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01/15/2006:

"CFR: UN Must 'Stay the Course' in Haiti"

Jean-Marie Guéhenno, undersecretary-general for UN peacekeeping operations and former French ambassador to the European Union, says real progress has been made in Haiti. The poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, Haiti has been wracked by violence since the February 2004 ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and elections there have been postponed four times because of instability. But Guehenno says Haiti is moving "closer to a key milestone," the rescheduled elections February 7, and most of the country "is more or less...stabilized." For real progress to be made, however, the United Nations must be clear it is ready to "really stay the course." He spoke with cfr.org's Mary Crane January 9, 2005.

Let's start by summing up the United Nations' presence in Haiti since the departure of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide two years ago. Can you tell us what the status of UN peacekeeping forces is in Haiti?

Maybe I should start by saying that the United Nations has been involved in Haiti several times in the past, and I think when we were requested to come back to Haiti after the departure of President Aristide, it was clear, I think to everybody, that this time the international community should really stay the course and learn from past failures.

The main lesson from the past failures is that there was never a sufficiently comprehensive effort in Haiti. An election is an important event, but an election is the beginning of something, not the end, and it has to be complemented by a much broader effort to rebuild the state. And that's why in Haiti today we want to address the situation on a number of fronts. First, of course, is to bring security to Haiti. The beginning of the mission, as you know, was difficult because the troops were not necessarily prepared for the challenges they encountered.

And where are most of the troops from?

Most of the troops come from Latin America. We have troops from Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Guatemala--there are a number of Latin American countries. These are the main countries. The leadership of the mission is also from Latin America. Since the tragic death of [UN mission commander] General [Urano Teixeira da Matta] Bacellar this weekend, we will certainly have another Brazilian commander and we are in touch with Brazil to identify a suitable force commander. It's really our intention to keep a Brazilian force commander and Brazil has made a major commitment to the mission.

So when I look at the strategy of the mission, [the] first [priority is] to bring a measure of security. Everyone is focused on what is not yet right--that is, the disarray in [the capital] Port-au-Prince. But what I see is the progress that has [been made] in the rest of the country. When you look at what the situation was even a few months ago, when [there were] road-blocking attempts in the northern part of the country, that has stopped. Myself, I was in Port-au-Prince earlier this year in June and I wanted to visit some of the tough places and one of them was Bel Air. The only way I could visit Bel Air was in an armored personal carrier with a blue helmet and jacket, and now you can walk in Bel Air.

Today, there is one place that remains a very tough spot indeed and that is [the Port-au-Prince suburb of] Cité Soleil, which is a focus of our attention. We are not going to let the situation in Soleil fester. This is a touchy situation because it's a slum, an urban environment with a high-density population. It's the kind of place that's very difficult to operate a military force. We are looking at ways to strengthen our posture there so we can stop the activity of the gangs and at the same time not hurt civilians.
nytimes.com

Class war takes on a new meaning in Cite Soley
Cite Soley, one of Port-au-Prince's poorest neighborhoods, is home to around 500,000 people living in abject poverty. According to Jean-Joseph Joel, the Secretary General of the local branch of Fanmi Lavalas, the area's residents are virtual prisoners, and their movements restricted by armed police at checkpoints. Vilified as bandits or chimeres by the elite-run press, he says they face persecution if they do manage to escape the neighborhood. There is no work and signs of malnutrition are obvious in the children.

Since the February 2004 coup d'etat that ousted democratically elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Cite Soley has been one of the battlefields where a war against Haiti's poor majority is being waged. Muliple killings of civilians have been committed by UN forces carrying out the will of the country's elite and of the international community. Dieunord Edme, a Cite Soley resident, shows us the place in the market where his wife, Annette Moleron, was gunned down by MINUSTAH (Mission Nations Unies Stabilization en Haiti) soldiers on January 7th during an operation that claimed the lives of four women in a marketplace. He shows us bullet holes in the metal roof over the market's stalls.

Victims of the deadly July 6th 2005 UN massacre, an event documented by the Haiti Information Project, which the UN denies ever happened, show us their scars. One woman lifts her shirt to show us where the MINUSTAH bullet entered her then pregnant belly, ! and the mark of the cesarean section performed to remove the baby that was killed. As we drive out of the neighborhood we pass a horribly bloated corpse by the side of the road. A MINUSTAH tank is parked nearby, keeping watch. Local residents say the man, who worked as a porter, was killed five days previously but every time someone went to try to remove the body, MINUSTAH started firing. It is apparent that they want to keep his body as a warning to others.

This ugly violence that has swept Cite Soley in the last week, and for many months prior, does not come out of thin air. Someone above the UN is calling the shots, and they wield lethal power. Reginald Boulos, the president of the Haitian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and sweatshop magnate Andy Apaid – both members of the Canadian and US-backed Group 184 – called for a one-day general business strike Monday. The stated goal of this strike was to put pressure on MINUSTAH to clamp down harder on crime! and kidnappings. As an announcement heard on Radio Metropole stated in a threatening tone, “Don't leave your houses. Let the police and the military do their work. Anyone who leaves their house takes their life into their own hands.”