Barry Healy
UN troops in Haiti are actively terrorising civilians, a coalition of human rights activists said in Washington on November 15, as they filed two legal petitions with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).
The petitions seek legal redress from the US and Brazilian governments for the wave of recent massacres and human rights violations in Haiti. Both countries are members of the Organization of American States (OAS) and have obligations to uphold minimum standards of human rights in their dealings with other OAS members, such as Haiti.
Since the occupation of Haiti following the February 29, 2004 coup that ousted democratically elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, suspected sympathisers with his political party Fanmi Lavalas have been targeted. There have been extrajudicial killings, incarceration without charges, torture, and large-scale police raids.
Such extreme human-rights violations have been carried out primarily by the Haitian National Police (PNH). However, the PNH would not be able to conduct such atrocities without the financial backing of the US government, in spite of its own arms embargo against Haiti, and the assistance or acquiescence of Brazilian-led UN peace-keeping forces.
The human-rights activist coalition said that Brazil's leadership role in the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) does not supersede its responsibilities under the American Convention of Human Rights, a human-rights pledge Brazil signed as part of its membership in the OAS.
Since Brazil took leadership of the UN peacekeeping forces, MINUSTAH has participated in raids on low-income neighborhoods in Port-au-Prince, the traditional base of support for Fanmi Lavalas and Aristide. While these missions are reportedly designed to quell gang violence in "slum" neighbourhoods, video and eyewitness documentation shows indiscriminate targeting of civilians, including children and the disabled.
An example of this presented in the petitions involves a July 6, 2005, MINUSTAH raid on Cite Soleil, wherein more than 300 heavily armed troops stormed the neighborhood before dawn, killing at least 63 people and injuring at least 30 more.
"MINUSTAH's role is to protect Haitian civilians", said Kasey Corbit, an attorney with the National Lawyer's Guild who helped draft the petitions. "Instead, the troops are actively participating in campaigns of terror on the Haitian people or turning a blind eye to atrocities committed by the PNH in conjunction with members of the former military. This kind of impunity cannot be allowed to continue, which is why we are seeking intervention by the IACHR."
From Green Left Weekly, December 7, 2005.
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