29426: POTEMAKSONJE (NEWS) FILM: WE MUST KILL THE BANDITS (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

<POTEMAKSONJE@YAHOO.COM>

Film captures horror of repression in Haiti
Tim Pelzer
11/02/06 16:27


VANCOUVER, British Columbia ? After U.S. Marines
seized Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on
Feb. 29, 2004, and flew him to the Central African
Republic, the newly installed interim government
unleashed a campaign of terror against Aristide?s
supporters.

U.S. filmmaker and journalist Kevin Pina captures the
horror of this period in his new documentary ?Haiti:
We Must Kill the Bandits.? He spoke to the World
during a brief stopover here to screen his new film.

?We Must Kill the Bandits? is a disturbingly powerful
account of the 22-month period between February 2004
and March 2006, when the U.S./Canadian/

French-backed interim government ruled the country.
Pina lived in Haiti from January 1999 until March
2006.

After Aristide?s ouster, Haitians began to
spontaneously pour into the streets to demand his
return. Rather than put up an armed resistance to the
U.S. troops and the UN?s military stabilization
mission (Minustah), Aristide?s Fanmi Lavalas Party
decided to employ peaceful, civil resistance.

Such resistance met with brutal repression. The
documentary reveals how the Haitian National Police
(HNP) and former soldiers carried out many massacres
while the Brazilian-led Minustah and U.S. Marines
stood by.

Pina recalls one demonstration against the interim
government in the poverty-stricken Port-au-Prince
neighborhood of Bel Air on May 18, 2004, that he
attended. After U.S. Marines ? driving around in
armored vehicles with guns pointed at the crowds ?
failed to discourage protesters from demonstrating,
the troops disappeared.

Shortly thereafter, a SWAT team with HNP sharpshooters
arrived and began shooting people in the head.

?This kid was in front of me and his head burst open
like a cantaloupe hit by a rock,? Pina recalled. He
said that this scenario ? with Minustah and U.S.
troops suddenly disappearing, and HNP forces then
arriving to shoot unarmed demonstrators ? became ?a
pattern that I saw repeated over and over again.?

In the Bel Air incident, Pina began filming the HNP
sharpshooters. They responded by shooting at him.

?I ducked behind two overturned refrigerators and got
out my phone and pretended I was calling my embassy
really loudly and they stopped and left,? Pina said.
Afterwards, he approached a group of U.S. Marines and
called them ?cowards? for allowing the police attack.
An officer told Pina ?to leave my men alone? and
threatened to arrest him.

In several scenes in the film, Pina approaches
Minustah soldiers and asks them why they are refusing
to protect pro-Aristide demonstrators, who in plain
view are being shot at by Haitian police. In one clip,
a Brazilian soldier repeatedly tells him to ?f?- off.?
Pina said that the soldier also threatened to provide
his name and photo to the Haitian police.

In another clip, HNP forces in black uniforms block a
road and get ready to fire on marchers. However, when
they see Pina and his camera crew, they leave the
scene.

Pina also shows that Minustah forces took part in the
repression. One of the most gruesome scenes in the
film is an interview with a 29-year-old man whose two
young sons and wife lay dead on a nearby bed. The man
says that Minustah forces had thrown a tear gas
canister into his house. He ran out and wrongly
assumed that his family had followed him. He returned
to his house to find his family dead, bullet holes in
their heads.

Pina said he made a point of challenging Minustah,
U.S. troops and the HNP every time he could.

?Where we were, we noticed they weren?t opening fire
so it just became a question of getting around to as
many places as we could ... and try and film as much
as we could, just to let them know that someone was
watching them,? he said.

Pina artfully includes old black-and-white newsreel
clips of U.S. Marines seizing control of the island in
1915, hunting down rebels and installing a friendly
government. It?s a reminder of the history of U.S.
intervention in Haiti.

Pina stated that he is working on a director?s cut of
his documentary and hopes to have it available on DVD
soon.

tpelzer@shaw.ca

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