25125: Craig (news) A giant Haitian slum that suddenly matters (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Dan Craig <sak-pase@bimini.ws>

A giant Haitian slum that suddenly matters
*By Walt Bogdanich and Jenny Nordberg* The New York Times
MONDAY, AUGUST 29, 2005

*PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti* Sitting at the gateway of the nation's capital, Cité 
Soleil is an unsightly birthmark of modern Haiti, a broiling Haitian slum of 
shacks, dust and ditches filled with human waste. It is home to several hundred 
thousand people who now live with virtually no government services, no police 
officers and only an occasional helping hand from international aid groups.

Yet with national elections scheduled for this fall, what happens in Cité 
Soleil is increasingly important to the world beyond its squalor. Not only does 
it have one of the biggest blocks of potential voters - many of whom back the 
ousted president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide - but it also can generate the kind of 
violence that could disrupt those elections.

For United Nations peacekeeping forces, bringing some semblance of order to 
Cité Soleil and giving its residents a chance to vote in the elections is seen 
as an important step in establishing a new, credible government in Haiti. But 
while United Nations troops have managed to set up command posts in sections of 
other poor, violent neighborhoods, large parts of Cité Soleil remain all but 
impenetrable.

Cité Soleil is now so foreboding that the international peacekeepers, who wear 
flak jackets and drive armored personnel carriers, conduct no regular patrols 
in its densely populated neighborhoods. In their last operation, about 400 UN 
troops entered the slum on July 6 and fought a five-hour gun battle with gangs 
that control the area.

Numerous residents were wounded in the cross-fire, and the incident has further 
embittered many Aristide supporters in Cité Soleil as the elections approach.

"Cité Soleil is symbolic of Haiti's potential of creating a new society that is 
inclusive rather than exclusive," said Robert Maguire, director of programs in 
international affairs at Trinity University in Washington and an expert on 
Haiti. He added that if Cité Soleil was not part of the voting, "I think the 
elections will be far less than credible."

Gangs regularly monitor who comes and goes on the only two roads leading into 
the slum, according to relief workers. A Peruvian soldier stationed on the edge 
of Cite Soleil was shot recently by a sniper, according to a spokesman for the 
UN force.

On a recent day, local political leaders escorted reporters for The New York 
Times into Cité Soleil, a largely treeless tract of tin huts and crumbling 
cinder block. With no running water, drainage ditches are a rancid mix of human 
waste and garbage that must be crossed by walking on large stones or on a 
narrow bridge with missing wooden planks.

The neighborhood leaders, all members of Fanmi Lavalas, the political party 
founded by Aristide, wanted reporters to see what they say is evidence of 
indiscriminate killings by peacekeeping troops during the raid in July. The 
leaders blame the international community, particularly the United States, for 
Aristide's ouster and for setting up an interim government that is now 
supported by the UN.

According to the UN version of the raid, troops responded to months of violence 
in Cité Soleil by staging a predawn assault with armored vehicles and 
helicopters.

Their prime target was a gang leader named Emmanuel Wilmer, also known as Dread 
Wilmer. Wilmer and other gang members were killed in the ensuing battle.

In a hut, baking in Cité Soleil's mid-day heat, 13 residents of the 
neighborhood, brought together by the political leaders, squeezed around a 
small wooden bench to tell a different story. There, they laid out seven 
pictures of people, including women and children, who they said were killed by 
UN troops.

"Here are the ones we had a chance to photograph before the dogs ate them," 
said René Momplaisir, a local Fanmi Lavalas leader.

Many of the victims appeared to have been shot in the head, though who fired 
the bullets - UN troops or gang members - could not be independently verified.

"Why do people die like that?" Momplaisir said. "It's because there's no 
justice in Haiti."

John Joseph Joel, a Fanmi Lavalas leader, said dozens of residents were killed 
or wounded during the raid.

UN officials said in a statement that an undetermined number of innocent 
bystanders "may have been injured or even killed." They also cited "unconfirmed 
but numerous reports" that gangs killed residents after the troops left.

Olivia Gayraud, the administrator of a free hospital run by Médecins Sans 
Frontières, or Doctors Without Borders, said doctors there treated 27 gunshot 
victims from the raid. Most were children and women, Gayraud said, including a 
woman in her 28th week of pregnancy who lost her baby. The hospital declined to 
identify the woman because of privacy concerns.

Gayraud said the total number of wounded was surely higher because young men 
with bullet wounds often do not seek medical care for fear of being arrested or 
even killed by the police.

Dr. Christophe Fournier, at Doctors Without Borders in New York, said that the 
clinic in Haiti had treated 1,132 gunshot victims since it opened in December, 
more than the combined total of gunshot victims treated at the group's clinics 
around the world.

Most appear to be victims of gang violence. But, according to Gayraud, on July 
6, most patients said that they had been shot by international peacekeepers.

In Cité Soleil's Bois Neuf neighborhood, where Wilmer, the gang leader, was 
killed, several buildings still bear extensive scars of gunfire.

Juan Gabriel Valdes , who oversees United Nations operation in Haiti, 
acknowledged in an interview that some bystanders were shot during the raid, 
but he also accused gang members of using women and children as shields.

The attack was necessary, Valdes explained, "because this gang was threatening 
the whole city and was attacking innocent people."

He said the operation took weeks to plan, and that it was changed three times 
to try to minimize non-gang casualties.

United Nations officials said they are investigating the events, but declined 
to provide further details.

Valdes said Cité Soleil had been particularly difficult to penetrate because it 
is so big, the gangs so strong and the living conditions so wretched.

He also said he lacked troops trained and equipped for urban warfare.

The Fanmi Lavalas leaders who showed reporters around said they did not believe 
in violence and they portrayed Wilmer as someone who tried to protect 
neighborhood residents from a gang that threatened them.

Human rights workers say that some gangs - and there are a variety in Cité 
Soleil - are terrorizing residents, and that rapes are a particular problem.

According to a report released late last year by the University of Miami School 
of Law, some violence in Cité Soleil had been stoked by Haitian business 
interests who backed an anti-Aristide gang. The leader of that gang was later 
killed.

Valdes said that the country was awash in guns, some distributed by political 
parties and even by "some members of the higher social sectors in this 
country."

And he added: "The abundance of weapons in this country is a sickness of the 
whole Haitian society."

When reporters from The Times walked through Cité Soleil, no weapons were seen 
nor gunfire heard, which was very unusual, according to a human rights worker 
who regularly visits the community.

The worker speculated that political leaders had helped to ensure that guns 
were not visible during the visit.

But United Nations troops stationed on the outskirts of Cité Soleil say they 
are fired on daily from inside the neighborhood, which has kept them from 
conducting regular operations inside.

"We can do them but the problem is the collateral damage," said Colonel El 
Ouafi Boulbars, a spokesman for the UN military force in Haiti.

That violence is also hampering election preparations in Cité Soleil.

Gerard Le Chevallier, the United Nations chief electoral officer in Haiti, said 
a voter registration center had been open for several weeks in an industrial 
area on the edge of Cité Soleil, but that is not where most people live. Le 
Chevallier said a second center opened Thursday, in a more populated area of 
the slum, and workers in one factory have also been registered. Registration 
ends Sept. 15 for national elections this fall.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/08/28/news/haiti.php#