25499: Hermantin(News)Country consumed by violence despite U.N. forces (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Mon, Jun. 27, 2005

HAITI
Country consumed by violence despite U.N. forces

BY NANCY ROC
rocprodz@yahoo.fr

More than a year after the deployment of ''stabilization forces'' in Haiti, the 
United Nations has done little to stabilize the country. In a recent report, 
the Brussels-based International Crisis Group described the situation as 
''explosive.'' Indeed, for months, the capital has been under the control of 
former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's armed gangs, terrorizing an abandoned 
population. The middle and upper class have been especially targeted.

Nevertheless, the arson that recently consumed the biggest market downtown, 
Marché Tt Boeuf, also shows that the gangs' violence is random and does not 
spare the poorest. On that day, 10 merchants were burned alive after being held 
at gunpoint. Aristide supporters asking for his return were blamed for this 
public display of terrorism.

The horror stories in the capital are getting worse by the day. In Fermathe, a 
residential area a few miles east of Port-au-Prince, middle-class families have 
been victims of gang rapes. These collective assaults do not spare men and 
prepubescent girls. On a recent Sunday, bandits broke into the Saint Rome's 
family home. Joans Saint Rome, a branch director of Promobank, a private 
commercial institution, and his mother were shot dead in front of Saint Rome's 
5-year-old son.

Prime Minister Gerard Latortue has proven that he has an erroneous reading of 
the situation in the country he's supposed to lead. Indeed, a few weeks ago he 
stated that the U.S. Haitian deportees were the main sources of kidnappings in 
the country, a new trend that produces six to 10 victims a day now. Sources and 
investigations indicate that Haiti might be the target of an international 
kidnapping network such as the ones found in Pakistan, Iraq or Latin America.

However, the class war triggered by Aristide and his supporters cannot be 
underestimated. Several kidnapping victims we met have testified that, indeed, 
some of their kidnappers did not speak Creole or French but only English. The 
victims also underlined that, while they were held, they were told that the 
''bourgeois''( upper class) will pay for Aristide's forced departure and that 
the upper class no longer had a place in Haiti.

In addition, political analysts do believe that there is a plan to wreak chaos 
before this fall's elections. Impunity, corruption, lack of governance, a 
corrupt police force, drug and arms traffickers and the inaction of the U.N. 
forces have encouraged gangs to terrorize the population.

In this cycle of violence, who will be able to stop the escalation of crimes, 
kidnappings and gang rapes? Who can give any assurance that these gangs won't 
go as far as the Rwanda genocide when nothing stands in their way? Haiti is 
already in the process of ''Somalization.'' Genocide is usually conceived and 
carried out by a strong repressive government linked to militias to target an 
innocent population. In Haiti's case, the transitional government is so weak 
that it is almost nonexistent. However, inaction by U.N forces could lead to 
another genocide, or to an unprecedented massacre in Haiti before the 
elections.

As in Rwanda, all the signs are there and point to the danger. Will the United 
Nations, once again, assist a collective state-suicide in a place so close to 
Miami? Will the United States allow terrorism to take root in such a nearby 
country?


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Nancy Roc, an independent investigative reporter and writer in Haiti for 20 
years, recently moved to Miami.