25641: Haiti Action Committee Condemns UN Massacre in Haiti, Demands An End to the Killing (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Haiti Action Committee <haitiaction@yahoo.com>

Haiti Action Committee Condemns UN Massacre in Haiti,
Demands An End to the Killing

July 9, 2005

For more information:
Seth Donnelly   011 509 411 8107
Dave Welsh  510-847-8657
Pierre Labossiere   510-830-5252

The Haiti Action Committee today condemned a July 6
massacre of Haitian civilians in Cite Soleil,
Port-au-Prince carried out by UN ?peacekeepers?.

Dave Welsh, a delegate with the San Francisco Labor
Council who was in Haiti as part of a labor/human
rights delegation, said, ?This full-blown military
attack on a densely-populated neighborhood, which
multiple sources confirm killed at least 23 people, is
a crime.? Published estimates indicate that upwards of
50 may have been killed and an indeterminate number
wounded, and that more than 300 heavily armed UN
troops took part in the assault on the neighborhood.

The attack took place in Cite Soleil, an extremely
poor area that is staunchly supportive of ousted
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Aristide was forced
from office by the U.S. embassy in collusion with
U.S.-backed paramilitaries on February 29, 2004 and is
now in exile in South Africa.

Seth Donnelly, a California teacher with the same
delegation, visited the scene of the massacre and
spoke to traumatized survivors of the attack. ?This
operation started early Wednesday morning at 3am, with
Jordanian and other troops on foot and in tanks and
helicopters with machine gun turrets. It was a
full-scale attack. Survivors told us that when they
saw UN troops they felt that, unlike Haitian police,
they would not fire on civilians, but that the
?peacekeepers? soon began shooting into houses and at
civilians. ?

The Labor/Human Rights Delegation from the United
States, sponsored by the San Francisco Labor Council,
had been in Haiti since late June to attend the
Congress of the Confederation of Haitian Workers
(CTH), the country's largest labor organization, and
met with hundreds of Haitian workers, farmers and
professionals, interviewing scores of them about the
current labor and human rights crisis in Haiti.

Pierre Labossiere of the Haiti Action Committee noted,
?MINUSTAH [The United Nations Stabilization Mission in
Haiti] apologized to the Haitian police for its
delayed arrival on the scene of an incident where two
Haitian police officers were killed on May 22, but it
has never once apologized for any of the many
documented instances where UN troops killed Haitian
civilians. This latest attack, in which people in
their homes and on the way to work were killed for no
reason, is beyond the pale. Such atrocities must not
be accepted by the international community. Those
responsible for these killings of civilians must be
brought to trial.?

Labossiere concluded that the U.S.Embassy should
immediately refrain from more statements which provide
a ?green light? for slaughter of civilians. ?By
recently calling grassroots activists ?gang members?
and ?terrorists?, U.S. Ambassador James Foley sent a
signal that it?s open season on civilians. This is
especially Orwellian, since the real terrorists in
Haiti are the UN troops, the Haitian police and the
paramilitaries  who are killing civilians. Under its
most recent mandate, the UN has supervision of the
Haitian police. But instead of stopping the killing of
civilians, the UN is stepping up the slaughter,? said
Labossiere.