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Indybay Feature

Haiti: Another UN massacre in Cite Soleil!

by Haiti Action Committee (repost) (haitiaction [at] yahoo.com)
The Haiti Action Committee calls for an urgent response to another massacre in Cite Soleil by U.N. occupation troops, this time leaving at least 10 residents dead in this center of opposition to imperialist occupation.

December 25, 2006

Haiti Action Committee:
Urgent action alert

The UN's Christmas present to Haiti

A pre-dawn, heavy-caliber assault on the men, women and children of Cite Soleil

In the early morning of Friday, December 22nd, starting at approximately 3 a.m., 400 Brazilian-led UN occupation troops in armored vehicles carried out a massive assault on the people of Cite Soleil, laying siege yet again to the impoverished community. Eyewitness reports said a wave of indiscriminate gunfire from heavy weapons began about 5 a.m. and continued for much of the day Friday — an operation on the scale of the July 6, 2005 UN massacre in Cite Soleil. Detonations could be heard for miles, AHP reported.

Initial press accounts reported at least 40 casualties, all civilians. According to community testimony, UN forces flew overhead in helicopters and fired down into houses while other troops attacked from the ground with Armored Personnel Carriers (APCs). People were killed in their homes. UN troops from Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and Bolivia took part in the all-day siege, backed by Haitian police. UN soldiers once again targeted the Bois Neuf and Drouillard districts of Cite Soleil — scene of the July 6th massacre.

While reports are still coming in, this is what we do know right now:

  • A Reuters photographer "counted 9 bodies, and eyewitnesses counted 4 others dead. As many as 30 people were wounded, humanitarian workers said. All of the casualties are believed to be civilians." (Reuters)
  • One Haitian human rights observer personally counted at least 17 dead bodies on the ground. This eyewitness also reported:
    • A woman 6-months pregnant was shot in the stomach, killing the unborn child.
    • A man and his 8-year-old boy were in their beds when a helicopter rained bullets into their house, wounding both.
  • A man named Jacquelin Olivier was killed in his bed when bullets pierced the walls. He leaves a wife and 3-year old boy.
  • "The foreigners came shooting for hours without interruption and killed 10 people," said Bois Neuf resident Johnny Claircidor, quoted by Reuters. "They came here to terrorize the population," Cite Soleil resident Rose Martel told Reuters, referring to UN troops and police. "I don't think they really killed any bandits, unless they consider all of us as bandits."
  • Agence Haitienne de Presse (AHP) said Cite Soleil "residents report very serious property damage and there are concerns that a critical water shortage may now develop because water cisterns and pipes were punctured by the gunfire."
  • "Local residents say the victims were ordinary citizens whose only crime was that they live in the targeted neighborhood." (AHP)

UN soldiers block Red Cross vehicles from coming to aid the wounded — According to Pierre Alexis, the Haitian Red Cross coordinator for Cite Soleil, the UN soldiers prevented the Haitian Red Cross from treating children injured during the assault. Alexis said that many children were suffering serious injuries, but that UN soldiers blocked Red Cross vehicles from entering Cite Soleil. AHP reported that "residents were outraged that [UN] soldiers refused to allow medical care...for people they had injured." Despite this, St. Catherine's Hospital in Cite Soleil reported receiving many wounded.

Why this latest assault on the people of Cite Soleil? — UN occupation authorities in Haiti claim it is part of their fight against "bandits" and "kidnappers," scapegoating the 300,000 residents of Cite Soleil. However, it is widely known throughout Port-au-Prince that kidnappers are coming from all sectors, including corrupt police officials and the wealthy. Does the UN lead military assaults on affluent neighborhoods where kidnappers are known to operate? Of course not.

A more plausible explanation comes from grassroots activists in Cite Soleil. They argue that this is "punishment" for their ongoing protests demanding an end to the UN occupation, restoration of full democracy, return of President Aristide, and the release of political prisoners. Additionally, the people of Cite Soleil have been vigorously protesting the December 3rd municipal elections, in which there were widespread allegations of fraud and many from the popular neighborhoods were prevented from voting.

Just recently, on December 16th, the people of Cite Soleil led a massive protest throughout Port-au-Prince marking the anniversary of Jean-Bertrand Aristide's first election as president in 1990. [They marched despite the UN shooting up the district the night before, in what was widely viewed as a UN attempt to intimidate the populace on the eve of the march.] In the week following the march, tensions continued to escalate, culminating in the December 22nd assault by UN forces under Brazilian command.

Enough is enough!

Join us in denouncing the ongoing UN terror attacks on the Haitian people!

Now is the time for people in the US and throughout the world to step up our solidarity efforts with the people of Haiti. Our protests, calls and letters after the UN massacre in Cite Soleil on July 6th, 2005 — and the many UN attacks since then — need to be updated, expanded, intensified. Demand an end to the UN's repeated, brutal assaults on this besieged community.

Email or fax the UN official below. Keep it brief.

  • Denounce the massive, heavy-caliber assault on the citizens of Cite Soleil by UN occupation forces on Dec. 22, 2006.
  • Demand reparations for the victims and their families.
  • Demand prosecution of the UN officials, commanders and soldiers responsible for this latest UN atrocity in Haiti.

To: Edmond Mulet, UN Special Representative in Haiti — mulet@un.org fax 011-509-244-3512 cc

To: Thierry Fagart, UN Human Rights chief in Haiti — fagart@un.org fax 011-509-244-9366 cc

To: Louise Arbour, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights — ngochr@ohchr.org fax 011-41-22-917-9011

For more information:

Add Your Comments

Comments (Hide Comments)
by 669
Le premier ministre Jacques Edouard Alexis annonce l’engagement de son gouvernement à combattre l’insécurité et mettre un terme au phénomène de kidnapping.

Dans son message à la nation à l’occasion de la Noël, le chef du gouvernement assure de sa volonté à " lutter avec la dernière rigueur contre l’insécurité et le kidnapping, et à appréhender les bandits là où ils se trouvent".

http://www.metropolehaiti.com/metropole/full_une_fr.phtml?id=12128
by jiminez
According to the Geneva Conventions of War (1949) which was brought into being by the anti-fascist side, targeting and killing of civilians is a war crime. The united nations charter, also a product of the anti-fascist side, says that aggressive war is the worst crime possible on earth in that it unleashes all that is worst for the planets livability. It is here that it becomes plain that the United Nations security council is under the thumb of the Imperialist warmongering minority and is subverting the United Nations charter in that the armed forces of the Imperialist United states, France, and Canada overthrew a democratically elected government of Haiti in which Jean-Bertrand Aristede was elected President, and then called in the United nations troops to ligitimatize that which is not legitimate. The fact is the charter represents world majority democracy and states it intends to forbid aggressive war as foreign policy by making negotiation and collective agree as democracy the way to settle disputes and arrangements between nations. This illegal killing and wounding of civilians makes the charters' intent, which is the raison-d'-etre of the U.N., null and void, as though vetoed by it own security council. The international war crimes tribunal and the world court of the hague should make a mission to record this war crime, and bring to justice those that perpetrated it.
by Aaron Aarons
I followed the link given above by "669" and noticed a few things:
  • The web site is entirely in French, the language of the Haitian elite, with absolutely nothing -- at least on the home page and several others I looked at -- in Creole, the language of the majority of Haitians!
  • There is no reference in the reported words of Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis to the UN forces or to the situation in Cite Soleil. There are only general phrases about security, kidnapping and "bandits". One can readily believe that he wants to antagonize neither the imperialist masters of Haiti and their elite supporters nor the mass of the people who put Preval in office. So he remains vague.
  • Six of the seven lead articles are all concerned with "security" and "kidnapping", all of which appear to refer to robbery and to kidnapping of people for money, most of which affects the elite, and none of it to political kidnapping that mostly affects the poor and their supporters.
  • All ten articles in the Politics section are concerned with the same issues and are in support of the fight against the so-called gangs that resist the attacks of the occupiers.
  • The second link on the upper left side of the page, under the one to their radio broadcast, is one that gives a pop-up window showing the rate of exchange for the Haitian gourde in relation to the U.S. dollar, another matter of much more everyday concern to the elite than to the poor. In fact, none of the articles seem to deal with any of the problems of the poor majority of Haiti, or even acknowledge the latter as part of Haitian society. By the way, the U.N. has always been an instrument of U.S. imperialism, going back to the partition of Palestine in 1947 and the war against the people of Korea in 1950-1953.
by t rose
The UN soldiers will attack black people in Haiti, but they do nothing to interfere with a Moroccan dictator who is terrorizing its small neighbor, Western Sahara. Once again the Bush bias plants footprints in paradise.
by don
"the war against the people of Korea in 1950-1953." Um..excuse me. It wasn't the UN or the US who started that war. Get your facts straight.
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