25666: Wayne: (news) No peace for Haitians By Malcolm Garcia (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Desiree Wayne <desiree_wayne@msn.com>

No peace for Haitians
Impoverished in line of fire between U.N. forces, gangs
By Malcolm Garcia
Special to The Denver Post
7/09/2005
DenverPost.com

Port-au-Prince, Haiti - The mother of nine sat in a cinder-block house in the 
seaside slum of Cite Soleil and mourned her 28-year-old son, who had been shot 
in the head.

Ananaze Santeilise was not surprised by his death.

She knew that the violence between U.N. forces and armed factions demanding the 
return of former Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide would likely claim 
one or more of her children.

"He was not political," Santeilise, 48, said of her dead son. "He never carried 
a gun."

Santeilise is among dozens of families in Cite Soleil who say they have lost 
husbands and wives, daughters and sons since March, when United Nations troops 
began a campaign with the Haitian National Police to crush armed groups still 
loyal to Aristide.

The crackdown followed months of criticism by the United States that 
Brazilian-led U.N. forces were not doing enough to quell the violence.

But the presence of U.N. peacekeepers has failed to stop the violence, and has 
fueled new anger and conflict.

Supporters of the former leader say they plan to respond with violence to what 
they claim is a joint U.N.-police effort to crush political opposition, wipe 
out the pro-Aristide movement, prevent democratic reforms and force the 
U.S.-supported interim government into power in elections slated for November.

The U.N. and Haitian police claim to have killed dozens of gang leaders. A 
poster of some of the dead men hangs in the front office of the U.N., with X's 
drawn across their photographs.

But many in Cite Soleil, an area of 250,000 people and one of the poorest 
ghettos in Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital, accuse U.N. soldiers of 
shooting indiscriminately into the slum's patchwork of cramped housing and dirt 
streets, killing not only gunmen but bystanders with no political affiliation 
or history of violence. The area is a haven for armed groups loyal to Aristide 
and opposed to the current interim government.

"The Geneva Convention stipulates that the use of guns against civilians is 
illegal," says Pierre Alexis, coordinator of the Red Cross operation in Cite 
Soleil. "But the U.N. doesn't hesitate to use them."

Independent human-rights reports support allegations of sanctioned violence and 
murder.

"Keeping the Peace in Haiti?" a report by the Harvard Law School human-rights 
program, concluded that the peacekeeping effort has "effectively provided cover 
for the police to wage a campaign of terror in Port-au- Prince's slums. Even 
more distressing ... are credible allegations of human-rights abuses 
perpetuated by (the peacekeeping force) itself," the recently released report 
says.

Innocents suffer

A study by the University of Miami's Center for the Study of Human Rights, 
"Haiti Human Rights Investigation," found that U.N. police and soldiers "resort 
to heavy-handed incursions into the poorest neighborhoods that force 
intermittent peace at the expense of innocent residents."

Carlos Chagas, the U.N. spokesman in Port-au-Prince, conceded that the 
international organization has received reports of civilian casualties in 
Haiti, but he would not say how many such reports have been made.

"We are a military and trained to kill and use overwhelming power," Chagas 
said. "(But) we understand we must avoid casualties to the civilian 
population."

In preparing this report, a reporter and photographer witnessed several 
incidents, including bodies left behind minutes after U.N.-backed police swept 
through slum areas.

The 7,400 troops of the U.N. Stabilization Mission in Haiti, or MINUSTAH, 
arrived in Haiti in June 2004 intending to end the chaos that ensued after 
Aristide fled the island that February following a three-week rebellion against 
what his opponents said was a corrupt and violent regime. His backers assert 
that wealthy Haitians opposed to Aristide's programs for the poor forced him 
out with U.S. backing.

Civilians now find themselves trapped between U.N. soldiers and the armed gangs 
living among them.

"Even if you're innocent, even if you're not part of the fighting, you get 
shot," said Cite Soleil resident Micheal Belizeer. He was shot in the arm April 
15, he said, when the U.N. started firing near his house.

Social problems

The animosity toward the U.N. peacekeepers also reflects the tremendous social 
problems in the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Nearly half of 8.1 
million Haitians are 18 or younger. The average monthly income is about $30 to 
$50. Unemployment hovers around 80 percent.

In Cite Soleil, families share space with feral pigs, goats and dogs. Their 
rusted metal shacks sit on fetid streets amid stagnant ponds of sewage and 
weed- choked canals poisoned by toxic waste.

Promises of $1.3 billion in international aid have not materialized.

Many families have raised their beds onto cinder blocks and crawl beneath them 
when gunfire erupts.

"We are living a cursed life," said Chanon Lemoinse, 50, a mother of four.

She and dozens of other Cite Soleil residents, including Santeilise, accused 
U.N. forces of injuring scores of innocent people when it entered the slum 
April 15 in pursuit of gang members.

The U.N. reported killing 10 gunmen, but human-rights groups Medecins Sans 
Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) and the Institute for Justice and 
Democracy in Haiti said at least 38 others were injured.

Lemoinse said her 29-year-old son was wounded in the forehead by soldiers she 
saw shooting from a U.N. armored personnel carrier.

The U.N. has long-term plans for a national disarmament program, Chagas said. 
However, the American-backed provisional government of interim Prime Minister 
Gerard Latortue has not yet agreed to the initiative.

"There is no interest in disarmament in the interim government," said 
Philadelphia lawyer Thomas M. Griffin, author of the University of Miami 
report. "They'd have to then deal with what the people want: jobs, education. 
Many want Aristide back. We need dialogue but there's no Jimmy Carter going 
down there to do it."