15123:Re: 15094: Laleau: Re: 15079: Arthur on US use of pepper spray

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: VISHNUSURF@aol.com
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I lived in Haiti during the entire occupation and documented cases of
human
rights abuse.  While I do not recall complaints about tear gas or pepper
spray
propelled by foreign soldiers (though I did see them use something misty
on a
couple of occasions of "crowd control") both US and UN soldiers were
implicated
in sexual assaults on Haitians during the intervention. This was brought
to the
attention of the UN authorities in PAP, who simply swept it under the rug.
The
will of the UN Civil Observer Mission was questionable at best and no more
reliable than that of the US State Dept.  And then there was the guy who
was
sodomized by the Pakistani UN  Peace Keepers" in 1998.

Some of this is touched upon in an artlcle by Terry Rey: "Junta, Rape, and
Religion in Haiti, 1993-1994, Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, v.
15,
n. 2, 1999.

There have been cases where individuals have been injured by tear gas used
by
CIMO and the like.  One example is mentioned in a the Feb 17, 1997 Time
Magazine report on the Haitian National Police.