions among the population. Although the elections – planned for November this year – look as if they will suffer considerably from the chaos and everyday violence affecting the country, Guy Philippe believes they must go ahead: “If it’s possible in Afghanistan or Iraq, then it can be here, too.” Mr Philippe can easily see himself as the new president, but he’s never wanted a seat in the current interim government: “In Haiti, it usually doesn’t end well if you seize power by force. It’s the people who need to elect me.” There’s also been much criticism from human rights organisations of his fellow rebels, some of whom were convicted murderers and drug dealers, but Guy Philippe says: “Were they bad or did they just want to do something good for their country?” Despite this remark, he is well aware that such figures could jeopardise his political career. Therefore, his party ranks now include only a few ‘untainted’ rebels, and he says there won’t be any jobs waiting for the others: “I don’t think they’d be suitable for a job as minister. Any way, I am not in politics to do good turns for friends.” (Radio Netherlands, 6/6) CARICOM Expresses Deep Concern: They reiterated the importance of adherence to the principles enshrined in the CARICOM Charter of Civil Society as well as in hemispheric and international human rights instruments to which Haiti was a signatory. The Ministers acknowledged that the political challenges in Haiti remained daunting. They underlined the importance of the process of national dialogue in reducing polarisation and helping to attain reconciliation and thereby contributing to an environment conducive to stability and development. In this regard, the importance of accelerating the disbursement of funds pledged by the donor community was emphasised. It was feared that the slow progress of the voter registration process, organisational and logistical delays as well as security concerns would jeopardise the timely preparation of elections. The importance of an inclusive political and electoral process leading to free, fair and credible elections was underlined. The Ministers determined that CARICOM should remain engaged on Haiti and continue to provide assistance to the people of Haiti through the CARICOM Task Force on Haiti. (Press Release, CARICOM Secretariat, 6/6) Arson Attack at Tet Bef Market in Port-au-Prince: However the mayor of Port-au-Prince said that some measures are underway that she said would help the nearly 4,000 merchants affected by the arson attack. (AHP, 6/1) The charred remains of nine people were removed from the smoldering wreckage of a downtown marketplace Wednesday, the latest victims of a surge of violence that has prompted the U.S. Embassy to send some of its personnel home. Dozens of gunmen stormed the market in central Port-au-Prince Tuesday around noon, unleashing a torrent of bullets to scare away police and merchants before setting the two buildings on fire with Molotov cocktails. Witnesses said the gunmen claimed to be supporters of former President Jean- Bertrand Aristide, and that police at a station next door fled the scene when one of them was wounded. The attack left nine people burned to death and two others shot fatally, and removed a cornerstone of Haiti’s already teetering economy. With some 2,500 merchants, the Tet Bef (Cow’s Head) Market was a critical hub of commerce where wholesalers hawk everything from underwear to soap. Haitian officials depicted the destruction — as well as the killing of a French honorary consul in an apparent robbery attempt the same day — as part of what they have been calling ``a destabilization movement.’’ The U.S. State Department last week ordered the departure of non-essential U.S. Embassy personnel and all family members after an embassy van was sprayed with bullets downtown. ‘’The truth is that we are at war in Haiti today,’’ Police Chief Leon Charles said last week. ``It is an urban guerrilla situation.’’ Charles and other Haitian officials repeatedly have blamed the upsurge in violence on partisans of Aristide, who fled the country during an armed revolt last year. For some of those directly affected by Tuesday’s fire, the blame lies squarely on the armed pro-Aristide gangs. ‘’The same guys who come here to shoot and scare us and call for Aristide to come back are the ones who did this,’’ Rachel Pierre, a soap vendor, told the Herald. ``They’ll do whatever it takes to stop the elections.’’ Robert Anglade, general supervisor of the market, said gangs have been making threats to burn down the place for months. He would not explain the motive behind the threats, although merchants say that pro-Aristide gunmen regularly extorted them for cash both before and after his departure. As Anglade spoke, survivors dug through the ashes looking for anything they could salvage. While most of Haiti has returned to relative peace since Aristide’s ouster, recent violence has plunged the capital deeper and deeper into a state of panic and paranoia. Kidnappings and carjackings have become epidemic. Whole swaths of the city are no-go zones. The 7,400 U.N. peacekeepers in Haiti have been accused of being too passive and unwilling to confront armed militants. ‘’There are places you can’t go anymore,’’ said Jerry Tardieu, vice president of Haitian Chamber of Commerce. ``There are no police, there are no businesses open. . . . It seems impossible that the government has no control over large areas of the capital.’’ (Miami Herald, 6/2) Lavalas Spokesperson Condemns Attack at Tet Bef Market: Latortue Criticizes UN Mission: In the Haitian capital, some 2,000 peacekeepers are present, with backup announced this week of a batallion that has been serving in Jacmel in the south. At a news conference, Haiti’s Justice Minister Bernard Gousse also called for a “permanent presence of MINUSTAH at police stations and in troublespots” in the capital. Latortue suggested Haitians recently repatriated from the United States were among the culprits for a wave of kidnappings in recent weeks. He called them “criminals, professional hitmen who become kidnappers” once in Haiti. (AFP, 6/2) Violence During Police Raids in Port-au-Prince: “[The police] shoot people, beat people, burn houses,” said Manes Gustave, a 57-year-old tailor, standing next to a huge pile of sheet metal and charred wood, which he said had been a neighbor’s home. “They think everyone in Bel Air is a criminal.” Gustave said he was running an errand a few blocks from his house when he saw hooded police officers dressed in black – a uniform commonly used by special Haitian police units – enter the neighborhood. He hid, and when he returned home, he found his door broken off its hinges and his neighbor’s home in flames. Others in Bel Air blamed the UN peacekeepers. Maggy Dalcy said she fled through a back door when black-clad police knocked down her front door. “There’s no justice in this country,” said Dalcy, 24, standing in front of the remains of her house, a tangled heap of sheet metal and blackened cinder block walls. “The foreigners don’t do anything. They just sit there while the police kill people and massacre people.” Commissioner David Beer, a Canadian who heads UN police force in Haiti, said Brazilian troops provided back-up during the operation at perimeter positions while two units of Chinese and Jordanian riot police – some 50 in total – worked “more closely” with the Haitian police. Beer said the UN civilian police was investigating the burning of houses in Bel Air. Repeated phone calls made to police spokeswoman Gessy Coicou were not returned. “There are obvious suspicions because there are allegations that they were done by the HNP,” said Beer, using an acronym that refers to the Haitian national police. Beer said 32 people were arrested and at least two civilians were killed during the raid, whose objective was to arrest gang members. But a brief visit to Bel Air and interviews with residents suggest the death toll could have been higher. A pair of red flip-flops lay in a thick pool of blood that had accumulated at the bottom of a sloping alleyway, near the corner of Rue Montalais and Rue des Fronts Forts. The alleyway was covered with blood and several bullet casings from 7.62mm cartridges. Neighbors said three bodies were taken away in a police ambulance after being shot by police. Half a block away, near the Port-au-Prince cathedral, a street corner was covered in blood although no witnesses could be found. At a blood-stained sidewalk several blocks uphill into the heart of Bel Air, Renes Leneus, a 61-year-old tailor said police had executed three young men earlier that morning on the sidewalk while he was working in a nearby alleyway. He said at least 10 hooded police dressed in black entered the alleyway and opened fire in a nearby alleyway, although he did not know who they were shooting at. Only one small dried pool of blood could be found on the gravel sidewalk, while there were more than a dozen bullet casings from 5.56mm cartridges in a nearby alleyway. In another area at the edge of Bel Air near the Boulevard Dessalines, vendors at a street corner pointed to a pool of blood that had been covered with sand and said a man had been shot there. One of them said he had been shot by police. Workers at the Port-au-Prince morgue said they were under orders not to say how many bodies had been brought there. (R. Lindsay, 6/5) As many as 25 people were killed in police raids on Friday and Saturday in the slums of Haiti’s capital after the government said it would get tougher on gangs, morgue workers and witnesses said. Clerks at the morgue in the General Hospital said they had taken in 17 bodies on Saturday and three bodies on Friday after the raids in Bel-Air and other Port-au-Prince slums, centers of support for ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. A Reuters journalist also saw five other bodies in two different areas of Bel-Air. Residents said the dead were shot by police and accused police of setting slum homes on fire. Police officials had no immediate comment on the death toll and it was not clear whether all the victims were killed in the raids, or if some were shot as gang members returned fire. “The police arrived, they started shooting. There were other people shooting too, but they managed to flee,” said Ronald Macillon, a Bel-Air resident. “The police killed a lot of people and set several homes on fire,” Macillon said. Several other witnesses gave similar accounts. A spokesman for U.N. troops in Bel-Air, Col. Carlos Barcelos, told Reuters the Brazilian contingent based in that slum did not take part directly in the raids, but put up checkpoints and secured the outside perimeter. The Central Director for the Administrative Police, Renan Etienne, told Reuters he could not say how many people were killed or comment on allegations police set homes on fire, as he had not yet received police reports. (Reuters, 6/5) At least 23 people were killed and more than a dozen homes set on fire during operations conducted Friday and Saturday by patrols from the Haitian National Police (PNH) in the populist district of Bel-Air in Port-au-Prince. At least 17 residents of this district were killed on Saturday alone. Various officials of the PNH reached by telephone Saturday refused to comment on the deadly raids. However pro-government sectors claimed that those who were killed were bandits. Numerous family members and close friends of the victims declared for their part that the victims were members of the civilian population, because the people who are used to exchanging gunfire with the police had time to flee the area, they said. “The police know full well (who the victims are) but their objective, in targeting the entire population, is to empty the populist districts in anticipation of the elections, whose progress is stalled”, said several indignant residents of Bel-Air. The spokesperson for the Brazilian UN troops, Colonel Carlos Barcelos, tried Saturday to distance himself from the police raids of the past 48 hours, indicating that “the troops of MINUSTAH did not participate directly” (in these operations). Following the arson attack Wednesday at one of the main public markets in the capital, (the Tête Boeuf market), which left some 10 people dead and caused substantial property damage, the interim Minister of Justice, Bernard Gousse announced that the authors of the acts of violence as well as the places where they are located, would be struck. According to police sources, the interim authorities are aware that former haitian soldiers, as well as individuals who had been forcibly deported from U.S. prisons, and groups of civilians who had taken up arms in February 2004, are still very active. Indeed, former Haitian soldiers have returned to their base in Pernales (Central Plateau) along the Haitian-Dominican border, from which they launched attacks in 2004 and held the population hostage under the Aristide government. (AHP, 6/5) For Rose-Anne Auguste, who runs a women’s health and sex education center in a poor district in the south of the capital, the only way to deal with gang violence is to address the extreme socio-economic situation facing the majority of the population. “Young people growing up in Carrefour-Feuilles and the neighboring area of Martissant are good people, creative people, but after five or ten years with no economic development and no prospect of being able to improve their lives, they will inevitably become chimères (gangsters).” Since the beginning of October 2004, nearly 700 people have been killed and thousands more wounded in political and gang violence. Many of the deaths are the result of clashes between, on one side, the local police and the United Nations stabilization mission, known as MINUSTAH, and on the other, armed gangs, some of them loyal to ousted president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. On 20 May, U.N. Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, proposed that the MINUSTAH be increased in size in an effort to control the spiral of violence ahead of general elections planned for later this year. Annan is recommending the deployment of an additional 800 troops, bringing the total to 7,500, and of an additional 275 U.N. policemen to join the 1,622 officers already on the ground. But for Guyler Delva, head of the Haitian Journalists’ Association (AJH), the solution to the violence is not a military one. He said, “We have to find a way so that those with weapons don’t have a reason to use them anymore. It is not a question of more troops. You could have 20,000 troops, but there is still no way they could be present in every corner of this city, let alone the whole country.” Camille Chalmers, director of the Alternative Development Advocacy Platform, (PAPDA), agrees that sending more soldiers won’t resolve anything. “We don’t have a military problem. There is no war in Haiti.” Chalmers goes further, stating that in his opinion the MINUSTAH presence in the country is unwelcome. “Insecurity is worse today than it was one year ago (when MINUSTAH was first deployed).” He continues, “Violence happens with or without MINUSTAH, and sometimes they even help the police attack people.” Patrick Elie, an activist who in recent years has campaigned for justice for murdered journalist, Jean Dominique, said, “The police are not under-armed, they are improperly armed. Most police officers now carry weapons better adapted to war than to police work.” According to Elie, the U.N. mission should reconsider its current policy of helping the Haitian police mount raids on the shanty-town strongholds of armed gangs, because ordinary residents are being caught in the crossfire. Instead, he says, the MINUSTAH should reinforce its tutoring role, making sure that the police strictly observe proper procedures and human rights norms. PAPDA’s Chalmers also thinks that the police force needs a complete overhaul, but he says that the money currently being spent on the MINUSTAH should instead pay for the cost of that task. “MINUSTAH costs US$25million a month. This is money borrowed by the Haitian State, and must be paid back later by the Haitian people. Imagine…that money could be used to completely rebuild the police force in less than ten months.” For Chalmers the lack of disarmament is another serious problem, and he is critical of the MINUSTAH’s failure to implement an effective program. “MINUSTAH could disarm. It could do it in three months, and then leave.” The AJH’s Guy Delva believes that a complex situation cannot be resolved by using more weapons. “What is needed is a political approach. The first step is to have a real dialogue. To talk about the problems experienced by the poor.” He rejects the attempt of many of the country’s political leaders and a number of powerful local media outfits to characterize all the inhabitants of poor areas as gangsters. “Thousands of people take part in demonstrations against the interim government, but there are not thousands of gangsters. The people in the slums feel neglected.” Chalmers is another who is promoting national dialogue as the only solution to the violence and insecurity, but he rejects the process recently started by the interim government. “We need a genuine national dialogue…to look at the country’s real problems – the economy and the political institutions. Unfortunately, the government has closed down the possibility of a genuine dialogue by prohibiting certain questions from appearing on the agenda.” (Charles Arthur, A version of this article was published by Hardbeatnews, 30 May 2005; www.hardbeatnews.com) New MINUSTAH Arrangements to Counteract Insecurity: Lieutenant Colonel Philippe Kleb provided the media with information on the latest operations and security arrangements by the MINUSTAH military force, indicating that “MINUSTAH has reinforced the sectors of Cité Militaire and Pelé with Peruvian and Argentine troops following the increase in criminal activities in this area”. In addition, he said, “MINUSTAH is continuing to enhance security for the Cité Soleil district and the electoral operations as well as its military actions in the country”. “The Brazilian brigade is continuing to coordinate its actions with the Haitian National Police (PNH), with respect to the handling of events”, he added. Among the humanitarian actions by the military force during the past week, Lieutenant Colonel Kleb said that the public benefited from “1,000 medical visits and 3,000 meals”. “In addition, MINUSTAH contingents distributed 1,435 pairs of shoes to students in the Northeast Department”, he emphasized. For his part, the spokesperson of the international civilian police of MINUSTAH, Jean François Vezina, commenting on the new measures against abductions, announced “the establishment, jointly with the PNH, of investigation units, whose duties include collecting information from among the population”, adding that “telephone numbers are also operational at the Central Directorate of the Judicial Police (DCPJ) for receiving any useful information”. “MINUSTAH has made progress toward the creation of conditions conducive to facilitating the political transition, notably with regard to the electoral process and disarmament, as well as the national dialogue”, Mr. Kongo Doudou said in conclusion. (MINUSTAH, 6/1) U.N. peacekeepers in Haiti will crack down on violence that threatens elections this year, a U.N. official said on Thursday after a visit by a high-level contingent of foreign officials to the troubled Caribbean nation. Haiti has been plagued by political and gang violence since the bloody rebellion that ousted former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide last year. “To those who want to foil the electoral process and to those who believe they can achieve their goals only through violence, those who want to kill hope, I tell them clearly that they don’t have any chance to succeed,” said Juan Gabriel Valdes, the U.N. special envoy to Haiti, at a news conference following the visit. “The will of MINUSTAH (the U.N. mission) to confront the violence is there and will be there until those armed groups that have launched organized violence have been eliminated,” he said. (Reuters, 6/9) To learn more visit: http://www.konpay.org _______________________________________________ |
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