25649: Haiti Action Committee note

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

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


Brian Concannon Jr.
Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti
www.ijdh.org
<Brianhaiti@aol.com>
Telephone: 541-432-0597
Fax: 541-432-0264


For Immediate Release:

         [For more information, contact Dave Welsh,
from the Labor/Human
Rights Delegation to Haiti, at 510-847-8657]


UN Occupation Forces Carry Out Massacre of Poor in
Port-au-Prince


On Wednesday morning, July 6th, at approximately 3:00
AM, UN occupation
forces in Haiti carried out a major military operation
in the
working-class neighborhood of Cite Soleil, one of the
poorest in
Port-au-Prince and also a stronghold of support for
Haiti's majority
political party Lavalas and President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide. Presumably,
the purpose of the operation was to crack down on
illegal "gang activity",
in particular on "gang" leader Dread Wilme. In
actuality, a US trade union
and human rights delegation in Port-au-Prince
discovered evidence of a
massacre conducted by the UN forces, targeting the
larger community
itself.

According to accounts from many different members of
the community, many
of whom chose to remain anonymous, as well as from
journalists who were on
the scene during the operation, UN forces surrounded
two neighborhoods
within Cite Soleil, Boisneuf and Project Drouillard,
sealing off the
alleys with tanks and troops.

Two helicopters flew overhead. At 4:30 AM, UN forces
launched the
offensive, shooting into houses, shacks, a church, and
a school with
machine guns, tank fire, and tear gas. Eyewitnesses
reported that when
people fled to escape the tear gas, UN troops gunned
them down from the
back.

UN forces shot out electric transformers in the
neighborhood. People were
killed in their homes and also just outside of their
homes, on the way to
work. According to journalists and eyewitnesses, one
man named Leon
Cherry, age 46, was shot and killed on his way to work
for a flower
company. Another man, Mones Belizaire, was shot as he
got ready to go work
in a local sweatshop and subsequently died from a
stomach infection. A
woman who was a street vendor was shot in the head and
killed instantly.

One man was shot in his ribs while he was trying to
brush his teeth.
Another man was shot in the jaw as he left his house
to try and get some
money for his wife's medical costs; he endured a slow
death.Yet another
man named Mira was shot and killed while urinating in
his home.

A mother, Sena Romelus, and her two young children
were killed in their
home, either by bullets or by a 83-CC grenade UN
forces threw. Film
footage of many of these deaths was shared with the US
human rights
delegation. Eyewitnesses claimed that the offensive
overwhelmed the
community and that there was not a "firefight", but
rather a slaughter.
The operation was primarily conducted by UN forces,
with the Haitian
National Police this time taking a back seat.

Seth Donnelly, a member of the US human rights
delegation in
Port-au-Prince, visited Cite Soleil with Haitian human
rights workers on
Thursday afternoon, July 7th. The team gathered
testimony from many
members of the community, young and old, men, women,
and youth. All
verified the previous statements we had received from
journalists and
other eyewitness accounts.

These community members spoke of how they had been
surrounded by tanks and
troops that sealed off exits from the neighborhoods
and then proceeded to
assault the civilian population. The community allowed
the team to film
the evidence of the massacre, showing the homes -- in
some cases made of
tin and cardboard -- that had been riddled by bullets,
tank fire and
helicopter ammunition, as well as showing the team
some of the corpses
still there, including a mother and her two children.

The team also filmed a church and a school that had
been riddled by
ammunition. Reportedly, a preacher was among the
victims killed. Some
community members allowed the team to interview them,
but not to film
their faces for fear of their lives. People were
traumutized and, in the
cases of loved ones of victims, hysterical.

Many community members -- again young and old, men and
women -- spoke
highly of Dread Wilme, referring to him as their
"protector" or "father",
and expressed fear for the future. One member said
that he heard that
another UN operation against the community was planned
for later Thursday
night or early Friday morning.

Multiple community people indicated that they had
counted at least 23
bodies of people killed by the UN forces. Community
members claimed that
UN forces had taken away some of the bodies. 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 this densely populated residential
neighborhood.

"There was systematic firing on civilians," said one
eyewitness to the
killing. "All exits were cut off. The community was
choked off,
surrounded -- facing tanks coming from different
angles, and overhead,
helicopters with machine guns fired down on the
people. The citizens were
under attack from all sides and from the air. It was
war on a community."

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


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