28851: Ayiti Chanje (news) UN reality check for reeling Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

> From Ayiti Chanje (ayitichanje1804@hotmail.com):

UN reality check for reeling Haiti

Monday, August 7th 2006

http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl/article_opinion?id=160993552

UNITED NATIONS Secretary General Kofi Annan spoke frankly last Thursday after 
assessing the situation on the ground in Haiti during his first visit there.

Coming to personal terms with the wanton violence, including the new spate of 
kidnappings being engaged in by members of the cynical gangs in and around 
Port-au-Prince, the world's number-one diplomat refused to mince words.

He said those who were engaging in those kinds of atrocities which are creating 
new anxieties for the country should be ashamed to call themselves Haitians. He 
called them criminals, reiterating the fact that the besieged nation, profiled 
as the poorest in the western hemisphere, continues to struggle at a critical 
stage of its rebuilding exercise.

Secretary General Annan also came quickly to the assessment that the UN 
peacekeeping force in Haiti needed to be retained for at least another year, 
instead of the customary six months.

The situation, as he saw it, means that there remains tremendous need for all 
of the international assistance required to help in the recovery process which 
has only barely begun with the election of a new government.

Almost every aspect of the Haitian state, institutions from the judicial and 
the justice systems, the police, the military and the political apparatus, 
needs critical attention in an effort at restoration.

Civil society has to be depoliticised as well, and huge amounts of the physical 
infrastructure remain to be repaired. In many cases, primary road building is 
an urgent requirement.

The UN chief's on-the-spot declaration about the state of affairs in Haiti is 
an effective reality check from the highest level about the immediate needs of 
one of the Caribbean region's most desperate societies.

His words provide critical moral support for the efforts of those who must 
continue to press the need for the international assistance necessary to get 
this country and its people on that vital road to stabilisation, and then 
recovery.

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