Shunpiking Online Vo.4 No.2 UN's new mandate no comfort to Haiti's poor By STUART NEATBY

A young victim of the Dec. 22 2006 MINUSTAH raid on Cité Soleil. (Photo: Reuters)

HALIFAX (18 February 2007) - FOR CANADIANS concerned about the aggressive direction of our policy in Afghanistan, Canada's ongoing role in Haiti should give pause as well.

On February 15th, the mandate of the UN mission in Haiti, known as MINUSTAH, was extended by eight months. The Canadian government had been lobbying for a one-year extension. In line with the pressure exerted by Canada, the new mandate praised MINUSTAH's "stepped-up campaign against armed criminal gangs," and called for further aggressive operations such as those undertaken in the seaside shantytown of Cite Soleil, home to more than 200,000.

By contrast, on February 7, tens of thousands of demonstrators filled the streets of Haiti's capital as well as cities across the country. The demonstrators, chanting "Down with the UN" and "Justice for Cite Soleil," marched peacefully to the UN's headquarters in Haiti's capital, demanding an end to the UN mandate.

These demonstrations occurred in the wake of an early morning raid in Cite Soleil on December 22, 2006, carried out by 400 UN soldiers. UN forces left a death toll of at least 12 civilians, including women, children, and the elderly, according to Agence France-Presse, along with "several dozen" wounded, including six-month pregnant Jolene Medina who lost her unborn child after she was shot in the stomach.

Video testimony obtained by international journalists indicates that a UN helicopter gunship fired on numerous houses in the crowded slum. UN forces even "blocked Red Cross vehicles from entering Cité Soleil," according to the Haitian Red Cross coordinator Pierre Alexis, an act prohibited by the Geneva Convention.

Haitian Press estimated tens of thousands of Haitians demonstrated against UN abuses on February 7th. Demonstrations and events in solidarity were held in 53 cities around the world. Photo: Wadner Pierre, haitiaction.net

This brutal raid was followed by similar UN raids, including one on January 25 which left five dead and a dozen wounded. Another midnight raid on February 2, left Alexandra and Stéphanie Lubin, ages four and seven, dead. The two were killed as they lay sleeping in their beds.

Sadly, the UN's repressive conduct seems to have been encouraged by Canada's Ambassador to Haiti Claude Boucher, who, in a January 15 radio interview, applauded the deadly December 22 raid on Cite Soleil, calling upon the UN to "increase their operations as they did last December."

Such atrocities on the part of UN forces in Haiti are not new and have been verified by a number of published human rights reports over the last two years. The UN has often claimed that these raids were intended to root out armed gangs, whom the UN claims are behind a spate of kidnappings in Haiti's capital.

Are these raids truly intended to stop gangs, as the UN claims? It seems unlikely.

It is widely reported that the "epidemic" of kidnapping originates from all sectors of Haitian society, including government officials and rich businessmen. Yet the brutal UN and Haitian Police raids are focused exclusively upon poor neighbourhoods, where support for exiled Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide continues to be overwhelming. The December 22 UN raid occurred in the midst of ongoing popular demonstrations by thousands of Cite Soleil's residents calling for the UN's removal from Haiti, as well as a release of political prisoners and a return of Aristide from exile in South Africa. Never popular with France, the United States or Canada, Aristide was removed from power by US Marines in February 2004, with assistance from the Canadian Forces. What followed, as extensively chronicled by human rights reports, were two years of horrific repression by the Canadian and US-backed "interim" government, particularly against activists and sympathizers with Aristide's Lavalas party.

Some of those killed on Dec. 22, 2006. Photo: Reuters

Unfortunately, even after the undeniable promise of the 2006 election of Rene Preval, who was supported largely by Haiti's majority poor, the desires of the Haitian people continue to run contrary to the will of the "international community." The neighbourhoods that continue to articulate such desires continue to be written off as "criminal" by the United Nations, their entire populations deemed "bandits" and, as a result, seemingly fair targets for UN raids.

For Haiti's poor, the UN's mandate of "stepped-up" aggression will only mean more killings and will aid little in development efforts. In many ways, this mandate now appears to be one of the biggest threats to the stability of the Preval government.

An evening with former Haitian political prisoner So Ann Auguste

on March 3rd at 6:30 PM

at the SMU Sobey Theatre Auditorium.