Haitian police provide machetes for attacks, UN bears responsibility

The attack described in said alert took place in Solino, a neighborhood which was under siege when I arrived in Haiti last month (see my post from Friday, July 22, 2005 : quick note on Friday).

The action alert quotes a community leader: "They are trying to dismantle the grassroots leadership of Lavalas by killing them -- in one neighborhood after another. This is all in preparation for the sham elections they have cooked up for this fall to try and legitimize the February 29, 2004 coup d'etat and the coup regime. By 'they' I mean the death-squad government and their US, UN, French and Canadian backers."

On our July visit to Haiti, my colleague Doug Spalding and I spoke to a community-based journalist who has been documenting UN and Haitian police attacks in popular (i.e. pro-Lavalas) neighborhoods during the current coup period.

The journalist, who I will call Pierre (for security reasons I prefer not to risk using his real name) has been denouncing massacres on radio stations in Miami and on MegaStar in Haiti. Pierre was told by a friend with the Haitian Police that certain police will kill him if they see him, as a special death squad called “Zero Tolerance” is after him. Already, police have shot at Pierre.

Pierre describes himself as “the human rights guy in the popular neighborhoods,” which is why he’s being hunted. He has been in hiding for several months but continues to risk his life by documenting human rights abuses committed by police and UN peacekeepers.

Pierre showed us video footage of a July 11 police operation, where about 15 people were killed on Rue Tiremase downtown, near Bel Air.

He also showed us footage of the aftermath of a July 5 combined operation between Haitian police and UN peacekeepers. It included images of a Bel Air resident named William St. Mercy, who was in a wheelchair in the courtyard in front of his residence when UN troops burst through the courtyard’s gate and blew the top of his head off. William’s sister testified on camera that Brazilian UN troops fired gas and came into courtyard with no provocation. After the operation, a UN spokesperson said that “peacekeepers” killed seven “bandits”, which included William in his wheel chair and a cobbler at work in his second floor residence. Pierre witnessed eight people shot in the operation, four of whom let him film their injuries. The survivors testified that UN soldiers were shooting “without any control.”

Pierre explained the situation: “Right now there is a campaign in the media to describe popular neighborhoods as unsafe, which keeps journalists from going into area to see what’s really going on there. There is no justice for the people in this country, one day the situation will be different, that’s why I’m risking my life to document that the coup government is shedding Haitian people’s blood. So that one day, even if I’m not alive, there can be justice for these crimes. It doesn’t make sense that the international community maintains silence. People just want access to food, education, health care, justice, but it’s still a situation where a wealthy few control the society. People are really suffering in the popular neighborhoods. People are shot in the head so that others will be terrorized and won’t come out in the streets. I have footage of a massacre at Fort Damanche, where a resident was hiding under a bed, and got shot multiple times at close range—these are summary executions.

“In the poorest neighborhoods people don’t have anything, and often can’t survive. The government has excluded them from economic decisions. The government also created conditions where armed actions are sometimes taken for survival.”

Good luck finding such analysis in the mainstream. Typically, the emphasis is on violence attributed to the sectors who have been under attack since the February 29,2004 coup which ousted not only President Aristide but also his entire government. A good example of such accepted framing can be found in a May 16, 2005 letter from Human Rights Watch to the UN Security Council on the Renewal of the Mandate of the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH). The Washington-based NGO writes, “During a recent mission to Haiti, Human Rights Watch documented daily acts of violence in Port-au-Prince. We found that much of the violence is perpetrated by armed gangs claiming affiliation with former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Despite security operations carried out jointly by MINUSTAH and the Haitian National Police (HNP), neighborhoods such as Cite Soleil remain paralyzed by violence.”

Whether or not the UN participates in attacks on civilians (sometimes they are joint operations, sometimes just the Haitian police), under its new mandate, the UN has responsibility for oversight of police. But the UN’s approach is to not acknowledge the realities of repression it is in Haiti to support. In response to demands for an investigation of July 6 Cite Soleil attacks in which UN forces killed women, children and men, a UN press release claimed, “MUNUSTAH forces take all possible measures to reduce the risk of civilian casualties in their operations. MINUSTAH forces did not target civilians in the operation on 6 July, but the nature of such missions in densely populated urban areas is such that there is always a risk of civilian casualties. MINUSTAH deeply regrets any injuries or loss of life during its security operation."

For another example of MINUSTAH’s slippery approach to the truth, see photos of holes blown in roof of Cite Soleil dweller's home by
a helicopter which the UN denies fired any weapons:
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0532,hunterweb,66630,2.html