27317: Simidor (reply): Re: 27287: Durban (comment): Civil Society Turns Uncivil (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From Daniel Simidor

I don?t mind showing gratitude if there is cause.  You
have the advantage of writing from Haiti, while I?ve
not been able to set foot there in more than a year.
But stories abound ? and they create a pattern ? that
the UN troops are not living up to their primary
reason for being on the ground in Haiti: restore the
rule of law and help the Haitian police get back on
their feet, so that Haitians can exercise their right
to vote in free and democratic elections.

You probably heard about the little girl, 14 years
old, kidnapped three days ago in the Cite Militaire
area in plain view of MINUSTAH soldiers.  Needless to
say, the soldiers did not intervene.  Maybe you heard
too about the Haitian lawyer, Me. Delcis, who sought
help from a MINUSTAH patrol with bandits hot on his
trail.  The soldiers queried whether he was a U.S.
citizen and then told him to clear out.  He managed to
get away, but his driver was wounded.  There is also
the case in Martissant, reported on NPR, of two
heavily armed gentlemen dragging a wounded man with a
rope past a MINUSTAH checkpoint, and blowing his
brains out a few moments later.

Maybe it?s a coincidence, but it does seem that some
kidnappers prefer to grab their victims in proximity
of MINUSTAH forces, as some kind of protection from
the Haitian police.  The father of the 14 year-old
girl kidnapped on Thursday morning blames MINUSTAH for
his daughter?s fate.  A nun from a nearby school spoke
to the Haitian press of a lack of concern from
MINUSTAH, ?the least human gesture to alleviate the
despair of these people.?  This kind of depraved
indifference to human life is not what Haitians
expected from the Blue Helmets.

Rumors abound of MINUSTAH complicity with the gangs,
of a lively trade in weapons and ammunitions, in
currency, drugs, liquor, women, and even children.
Some of that murky traffic is to be expected with any
deployment of foreign troops, especially in a country
as poor as Haiti.  But given the spectacular failure
of the UN troops to contain the criminal gangs in the
limited two square mile periphery of Cite Soleil, it?s
a choice of one or two things: a policy from the top
to let the niggers kill each other, and/or the UN
command has lost control of its troops.  A French
reporter wrote recently of a lack of ?couilles,? i.e.
balls, i.e. GNB (grenn nan bounda).  In either case
Valdez should be replaced, to show the UN?s clear
intent to see the process through.

The Feb. 7 deadline for the elections is a joke on the
Haitian people.  In parts of Central America,
candidates pay a tax to the gangs for the privilege of
campaigning in their districts.  But even that option
is not available in Haiti.  First the UN must restore
a semblance of peace in and around Port-au-Prince
(Cite Soleil, Petionville, Leogane, Arcahaie, etc).
Next, you need a solid month of campaigning (not just
jingles on the radio), and a hands-on and fully
transparent international oversight of the voting
process and the vote count.  Then the political
parties and the ruling elite will have to be convinced
to accept the people?s choice.  If Preval is to be the
next president, so be it.  At least there will be
enough of a plurality in Parliament, one hopes, to
limit his more dangerous impulses.


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