Tag: al jazeera

In the News: UN peacekeepers not about to leave Haiti

Originally posted at Al Jazeera’s blog

Port-au-Prince, Haiti – A bas Kolera, a bas Minista,– Creole for “down with cholera, down with MINUSTAH,” the United Nation peacekeeping force in Haiti – can be seen spray-painted across Port-au-Prince. One national newspaper headline recently read, “MINUSTAH must go.” And the refrain of a popular song by the Haitian band Brothers Posse mocks UN soldiers.

After years of scandal, including allegations of sexual abuse and accusations of introducing cholera into the country, many Haitians want the UN’s third-largest peacekeeping force to leave.

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MINUSTAH sexually assualts 18-year old man in Port-Salut

The United Nations is investigating allegations that five Uruguayan naval troops at a UN base in southern Haiti sexually molested an 18-year-old man in an attack reportedly captured by a cellphone camera.

The UN mission learned of the allegations last week and the scandal prompted Uruguay to sack its naval chief in Haiti.

The soldiers were confined to their barracks pending the outcome of the probe.

Shot with a cellphone camera, the clip shows several men in camouflaged uniforms laughing as they pin down a young man on a mattress.

The men seem to be saying “no problem” in Spanish as they hold the teen’s arms and hands behind his back. The camera jumps around, and it’s not clear from the video what’s happening.

A magistrate in Port-Salut, the southwestern coastal town in which the assault allegedly happened, has gathered testimony from the alleged victim and his mother and filed it in court.

— “UN Haiti peacekeepers accused of sex assault”, CBC

Continue reading MINUSTAH sexually assualts 18-year old man in Port-Salut

No Social Movements Allowed

Peacekeeping officials warn that protests against post-quake living conditions could snowball into a potential security threat: “Yes I agree with this assessment because the longer it can take, it can develop into a social movement, and it’s what we try to prevent,” said Bernard Ouellete, UN military chief of staff in Haiti.

– “UN increases estimate to 2.1 million IDPs in camps, from previous 1.3 million”, Al-Jazeera

In the News: Chomsky Post-Earthquake: Aid Should go to Haitian Popular Organizations, not to Contractors or NGOs

Chomsky Post-Earthquake: Aid Should Go to Haitian Popular Orgs, Not Contractors or NGOs
2010 March 5
http://hcvanalysis.wordpress.com/2010/03/05/chomsky-post-earthquake-aid-…

by Keane Bhatt

Noam Chomsky (photo by Duncan Rawlinson)For decades, Noam Chomsky has been an analyst and activist working in support of the Haitian people. In addition to his revolutionary linguistics career at MIT, he has written, lectured and protested against injustice for 40 years. He is co-author, along with Paul Farmer and Amy Goodman of Getting Haiti Right This Time: The U.S. and the Coup. His analysis “The Tragedy of Haiti” from his 1993 book Year 501: The Conquest Continues is available for free online. This interview was conducted in late February 2010 by phone and email. The interviewer thanks Peter Hallward for his kind assistance. This was first published in ¡Reclama! magazine.

Keane Bhatt: Recently you signed a letter to the Guardian protesting the militarization of emergency relief. It criticized a prioritization of security and military control to the detriment of rescue and relief.

Noam Chomsky: I think there was an overemphasis in the early stage on militarization rather than directly providing relief. I don’t think it has any long-term significance… the United States has comparative advantage in military force. It tends to react to anything at first with military force, that’s what it’s good at. And I think they overdid it. There was more military force than was necessary; some of the doctors that were in Haiti, including those from Partners in Health who have been there for a long time, felt that there was an element of racism in believing that Haitians were going to riot and they had to be controlled and so on, but there was very little indication of that; it was very calm and quiet. The emphasis on militarization did probably delay somewhat the provision of relief. I went along with the general thrust of the petition that there was too much militarization.
Continue reading In the News: Chomsky Post-Earthquake: Aid Should go to Haitian Popular Organizations, not to Contractors or NGOs