The Washington Post
A new army is not what Haiti needs
By Editorial, Sunday, October 16, 6:29 PM
HAITI’S CATALOGUE of critical needs seems endless, all the more so since the crippling earthquake in January last year. But one item nowhere near the top of Haiti’s list of priorities, nor even remotely advisable, is reconstituting a national army. Unfortunately, President Michel Martelly wants to do just that.
Haiti’s army was disbanded in 1995 by President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and with good reason. Four years earlier, Mr. Aristide was just the latest of many Haitian leaders whose tenures were violently cut short by army officers or enlisted men; he abolished the army after being restored to power by the United States.
Whatever Mr. Aristide’s other merits or flaws, getting rid of the army counts as a signal achievement. For years, the army, in the absence of real external threats, had been primarily an instrument of repression and blood-curdling human rights abuses.
Mr. Martelly, a political novice who took office this year, has argued that a new Haitian army would bear no resemblance to the bad old one. He says a reconstituted force would be used mainly to respond to natural disasters and emergencies or to interdict contraband and drug transshipments.
It would be nice to believe that; it would also be naive. Mr. Martelly has extensive ties with right-wing groups, including allies of former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier, whose regime carried out atrocious abuses. With little support in parliament or from any organized political party, he finds himself perched perilously atop a political system that he has been unable to bend to his will. The temptation must be strong to follow the example of so many former Haitian leaders who found it convenient to fashion a band of loyalists into an armed force beholden to the president and hostile to his rivals — a far cry from what Haiti needs.
The start-up costs of establishing an army are estimated at $95 million — a huge sum in a country whose annual budget barely exceeds $1 billion. It’s not clear where the funds would come from; under no circumstances should the United States or other donor countries contribute.
That money could be put to much better use: fighting a cholera epidemic that has killed or sickened hundreds of thousands; removing rubble that still clogs entire neighborhoods; resettling thousands who remain without permanent homes; and rebuilding government ministries in the capital, Port-au-Prince.
Haiti does have a crime problem; its 8,400-man police force is inadequate in a country of 9 million. It makes more sense for Mr. Martelly to beef up and professionalize the police than to revive an institution so closely identified with the violence, terror and repression that have plagued Haiti for years.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Monday, October 10, 2011
Haiti's Stalled Recovery
(Photo by John Carroll)
Editorial, Toronto Star, October 7, 2011
http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/article/1066878
“As school goes, so goes the nation.”
That’s how Josué Mérilien, a Haitian teacher and union leader, sees it. And the schools aren’t going well. Teachers make as little as $100 a month, fees are high, and there’s a “terrible problem” of kids showing up faint with hunger.
“What we have is an absurd imitation of a school that isn’t conducive to thinking,” he recently told Le Nouvelliste newspaper.
It’s a depressing sign of the times nearly two years after the earthquake that shattered Haiti, leaving 220,000 of its 10 million people dead and cities in ruins. Today, 600,000 still live in sketchy, cholera-threatened camps, their lives on hold. Like Haiti’s promised rebirth.
After presiding over a half-year of political wrangling, Haitian President Michel Martelly finally obtained parliament’s approval this past week for a prime minister. Garry Conille will preside over a cabinet with the daunting task of rebuilding the country. “My greatest fear is that if we don’t buy time, this country will explode in a few weeks, a few months,” Conille told the Miami Herald. Sadly, others don’t seem to share that sense of urgency.
Although Canada is a key donor, pledging $1 billion in help, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird did not mention Haiti’s needs in his Sept. 26 speech to the United Nations General Assembly. That’s how little attention Haiti is getting these days. The world is distracted by the Arab Spring, famine in Africa and Europe’s economic woes.
Of the $5 billion promised for reconstruction, Haiti has seen just $2 billion so far. Of that, less than $300 million has gone through the Haitian government, sapping its credibility. And incredibly, United Nations relief chief Valerie Amos says Haiti has yet to see $160 million of the $380 million in urgent humanitarian relief that was promised. The camps are short on food, drinking water and toilets.
As Martelly pointed out in his own UN address, the world’s grand promises are fast becoming “dead letters.” That neglect, coupled with the regime’s precariousness, could prove explosive.
Martelly won power in a deeply flawed presidential election earlier this year. Chillingly, his supporters welcomed the return of past dictator Jean-Claude (Baby Doc) Duvalier with open arms. And Martelly has been criticized for wanting to build up the army (as the Duvalier family had) rather than the police.
None of this is reassuring. But Haitians have made their choices, and the world must honour its promises to help them rebuild. That means delivering the remaining $3 billion in help promised for this year, channelling more of it through Haiti’s government to strengthen its credibility and capacity, and keeping a sufficiently robust UN peacekeeping force in place until the growing police service can take over.
It also means making sure kids don’t faint from hunger in school.
Thursday, October 06, 2011
Wednesday, October 05, 2011
Monday, October 03, 2011
An Old Story on Baby Doc
Photo by John Carroll
Monday, Feb. 10, 1986
Haiti Bad Times for Baby Doc
By John Moody.;Dean Brelis/Port-au-Prince and Bernard Diederich/Miami
Like a hurricane born in the Caribbean and gathering momentum as it pushes northward, word spread last week that Jean-Claude Duvalier, 34, Haiti's President-for-Life, had fled his country. The reports said that Duvalier, who is known as "Baby Doc," and members of his family had gone into exile rather than face vengeance at the hands of a burgeoning populist movement against him. On Friday, in response to growing unrest throughout Haiti, Duvalier imposed a state of siege. Hours later White House Spokesman Larry Speakes made the dramatic announcement to reporters traveling with President Reagan aboard Air Force One that the Haitian government had fallen and Duvalier had left Haiti.
Yet within hours, to the vast embarrassment of the Reagan Administration, the pudgy dictator appeared in the capital, Port-au-Prince, like a spirit conjured up by practitioners of voodoo, Haiti's folk religion. Baby Doc cruised through the streets in a BMW, surrounded by a bevy of armed outriders. In a radio broadcast to the country, he used an old Creole saying to brag, "I am here, strong and firm as a monkey's tail."
Haiti's crisis last week centered on a family that has used terror and corruption for 28 years to grow wealthy by imposing its will on the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. For the first time in Baby Doc's reign, spontaneous demonstrations throughout the country brought misery-ridden Haiti close to open revolt. Rioters controlled many parts of the countryside, and the government was firmly in control of only the capital.
The demonstrations against Jean-Claude Duvalier stood in stark contrast to the events of Jan. 22, 1971, when then President-for-Life Francois ("Papa Doc") Duvalier decreed that his 19-year-old son, quickly nicknamed Baby Doc, would succeed him. The elder Duvalier died three months later, leaving a legacy of brutality and fear on which he had built a dictatorship after his election in 1957.
At first it appeared that Jean-Claude might be a more enlightened despot. He promised an end to repression and an economic revolution. But he actually made few real improvements. True, political opponents were no longer executed as often as they had been under Papa Doc, but the son imitated the father in using the army and the secret police, the dreaded Tonton Macoute (a term for bogeyman in Haiti's Creole dialect) to brutalize the population.
The second-generation Duvalier flaunted an opulent life-style in the midst of incredible poverty. The President, who is fond of yachts and sports cars, did not forgo either pleasure when a critical shortage of foreign currency last year left the country almost without fuel. His most costly indulgence may have been his 1980 marriage to Michele Bennett, 34, a Haitian divorcee who once worked in New York City as a secretary. Their wedding was Haiti's social event of the decade. The price tag: $3 million. Fireworks alone cost $100,000.
Michele Duvalier at first endeared herself to the population by distributing clothes and food to the needy and opening several medical clinics, but her avarice quickly outpaced her husband's. Today she is one of the world's richest women. On shopping sprees to the U.S. and Europe, she has acquired an array of furs hardly appropriate to Haiti's steamy climate. Late last year, in the middle of an economic crisis, she flew to Paris to buy designer clothes, jewelry and works of art.
Government officials fear the First Lady because her power rivals, or perhaps exceeds, her husband's. While Jean-Claude sometimes dozes through Cabinet meetings, his wife scolds ministers. The birth of her son, Francois Nicolas, in 1983 provided an heir apparent to the Duvalier fiefdom.
At the same time that the Duvaliers have been salting away millions of dollars in foreign banks and squandering millions more, the vast majority of Haitians live in deep poverty. Eight out of ten people are illiterate. Most earn less than $150 a year, although the official per capita figure is about $280. The tropical farmland produces coffee and mangoes for export, but the country is plagued by widespread hunger. Its once thriving hardwood forests have been chopped down for fuel.
Given that yawning gap between haves and have-nots, political ferment was inevitable. The U.S., which provided $54 million in aid to Haiti in 1985, warned Duvalier that future payments would be jeopardized unless he improved the country's human rights record.
The regime's reply was a nationwide referendum last July 22. Truckloads of illiterate Haitians were driven from one polling place to another to vote oui a dozen times or more. The official results: 99.98% reaffirmed Baby Doc as President-for-Life.
Young opponents of the regime, outraged by the sham referendum, started organizing nonviolent protests that tapped a wellspring of discontent. When three students were killed on Nov. 28 during an antigovernment protest in Gonaives, demonstrations followed in a dozen cities and towns. Last month an army captain and two members of the Tonton Macoute were charged with the murders.
The government in recent months has tried to intimidate the Roman Catholic Church, which has become a center of dissent. Some 80% of Haitians are nominally Catholic, and the clergy has spoken out more since the 1983 visit of Pope John Paul II, who criticized the Duvalier regime and assured the downtrodden population "I am with you." One day after the July referendum, a 78-year-old Belgian-born priest was beaten to death by thugs. Three other priests, including the director of the Catholic-run radio station Radio Soleil, were expelled from the country in July.
Last week's unrest began in church. Sunday's evening Mass at the old Cathedral of Cap Haitien had just concluded when a lone voice in the congregation bellowed out, "Abas (Down with) Duvalier!" With startling vigor, the cry was taken up by other worshipers, and the chanting demand for Duvalier's ouster quickly became the catalyst for a short-lived demonstration on the steps of the church.
Within minutes, army troops from a nearby barracks descended on the crowd. The soldiers fired rifles into the air, rained down blows with hardwood clubs, and barged into the cathedral in search of the instigators. As word of the brutal military response spread, thousands of demonstrators roamed through the historic town. The following day the Tonton Macoute showed it had learned nothing from the November killing of the Gonaives students. At a demonstration by several thousand people outside the Cap Haitien Cathedral, militiamen fired wildly into the crowd, killing three people and wounding 30.
On Wednesday the Cap Haitien warehouse of CARE, the U.S.-based relief organization, was stormed and looted by slum dwellers. They trampled three people to death, then fought over canisters of cooking oil and 100-lb. sacks of grain.
Almost hour by hour, the swells of revolt kept growing. Nearly half the 60,000 inhabitants of Cap Haitien marched peacefully through the streets Wednesday afternoon, calling on the army to stage a coup d'etat and take power. There were also appeals for a general strike to begin Feb. 12. Such a sustained work stoppage would probably cripple the moribund Haitian economy, which gets much of its foreign currency from tourism.
By Thursday the chant "Down with Duvalier!" was echoing across the country. Said one resident of Cap Haitien: "No one is afraid anymore. Duvalier must go." In Gonaives, thousands of protesters blocked the streets with barricades and burning tires. When the local army headquarters was overrun by anti-Duvalier marchers, agents of the Tonton Macoute tried to open fire, but they were disarmed by an army tactical battalion. Terrified, the agents ripped off their trademark blue denim uniforms and tried to escape the mob's wrath. More crowds demanded that the military overthrow the dictatorship, and rumors started that Baby Doc, his wife and an entourage of 100 had already fled to France.
Even after Duvalier had declared a 30-day state of siege and the armed forces put on a heavy display of power, the riots continued. At an early Mass at the St. Jean Bosco church in a poor district of the capital, a soldier shot and wounded the priest for no apparent reason. An enraged congregation spilled into the street and set off more protests. In other parts of town, militiamen fired into the crowds, while rioters smashed car and store windows, looted shops, and constructed roadblocks from tires and burning garbage. By week's end an estimated 26 people had been killed. Although none of the 14,000 U.S. citizens in Haiti were reported injured, the State Department advised Americans not to travel there.
On Saturday, the capital was tense but calm. There were reports of demonstrations in Cap Haitien, the second largest city, and the Dominican Republic, which lies east of Haiti on the island of Hispaniola, was nervously monitoring the volatile situation. While Duvalier was still in Haiti, there were serious questions about whether the President-for-Life would be President for long.
The protests that lured thousands of Haitians into the streets last week to denounce the government probably represent a point of no return for the country. Even if Duvalier's reign has not yet ended and he somehow manages to cling to power for a while, his viselike grip on Haiti has been irrevocably shattered.
Sunday, October 02, 2011
Roger Annis
Photo by John Carroll
Letter to the editor, Ottawa Citizen:
Foreign powers are the principal beneficiaries of impunity for human rights crimes in Haiti
Vancouver BC
October 2, 2011
To: Mr. Gerry Nott, Publisher and Editor in Chief, Ottawa Citizen
Mr. Peter Robb, Deputy Editor, News, Ottawa Citizen
Dear Mr. Nott, Mr. Robb,
The call by Amnesty International Canada's Alex Neve and co-author Andrew Thompson for prosecution of former Haitian tyrant Jean-Claude Duvalier in your edition of September 26 (reproduced below) is timely and welcome. We would like to add here a few critical thoughts and observations on the Canadian government’s role and responsibilities in Haiti that will help to set a fuller context.
Mr. Neve and Mr. Thompson write that Canada should press the current president Michel Martelly to "get down to the business of justice" by ending the standoff between himself and the country’s other elected institutions and proceeding with a prosecution of Mr. Duvalier. A little explanation is in order.
Martelly's constitutional role is to facilitate the formation of a government by nominating a prime minister. The nominee must be acceptable to Haiti's elected House of Representatives (Chambre des députés) and Senate, so a degree of tact and compromise on the part of the president is required. It is the successful nominee for prime minister who then forms a government.
The current standoff results from Martelly’s wish to have a fellow, right-wing ideologue accepted as prime minister. Thankfully, the House and Senate have refused to rubber stamp his first two nominations—businessman Daniel Gerard Rouzier and disgraced former chief cop of Haiti under the illegal coup d’etat regime of 2004-06, Bernard Gousse.[1]
Neve and Thompson write that Canada should pressure Martelly to get on with the nomination process. They are correct in so urging. But words of caution are called for.
Canada, the U.S. and Europe are part of the problem here because they bankrolled the exclusionary election process that brought Martelly to power six months ago. It is not surprising that Martelly would show no interest in the Duvalier prosecution because he is an associate of those with close ties to the former tyrant’s regime. He has surrounded himself with advisers who were ministers or other functionaries in and around the regime. Martelly was a vigorous supporter of the overthrow of elected government in 2004.[2]
What’s more, Canada has already refused an explicit call to assist the Haitian judicial system to prosecute Duvalier. It came in the form of a presentation to the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development of the Canadian Parliament in early March 2011 by René Magloire, special advisor on legal issues to then-President René Préval.[3]
It now appears that the U.S., at least, is smarting under the international condemnation of the dysfunction of the Martelly presidency that is has so vigorously supported. Earlier this month, it stepped in to impose the nomination for prime minister of a Haitian-born but foreign-residing assistant to Bill Clinton named Garry Conille.[4] The House has accepted the new nominee in a unanimous vote; a vote in the Senate is still pending.
In arguing that Canada should step in and push Martelly in a certain political direction, Neve and Thompson pen an unfortunate and prejudicial choice of words. They write, “For too long, including during the terrifying Duvalier years, Haiti has suffered from a culture of impunity.”
Of which “Haiti” are they writing? Yes, the “Haiti” of the country’s economic elite has long enjoyed impunity in imposing extreme poverty and gross violations of human rights on their countrymen and countrywomen. Its ruthless rule has long enjoyed the backing or the acquiescence of the so-called democracies of the hemisphere and Europe.
The “Haiti” of the country’s poor majority, on the other hand, has always been deeply committed to democracy, the rule of law and accountability of political leaders. This Haiti rose up in 1986 in its millions to oust the Duvalier tyranny. Ever since, it has fought against great odds to move the country forward along a path of democracy, social justice and respect for human dignity.
Alas, that valiant struggle has been frustrated and betrayed every step of the way by the big countries that hypocritically claim to stand for human rights. In 2004, Canada, the U.S. and Europe joined in the overthrow of Haiti’s then elected and socially progressive government.
The overriding problem with human rights impunity in Haiti resides not within Haiti’s borders but within those countries that sponsor and organize coups, aid embargos and all kinds of other destructive intervention in Haiti’s internal affairs.
In Canada, members of Parliament and the Senate, all the major media outlets and an important part of the country’s international development community turn a blind eye to so much of what has gone wrong in Haiti. So who are the real perpetrators and beneficiaries of impunity in Haiti?
It is good that Amnesty International Canada is speaking out for democracy and human rights in Haiti. We hope to see more in the coming months. We urge it to direct more of its concerns towards ending the foreign intervention that is the fundamental reason for Haiti’s poverty and social underdevelopment. We urge it to join with us in seeing vocal and active advocates for social justice for Haiti among members of the Canadian Parliament and Senate.
Haiti is being run into the ground by an international intervention regime enjoying virtual impunity, for example in the case of the catastrophic introduction of cholera into the country by the Nepalese contingent of MINUSTAH. It now faces a new, grave threat in the form of a plan by Michel Martelly, apparently with the backing of the United States (and Canada?),[5] to revive a Haitian armed forces that was dissolved in 1995 by then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to the immense satisfaction of most Haitian people. The country needs all the genuine international assistance it can get.
Sincerely,
Roger Annis
Canada Haiti Action Network
778 858 5179
Friday, September 30, 2011
Empathy
Photo by John Carroll
New York Times
David Brooks
September 30, 2011
"Nobody is against empathy. Nonetheless, it’s insufficient. These days empathy has become a shortcut. It has become a way to experience delicious moral emotions without confronting the weaknesses in our nature that prevent us from actually acting upon them. It has become a way to experience the illusion of moral progress without having to do the nasty work of making moral judgments. In a culture that is inarticulate about moral categories and touchy about giving offense, teaching empathy is a safe way for schools and other institutions to seem virtuous without risking controversy or hurting anybody’s feelings."
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
President Martelly wants a Haitian Army
(Photo by John Carroll)
Why would Haiti really need an army?
I have no idea.
Isn't my cholera patient slumped against the tree docile enough? He doesn't appear too threatening, does he?
Please read this article from the Miami Herald.
President Martelly spoke to an almost empty room at the UN.
Too bad for Haiti.
Poverty in Peoria
Photo by John Carroll
From the Peoria Journal Star, September 2011--
About 19,000 Peorians, or 18 percent of the city's population, live below the poverty line, according to statistics released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau.
That includes about 11,000 blacks, or 38 percent of the city's black population, and nearly 1,500 Latinos, or about 25 percent.
Almost 24 percent of all children in the city live in poverty.
Here are some other statistics for the city:
- 27 percent of families received some type of public assistance last year.
- 21 percent of families with children are in poverty.
- 44 percent of unmarried women who live alone with children fall under the poverty line.
While the statistics are alarming, they also come with a high margin of error because of the sample size and the way the Census Bureau conducted its survey last year. However, the numbers still fall in line with national averages.
"Even with the margin of error, Peoria still has a high number of people who live in poverty. This year's data looks to be that one in five people in Peoria are living in poverty," said Amy Rynell, the director of Heartland Alliance's Social IMPACT Research Center, a private Chicago-based think tank that studies social issues. "Not only is there is a large number of people living in poverty but there is a growing number of people who are living at half poverty rate."
Meg Newell, a spokeswoman for the South Side Mission, sees it every day.
"The human side, for us, that people who never thought that they would be in that position are now in that position. People who five years ago were supporting our food pantry, who were buying extra at the grocery store to donate, are now our customers," Newell said.
She points to the 10 percent increase in food baskets distributed by the mission this year. In 2011 so far, the mission has passed out 4,918 baskets, compared to the 4,433 baskets during the same time period in 2010.
The numbers come from the annual American Community Survey, which is the Census Bureau's effort to keep track of yearly trends by surveying only about 2 percent of the population and then extrapolating estimates from there.
As such, the bureau only provides detailed information for cities and counties with populations of more than 65,000, meaning areas like Woodford County, East Peoria or Pekin would not have any detailed information.
The numbers released Thursday also state the obvious: Those who have less education and poor work history tend to fall below the poverty line.
Ten Reasons Why MINUSTAH Should Leave Haiti
Photo by John Carroll
Port-au-Prince, Haiti
September, 2011
Several weeks ago I posted here why MINUSTAH should STAY in Haiti.
I think MINUSTAH should stay in Haiti to dig wells and sanitize the water. Maybe that would save a few lives during the next spike in cholera.
And MINUSTAH shouldn't shoot civilians. That makes sense doesn't it?
This is an article regarding my interview in 2007 of a lady in Cite Soleil who told me her three daughters were shot by a MINUSTAH helicopter hovering above her shack. I examined all three daughters, and all had bullet wounds. And I saw the holes in the corrugated metal roof above me. MINUSTAH denied shooting down from their helicopter.
The Nation reports 10 reasons here why MINUSTAH should LEAVE Haiti.
Greg Grandin and Keane Bhatt | September 26, 2011
An explosive cell phone video [1] released earlier this month documents the alleged sexual assault of an 18-year-old Haitian man at the hands of five Uruguayan troops belonging to a contingent of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti located in the southern town of Port-Salut. As the story spreads internationally, MINUSTAH—the UN Stabilization Mission is known by its French acronym—has become the target of demonstrations in Port-Salut [2], in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince [3] and in front of the Uruguayan Ministry of Defense in Montevideo [4]. Defense Minister Eleuterio Fernández Huidobro ordered the immediate repatriation of the soldiers shown in the video, who now await further legal action in jail.
Earlier, as unconfirmed reports of misconduct began to multiply, Defense Minister Huidobro stated [5] that “among such a large number of people, there will always be someone who behaves wrongly.” Two weeks after the cell phone video was released, MINUSTAH chief Mariano Fernández argued [6] that “acts of a few should not also tarnish [the image] of thousands of military, police, and civilian personal serving MINUSTAH and Haiti impeccably since 2004.”
However, this is not a case of a few bad apples. MINUSTAH has had a consistently disastrous record of malfeasance in its seven-year military presence—much of it the result of institutional design. Although Brazilian Defense Minister Celso Amorim—charged with the largest contingent of UN soldiers in Haiti—recently discussed [7] a gradual reduction in troops, he also admitted that no timetable has been drawn up for their eventual withdrawal.
Here are ten reasons why a timetable for a speedy withdrawal of all UN soldiers from Haiti is necessary:
1. Haiti has not experienced an armed conflict, nor has it been a party to an enforceable peace agreement, the criteria for legitimately stationing UN peacekeeping troops. The UN states in its charter [8] that it shall not “intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state,” unless they present a threat to peace, breach of the peace or act of aggression. MINUSTAH arrived in Haiti using this justification, which has also allowed it to remain without the consent of the Haitian government. It would now be difficult to reasonably invoke this claim, seven years after MINUSTAH’s arrival and seemingly indefinite presence.
2. UN troops are granted broad [9] immunity [9] for crimes committed in Haiti, and are subject to prosecution only in their home countries. Among the different governments participating in MINUSTAH, there are major discrepancies between their domestic laws and their willingness to investigate crimes. Even if prosecutions of peacekeeping troops do take place, it would be difficult to obtain witnesses and dependable evidence from Haiti. Haitians themselves rarely hear about successful punishment abroad, heightening the perception of impunity. As long as this legal structure that fosters a lack of accountability persists, a full withdrawal is the only definite way to prevent future abuse.
3. Just four years ago, over 100 Sri Lankan [10] MINUSTAH troops—more than 10 percent of the entire brigade—were repatriated to their home country due to allegations of sexual misconduct and abuse [11], involving underage girls. The UN’s investigative arm found [12] that “in exchange for sex, the children received small amounts of money, food, and sometimes mobile phones.” Acts of sexual exploitation and abuse were frequent occurrences [13] at “virtually every location where the contingent personnel were deployed.” There is no evidence [14] Sri Lankan troops were ever prosecuted [9]. Recent news reports corroborate fresh allegations that Uruguayan soldiers impregnated [15] local women in Port-Salut, including a 17-year-old girl [16].
4. MINUSTAH is implicated in last year’s suspicious “suicide” of a Haitian teenager named Gérard Jean-Gilles, who was found hanging inside a UN base in Cap Haitien. Haiti Liberté [17] reported that former head of MINUSTAH Edmond Mulet obstructed an investigation carried out by Haitian authorities, invoking immunity to prevent the Haitian judiciary from summonsing a Haitian witness in the case.
5. UN peacekeeping troops from Nepal were responsible [18] for introducing cholera into Haiti in late 2010, most likely by contaminating rivers [19] with improperly treated human waste. Cholera [20] proceeded to kill more than 6,200 [21] and infect 440,000 Haitians in just ten months. New scientific research shows that MINUSTAH’s gross negligence most likely caused the lethal epidemic, but Edmond Mulet still refused to admit the possibility of UN culpability. Despite public appeals [22] by leading cholera and health experts, the United Nations, World Health Organization and Center for Disease Control and Prevention claimed [23] that an investigation into how the disease arrived in Haiti was not necessary, and could be harmful.
MINUSTAH’s denials further enraged Haitians, whose dramatic anti-UN demonstrations led to protesters being shot dead [24] by UN troops. Despite this history, the Uruguayan contingent in Port-Sault is still accused [25] of improperly disposing trash and waste water.
6. The arrival of UN troops to Haiti in 2004 had dubious legitimacy at best, and the banner of a UN coalition is just a less controversial facade for the pursuit of US interests in Haiti. MINUSTAH was created at the behest of the United States, after the Bush administration orchestrated [26] a coup d’état against Haiti’s democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide—a long-held aim [27]. WikiLeaks revealed [28] that in 2008 former US Ambassador to Haiti Janet Sanderson considered MINUSTAH “an indispensable tool in realizing core [US government] policy interests in Haiti,” especially in “the current context of our military commitments elsewhere.” The “regionally-coordinated Latin American commitment to Haiti would not be possible without the UN umbrella,” which “helps other major donors—led by Canada and followed up by the EU, France, Spain, Japan and others—justify their bilateral assistance domestically.” Sanderson concludes: “Without a UN-sanctioned peacekeeping and stabilization force, we would be getting far less help from our hemispheric and European partners in managing Haiti.”
7. MINUSTAH is a highly partisan political force in a sovereign country and actively meddles in Haiti’s domestic affairs. For example, a cable [29] from 2006 demonstrates that Edmond Mulet, then head of MINUSTAH, “urged US legal action against [forcibly exiled president] Aristide to prevent [him] from gaining more traction with the Haitian population and returning to Haiti.”
8. MINUSTAH’s mandate prioritizes security and military issues, contributing little to social and economic development. In 2010, the UN Security Council apportioned a whopping $850 million [30] annual budget for MINUSTAH—nine times what it raised to fight the cholera that MINUSTAH had inadvertently introduced. Similarly, in the wake of the devastating earthquake of February 26, 2010, Reuters reported [31] that MINUSTAH put more emphasis on “handling security and looking for looters” than relief work and humanitarian assistance. Further compounding this problem, MINUSTAH soldiers cannot even communicate with most Haitians, who speak Creole, and are not typically accompanied by translators.
9. MINUSTAH has a record of spectacular failure in achieving its stated goal of providing stability. The distinguished medical journal The Lancet [32] showed that 8,000 people—many of whom were supporters of deposed president Aristide—were murdered or disappeared in Port-au-Prince alone during a time when MINUSTAH was solely responsible for maintaining security. A 2005 Harvard Law School report [33] found that MINUSTAH “effectively provided cover for the police to wage a campaign of terror in Port-au-Prince’s slums.” US priorities—hence, MINUSTAH’s priorities—were clear after the 2004 coup, according to a leaked cable [34] from March 2005. James Foley, the top-ranking US diplomat in Haiti at the time, pushed for MINUSTAH “to take decisive action against the both armed rebels and pro-Aristide gangs, particularly in Port-au-Prince, for all the obvious reasons, but also to protect itself from charges of bias.” Considering that Aristide enjoyed broad support, particularly among the poor (he was elected with over 90 percent [27] of the vote in 2000), Foley’s recommendation had wide-ranging consequences
10. MINUSTAH has generated violence through repeated, indiscriminate use of force in densely populated urban areas, killing dozens of innocent civilians in raids. On July 6, 2005 [35], MINUSTAH troops fired 22,000 rounds of ammunition [36] into the Port-au-Prince slum of Cité Soleil in just seven hours, leading a Doctors Without Borders medic to report [37] that “we treated twenty-seven people for gunshot wounds. Of them, around twenty were women under the age of 18.” A mechanic whose intestines were ripped apart by gunfire claimed that UN troops shot him in the back while he was walking down the main avenue. “Every day the Minustah is shooting people,” he explained. “They shoot in any direction and at any person, even babies, it doesn’t matter.”
Despite such carnage, a State Department cable [38] from June 1, 2006, shows that wealthy Haitian elites pressured the US and UN to continue military sweeps in poor neighborhoods. Timothy Carney, then the top US diplomat in Haiti, acknowledged that “such an operation would inevitably cause unintended civilian casualties given the crowded conditions and flimsy construction of tightly packed housing in Cité Soleil.” But instead of advocating an end to the bloody maneuvers, Carney proposed enlisting “private sector associations” to “quickly assist in the aftermath of such an operation, including providing financial support to families of potential victims.”
MINUSTAH continued its ruthless policy of incursions: half a year later, another raid left at least nine dead [39]. Slum inhabitant Rose Martel remarked, “They came here to terrorize the population; I don’t think they really killed the bandits, unless they consider all of us as bandits.”
No member of the UN has faced criminal penalties for these actions.
Countries such as Brazil, Nepal, Jordan, Uruguay, Sri Lanka, Argentina and Chile are engaged in a deeply resented military occupation. No amount of tinkering or symbolic reductions in size will address the gravity of the indictments against MINUSTAH. The troops should not be in the country in the first place, and have only added to the disasters the Haitian people confront.
The UN needs to end its occupation of Haiti.
Monday, September 26, 2011
Haiti's Cholera Rampage
(Photo by John Carroll)
Halting cholera’s rampage in Haiti
The Washington Post
By Editorial, Published: September 22
THE CHOLERA EPIDEMIC in Haiti, which began 11 months ago and quickly became the worst such outbreak in modern history, has exacted a jaw-dropping human toll. So far it is reported to have killed nearly 6,500 people and sickened almost a half-million — 5 percent of the country’s population. And public health experts believe those official figures badly undercount the number of victims.
Here’s another number to consider: $20 million. That’s about what it would cost to vaccinate every person in Haiti against the disease.
To date, almost no one in Haiti has received the vaccine. Sensibly, public health workers have scrambled to identify and treat cholera victims, saving many thousands of lives in the process. At the same time, the country has struggled, in the wake of last year’s devastating earthquake, to improve access to decent sanitation and clean water, shortages of which provided ideal conditions for cholera to spread.
Cholera vaccines are not a magic bullet and are not available in adequate numbers at the moment. The global stockpile is estimated as sufficient for only 200,000 people. Even if manufacturers ramped up production to full capacity, it would take several years to make enough for everyone in Haiti — and doing so would mean neglecting cholera outbreaks elsewhere in the world.
In addition, the vaccine, although relatively effective, hardly ensures immunity, and it generally lasts just two years, after which a booster dose would be required. Some health workers also worry that administering the vaccine, which involves two doses taken at least a week apart, would be difficult.
Still, there are compelling reasons to add vaccinations to the arsenal of public health weapons that has been deployed against cholera in Haiti. After a severe spike in infections during this summer’s rainy season, transmission of the disease has tapered off somewhat, but cholera is still killing Haitians at a rate of at least 10 a day and sickening tens of thousands more each month. Experts believe that cholera, which had never been documented in Haiti, is now endemic there; tragically, it is likely to be a fact of Haitian life for years.
The country’s emphasis must remain on infrastructure and public education, so that more Haitians have access to clean water and understand the critical importance of basic sanitation and cleanliness. There can be no letup in the efforts that have been made to treat cholera victims in slums and rural areas with oral rehydration salts and other interventions that are highly effective in saving lives.
But those efforts should be supplemented with an ambitious vaccination program starting as soon as practicable. A recent study showed that if only 5 percent of the population in the most vulnerable areas were vaccinated, it would cut the number of cholera cases by 11 percent, and if 30 percent of Haitians got the vaccine, it would reduce infections by 55 percent and save 3,320 lives. Surely that would be a worthwhile return on a very modest investment.
© The Washington Post Company
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Monday, September 12, 2011
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Tuberculosis
(Photo by John Carroll, September 2011)
See this from Crofs Blog:
Fuelled by the HIV pandemic and the spread of drug-resistant strains, tuberculosis (TB) has re-emerged as a major threat to global health. TB is a curable disease that continues to affect millions of people globally each year, and is a leading cause of death in HIV positive people.
According to the 2009 WHO Report on Global TB Control, there were 9.4 million new TB cases in 2008, out of which 1.4 million (14%) were HIV positive (78% of them were in Africa and 13% in Southeast Asia). Mortality from TB was 1.7 million, and about 0.5 million of these deaths were in People Living with HIV (PLHIV), who are at a much increased risk of contracting TB.
In high burden HIV settings (like the sub Saharan region) more than 70% of TB patients are living with HIV. So, universal access to HIV care cannot be achieved without addressing TB.
To make matters worse, over the last decade, 5 million people developed drug-resistant TB, but less than 1% had access to appropriate treatment, and 1.5 million died. Only 7% of the estimated 440,000 MDR-TB cases in 2008 were reported to the World Health Organization (WHO), and only about 1% of the patients were enrolled under programs to provide internationally quality assured treatment. India is home to 2.5 million people living with HIV and bears one fourth of the estimated global burden of MDR-TB.
Infection with HIV further complicates management of MDR TB, and data from many settings suggest that mortality from MDR TB in HIV infected patients is very high. So MDR TB/HIV is the Perfect Storm and we cannot wait any more to let it pass.
In resource limited settings, which carry most of the burden of MDR TB and co infection with HIV, there is insufficient access to quality assured diagnostic capacity, which results in delays of diagnosis and probably in deaths, especially among the PLHIV.
HIV infected patients often have sputum negative and extra pulmonary TB which further complicates diagnosis. Limited quality assured drug access, drug-drug interactions, side effects, pill burden, and long treatment duration add to the problem of treatment adherence.
These issues were raised at the recently concluded 10th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (10th ICAAP). One of the meetings, organized by Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF), focused on the challenges in scaling up Diagnosis and Treatment of Drug Resistant TB in PLHIV. Results of a case study from MSF HIV project in Mumbai, India, treating MDRTB/HIV co-infections were also shared.
This study is among the first cohorts of HIV/MDR-TB co-infected patients in India. It was a highly resistant cohort with previous exposure to second line TB drugs, mainly in the private health sector. To date, a cohort of 71 HIV infected patients have been diagnosed with MDR TB, 56 cases were confirmed and 15 were suspected. 59 patients were started on treatment. One of these with susceptible TB was excluded from analysis.
Out of the 12 who did not begin treatment, 7 died. Final outcomes (in the 2007 to 2011 cohorts, n=58) were as follows:--13 (22%) were successfully treated, 13 (22%) died, 7 (12%) defaulted, 2 (3%) failed treatment and 23 (40%) are alive in treatment. Thus, overall 20 of the 71 patients died, including the 7 who were not initiated on treatment. All the patients demonstrated significant immunological improvement (increased CD4 counts).
The Truth Hurts
(Photo by John Carroll, September 2011)
In 2007, residents of Cite Soleil told me that UN helicopters were shooting down on them in late December, 2006.
MINUSTAH denied this. Would the UN lie about this?
See this article from Ansel Herz.
Tuesday, September 06, 2011
Haiti's Needless Cholera Deaths
(Photo by John Carroll--September 6, 2011--"MINUSTAH and cholera are twins" on the billboard)
"Haiti’s Needless Cholera Deaths"
Published: September 6, 2011
The New York Times
Editorial
A cholera outbreak has killed more than 6,000 people in Haiti since October and is far from under control. More than 420,000 people have been sickened since the disease emerged in a rural area north of Port-au-Prince, apparently after sewage from an encampment of United Nations peacekeepers contaminated the Artibonite River.
Cholera is preventable and easily treated, but containment has been stymied by the chronic deficiency — or utter absence — of clean water and sanitation systems in Haiti, particularly in the countryside, where cholera hit first and hardest. The cholera mortality rate in Haiti’s vulnerable Southeast region was 5.3 percent in July. Access to proper treatment could keep that rate below 1 percent.
The United Nations’s Pan-American Health Organization, the United States and the rest of the international community should be working with the Haitian Health Ministry to wage a more aggressive and effective effort, which should include not only clean water and sanitation systems but more antibiotics and cholera vaccinations. A cheap, effective cholera vaccine is available, but there are currently fewer than 400,000 doses worldwide. Ramping up manufacturing to make more vaccine could be readily done and would have global benefits.
Cholera victims are among the many casualties of the unfinished rebuilding of Haiti, still choked by rubble and political paralysis. Haiti’s new president, Michel Martelly, a political novice, has been unable to form a government. Donations have lagged, construction plans are stuck on drawing boards and hundreds of thousands are in displaced-persons camps, hot spots of disease and suffering.
A United Nations report in August warned that money and manpower are running short. Staff members assigned to cholera treatment centers was decreasing, it said, as “humanitarian partners are gradually reducing their operations.” In many areas, nongovernmental health organizations are handing treatment facilities over to the Health Ministry, which lacks capacity to support them.
The ministry, like practically every government agency, was flattened in the quake and has barely benefited from the flow of aid. Controlling this epidemic requires building up the public sector — which is the only hope for Haitians after charitable aid dries up.
Monday, September 05, 2011
Jenny Still Survives
(Photo by John Carroll--September 5, 2011)
Jenny had heart surgery at OSF-SFMC in Peoria in 1999. At nineteen years of age she looked like a victim from Auschwitz before her heart surgery.
I have been treating her in Haiti for over a decade since her surgery in Peoria. Haitian Hearts has provided her with medication, echocardiograms, and money in Haiti.
Jenny needs more heart surgery, but OSF-SFMC won't take her back. I gave OSF-Children's Hospital of Illinois a check for $23,000 dollars before her surgery in 1999. (All the physicians did pro-bono work.)
Other medical centers believe she is OSF's medical and ethical responsibility. And she is.
Jenny has survived tropical storms, hurricanes, kidnappings, heart failure, a biblical earthquake (she was living in a car), and poverty.
However, I don't think she will survive the greed and power of our Catholic hospital in Peoria.
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