Tag: uruguayan rape case

Mujica Orders Uruguayan Peacekeeping Troops to Withdraw from Haiti

Originally posted at America’s Quarterly Blog.

José MujicaUruguayan President José Mujica announced at the Council of Ministers on Monday his decision to withdraw Uruguayan troops from the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH). The Mission was installed by the UN Security Council in 2004 following the coup d’état against former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and was reinforced in early 2010 when a devastating earthquake resulted in more than 220,000 deaths, according to government figures.

The UN has encouraged a progressive reduction of MINUSTAH’s troops as the peacekeeping mission’s mandate is coming to an end in June 2014. The latest Security Council resolution established that troops must be reduced to 5,021 soldiers and 2,601 police agents—down from the 8,690 officials who are currently on the island.

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Al Jazeera on MINUSTAH

I was looking around on YouTube for some new videos to highlight on THAC’s new WordPress blog, and I stumbled upon this video by Al Jazeera about MINUSTAH:

I confess that I’m usually fond of Al Jazeera’s coverage. In the days after the earthquake, they were one of the few news agencies to really hone in on the relationship between the last decade of destabilization and Haiti’s lack of readiness or capacity to respond to the disaster. But this video left me feeling somewhat dissatisfied.

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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

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