25934: Lemieux: Inter Press News service: UN to Probe Raid (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: JD Lemieux <lxhaiti@yahoo.com>

RIGHTS-HAITI:
UN to Probe Deadly Raid
Haider Rizvi

UNITED NATIONS, Jul 25 (IPS) - Following protests
by human rights groups in the United States, the
United Nations mission in Haiti has decided to
investigate the alleged killing of civilians by
its troops there early this month.

In a statement Monday, the U.N. Stabilisation
Mission in Haiti, also known as MINUSTAH,
admitted for the first time that civilians might
have been injured or killed during the Jul. 6
raid on a working-class neighbourhood in the
Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince.

MINUSTAH is the sixth U.N. mission to hit Haiti
in a decade, and comes on the heels of the
country's second U.S.-led invasion and occupation
in as many years.

Until recently, the U.N. mission had consistently
and categorically denied activists' claims that
many innocent people had died as a result of
indiscriminate firing by U.N. troops in Cite
Soleil, a stronghold of the supporters of ousted
president Jean Bertrand Aristide.

?MINUSTAH forces did not target civilians in the
operation on Jul. 6,? U.N. officials said in a
statement, adding that ?the nature of such
operation in densely populated urban areas is
such that there is always a risk of civilian
casualties.?

The statement said the mission ?deeply regrets
any injuries or loss of life during its security
operation,? but gave no count of the dead or
injured.

Right activists say community leaders in Cite
Soleil had counted at least 23 bodies, including
those of women and children, as a result of
firing by U.N. troops. More than 400 troops took
part in the assault.

U.N. mission officials said the security
situation in parts of Port-au-Prince remained
?very tense,? adding that for the past few months
different armed gangs had ?terrorised? the
population and ?disrupted? the economic activity
of the city.

MINUSTAH and the Haitian police have collaborated
on many missions in the capital and in the
countryside, carrying out raids, confronting gang
violence and providing security for events.

Justifying the Jul. 6 action, the U.N. mission
said it had taken a ?robust posture to disrupt
the activities of these armed gangs and bring the
alleged criminals to justice,? because it was
necessary to create ?a secure and stable
environment within which the constitutional and
political process can take place.?

In April, a delegation of 10 Security Council
members, headed by Brazilian Ambassador to the
Security Council Ronaldo Mota Sardenberg, and
members of the U.N.'s Economic and Social Council
ECOSOC, visited Haiti to pledge support for a
disarmament campaign, reform of the police force
and justice system, economic and social
development, and national elections slated for
this fall.

But U.S.-based activists, who have interviewed
scores of local residents and medical aid workers
in Port-au-Prince, see things differently. They
say since Aristide's ouster from power, the
people of poor neighbourhoods like Cite Soleil
have faced extreme repression -- including
extra-judicial killings -- at the hands of
Haitian police.

In response, some young people have set up their
own armed networks, which are labeled by
authorities as ?gangs.?

While the U.N. mission in Haiti wants those youth
to surrender their arms, it has failed to rein in
the police units that have been terrorising
people in the poor neighborhood, according to
some Haiti watchers.

Though welcoming the U.N. decision to probe the
use of excessive force by its peacekeeping
troops, activists said that was not sufficient.

?That is not the way to conduct a professional
police operation,? Seth Donnelly, an activist who
closely watched the recent events in Haiti, told
IPS. ?Rather this seems to be what the U.S.
military did in Falluja, Iraq to find
insurgents.?

The widely-publicised siege of Fallujah in April
2004, called in response to the killings of four
U.S. military contractors, included massive air
and artillery strikes, and resulted in hundreds
of Iraqi civilian deaths.

Donnelly and others insist that the Geneva-based
U.N. Human Rights Commission, not MINUSTAH,
should be given the authority to conduct an
inquiry.

?We are hoping that Human Rights Commission will
conduct its own investigation,? said Donnelly.
?It's clear that higher authorities are involved
here.?

Earlier this month, Donnelly and his colleagues
were sent to Port-au-Prince by the San Francisco
Labour Council to attend a major labor conference
there. They said they were still in Haiti when
the U.N. troops raided Cite Soleil and that they
had access to videotaped footage showing innocent
people dying as a result of that operation.

?The evidence of a massacre by U.N. military
forces is substantial and compelling. It
completely contradicts the official version,?
they said.

Critics of the U.N. mission's way of handling the
pervasive violence in Haiti say the world body's
mission there needs to strike a balance in the
conflict between Haitian police and members of
the local communities.

?The U.N. mission apologised to the Haitian
police for its delayed arrival on the scene of an
incident where two police officers were killed on
May 22, but it has never once apologised for any
of the many documented instances where its troops
killed civilians,? said Pierre Labossiere of the
Haiti Action Committee, a U.S.-based group.

Noting that under its most recent mandate, the
U.N. has supervision of the Haitian police, he
added: ?Instead of stopping the killing of
civilians, the U.N. is stepping up the slaughter.
That must not be accepted by the international
community.? (END/2005)





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