[News] Bel Air, Haiti: Betrayed by the UN

[Anti-Imperialist News]

BEL AIR: BETRAYED BY THE UN

by Leslie Bagg and Aaron Lakoff

January 6, 2006 - Port au Prince, Haiti

Our second day in Haiti brought us to the slum of Bel Air, an area 
extremely different than other areas of Port au Prince. Not far from 
the glistening Palais Nationale,
Bel Air is a poor neighborhood which has been hit hard since the 
February 2004 coup.

It's own residents describe a campaign of political .cleansing" 
happening here.

Bel Air has been the site of several massacres. On June 4 2005, 
CIVPOL (UN .Civilian. Police . now known as UNPOL) forces killed 14 
people. On February 25 2005 14 people were killed by police as 
Brazilian UN soldiers looked on. Our brief visit today gave us a good 
idea of the impact that this cleansing has on people's daily lives.

UN Brazilian MINUSTA (Mission Nations Unies de Stabilization en 
Haiti) forces are omnipresent here, sitting at checkpoints behind 
roadblocks on the street and patrolling around. Directly adjacent to 
one of the checkpoints sits one of the taller buildings of the area - 
a building which has been occupied by MINUSTAH. Military camouflage
netting is draped from the windows, and soldiers peer down at the street.

As we walk by and snap photos, one soldier comes running out of a 
building. He stops us and demands to see our press passes. American 
independent journalist Kevin Pina explains that this is the first 
time they have done this. Their efforts to control the press seem to 
have gone up a notch. As the soldiers write down our names it becomes 
clear that they don't want journalists roaming freely here. They 
invite us on a press tour in Fort National, another area of Port au 
Prince. Journalists who go on these tours are escorted around by 
armed guards, speak to the people the UN want them to speak to and 
see what they want them to see. We decline.

Perhaps the MINUSTA have good reason to be nervous for the world to 
see what they have been doing in places like Bel Air. Later in our 
visit, we have a chance to meet with Robert Montinard, the 
coordinator of a group called Zakat Enfant. He explains to us that 
his group has been a bridge between the UN and the community.
Unfortunately it is a bridge that is quickly burning.

After a meeting between community leaders and UN officials to discuss 
human rights abuses in the community, Zakat Enfant signed a contract 
with the UN to help them implement their program - DDR: Disarmament, 
Demobilization, and Reinsertion. The deal was that youth in the 
neighborhood would give up their arms, and in return they would not 
be arrested or harassed (unless they do something else wrong) and the 
UN would provide badly needed social programs. Bel Air is a 
neighborhood where many children can go up to 3 days without food and 
do not have a chance to go to school or have access to health care. 
It sounds nice, except there's one problem . the UN isn't holding up 
their part of the deal.

Since the beginning of the program, dozens of people have given up 
their guns, but all they've gotten in return is a pass card with 
their picture on it, part of the UN's program of social control. 
Eloi, for example, is a local kid we met who traded in his gun under 
DDR. In return, all he got was his plastic UN photo id which will 
theoretically allow him to get through the UN checkpoints unbothered.

2 people who returned their arms have already been arrested and the 
promised social programs have yet to appear. As Robert says, 
"Christmas passed without even one candy for the kids".

Now Robert is between a rock and a hard place. On the one side UN 
officials are pushing him to continue with the program, on the other 
side, the increasingly frustrated community sees Robert and Zakat 
Enfant as traitors and are taking out their anger on them. Robert 
tells us he cannot walk around freely in his own community anymore. 
And what of his group, Zakat Enfant? The organization was supposed to 
help kids traumatized by war, and give them workshops in 
non-violence, but they have been sold-out by the UN and rendered useless.

Others are very clear about who's to blame for Haiti's current 
troubles. Samba Boukman, the local spokesperson for LAVALAS, is frank 
with us. He blames the US, France, and Canada for the crisis in 
Haiti. He wonders why Canada is working against the Haitian people, 
but he has his theory - Canadian companies are doing business with
the elite "civil society" group 184. It would seem that democracy in 
Haiti is not in their best interests. Canada is lending its complete 
support to MINUSTA, and MINUSTA has turned Bel Air into a veritable 
occupied zone. As Robert had explained before, "If we're in prison, 
if we're poor, if we're dying, it's France, USA and Canada. It's not
the military's fault. They know nothing. They're just there following 
orders. It's the diplomats, the ambassadors, the politicians who are 
doing this".

We have arrived in Haiti in a chaotic and uncertain time. We were 
expecting to be here days before the presidential elections, 
scheduled for January 8th, but now postponed indefinitely for the 
fourth time. The elections are laughable, especially in the way they 
are being framed by the authorities. Today, the UN security council
called an urgent session to debate the continuing postponements of 
Haiti's elections. The Conseil Electoral Provisoire (CEP), funded by 
USAID and CIDA, have put the blame on the UN and OAS, who have been 
quick to shift it back to them. All sides deny their complicity in 
this royal failure.

As the big shots play hot potato, the reaction on the streets is 
quite different. No one is surprised, although tensions are high. 
Haitians know quite well that they are being asked to participate in 
"selections" rather than elections. Samba Boukman says he is 
registered to vote anyway. He explains the Lavalas position is that 
true elections can not proceed unless the thousands of political 
prisoners being held in Haiti are released, the repression of people 
in poor neighborhoods comes to an end, disarmament is complete and 
political exiles are allowed to return to the country. All of these 
issues are completely lacking from the Canadian discourse. In fact, 
Paul Martin has denied there are any political prisoners in Haiti, 
and Canada just wants to push forth with any elections, come hell or 
high water. Although Boukman is not optimistic that his demands will 
be met, he sees elections as the only way the people can move forward 
peacefully.

As we leave Bel Air, we see graffiti on the side of a building that 
translates roughly as "expensive life + social exclusion = civil 
war". As Robert Montinard explains, the violence that has plagued Bel 
Air is violence that is borne of misery and poverty. It's a cycle 
that won't be broken by treachery and unkept promises from the UN, 
the US, France and Canada.


(Leslie Bagg and Aaron Lakoff are two activists and independent 
journalists from Montreal. They will be filing written and audio 
reports from Haiti throughout the month of January, specifically 
focusing on the role of Canada in the country's current crisis. They 
can be reached at montrealtohaiti at resist.ca)

The Freedom Archives
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