http://www.counterpunch.org/terrall08282008.html
Counterpunch.com
August 28, 2008
"All the Time We are Hungry and Now We Have No One"
Return to Port-au-Prince
By BEN TERRALL

As I flew from JFK to Port-au-Prince Airport on August 11, a fellow journalist handed me the front section of that day’s New York Times with a laugh. My friend pointed to a passage in an article about Russia’s war with Georgia that had prompted her bitter chuckling.

The piece quoted Ambassador Zalmay Khalizad of the United States, who charged that the Russian foreign minister had told Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice “that the democratically elected president of Georgia ‘must go.’” Khalizad described the Russian’s comment as “completely unacceptable.”

Of course, Washington’s posturing as a beacon of peace and freedom has become increasingly more ludicrous as wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continue with no end in sight and Bush explains that we do not torture while testimony to the contrary accumulates around the globe. But the U.S. role in supporting the February 29, 2004 rightist coup in Haiti makes the hypocrisy of Khalizad’s statement especially galling.

UN Troops Accused of Human Rights Violations in Haiti
by Maria Luisa Mendonça | January 21, 2008
Americas Program, Center for International Policy (CIP)
http://americas.irc-online.org/
The UN Security Council decided in October 2007 to extend the mandate of the MINUSTAH (United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti) through Oct. 15, 2008. The Brazilian Government is responsible for coordinating the MINUSTAH forces that include approximately 9,000 troops. Yet there is very little discussion in Brazil about the country's role in the occupation of Haiti, and especially, about the accusations leveled against the UN troops for their participation in human rights violations.

UN Arrested 40 Ahead of Harper's Haiti Visit
Many demonstrators remain in jail
by Stuart Neatby
The Dominion - http://www.dominionpaper.ca
Forty Haitian demonstrators were arrested by UN soldiers hours before the arrival of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in the Haitian slum neighbourhood of Cite Soleil on July 20. Haiti was the last stop for the Prime Minister's Latin American tour, which also included stops in Colombia, Chile, and Barbados. The protest had been organized by residents of Cite Soleil in response to the visit of the Canadian Prime Minister, according to Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine, a protest organizer and director of the Haiti-based September 30th Foundation.

AHP News www.ahp.org
'UN Operation in Cite Soleil leaves at least 10 killed, dozens others injured during the night of Thursday December 21'
UN spokesperson [Sophie Boutaud] de Lacombe claims the operation was aimed at apprehending kidnappers in Bois Neuf and bringing them to justice. However local residents say the victims were ordinary citizens whose only crime was that they live in the targeted neighborhood. Detonations could be heard for miles. De Lacombe denies that a UN armored vehicle was seized by bandits.
Some radio stations in the capital have been justifying the attack in Cite Soleil by the fact that local residents had set fire to a UN tank that had been abandoned by UN soldiers who had fled.
In addition to the dead and injured, residents report very serious property damage and there are concerns that a critical water shortage may now develop because water cisterns and pipes were punctured by the gunfire.

RCMP backs murderous Haitian Police force
By Tim Pelzer
People's Weekly World
Since the US/Canadian/French-backed overthrow of elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide on Feb. 29, 2004, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) have been training and supervising police in Haiti who are killing residents in poor neighbourhoods.
Two different RCMP officers have been in charge of the
United Nations Police Mission (UNPOL): David Beer, who came to Haiti directly from Iraq in May 2004, where he was teaching counter-insurgency tactics, and Graham Muir, who replaced Beer in mid 2005.
Today, Muir commands a 1,600-strong UNPOL contingent that includes 100 RCMP and Quebec Provincial Police officers, under the mandate of the Brazilian led UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), which is responsible for training and overseeing the Haitian National Police (HNP). As UNPOL Commissioner, Muir takes part in all high level planning and strategy meetings, be they military
or policing.

The Haitian Revolution and Black History
Patrick Elie speaks for CKUT's Black History Month

Patrick Elie is a long-time poltical and human rights activist in Haiti. While
he is a chemist by trade, he is also someone who is passionate about his people
and their history.

We spoke with Patrick Elie in Port au Prince about Haiti's history and the
slave revolt in the context of Black History Month. Elie asserts that the

Haiti's Deadly Class Divide:
Class war takes on a new meaning in Cite Soley
by Leslie Bagg and Aaron Lakoff
Port-au-Prince, January 10/06 - Driving into Cite Soley on January 8th, the day Haitians were supposed to go to the polls in a presidential election, there is no mistaking the fact that we are entering an occupied zone. The streets are almost deserted, the atmosphere tense, and UN armored personnel carriers patrol the streets.
Cite Soley, one of Port-au-Prince's poorest neighborhoods, is home to around 500,000 people living in abject poverty. According to Jean-Joseph Joel, the Secretary General of the local branch of Fanmi Lavalas, the area's residents are virtual prisoners, and their movements restricted by armed police at checkpoints. Vilified as bandits or chimeres by the elite-run press, he says they face persecution if they do manage to escape the neighborhood. There is no work and signs of malnutrition are obvious in the children.

UN commander dead in Haiti amid pressure from elite:
General Bacellar's death exposes contradictions of UN mission

Haiti Information Project - HIP-Haiti - Amid tremendous controversy over Haiti's security situation and the on-again, off-again elections, the military commander of UN forces in this beleaguered nation apparently took his own life early Saturday morning. After having assumed command of the UN military mission less then four months ago, the body of Brazilian officer Lt. Gen. Urano Teixeira da Matta Bacellar was found sprawled out on the balcony of the Hotel Montana, the apparent victim of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. According to several sources in the Haitian press, Bacellar had participated in a tense meeting with the president of Haiti's Chamber of Commerce, Dr. Reginald Boulos, and Group 184 leader Andy Apaid the night before.

MINUSTAH in Cite Soleil
by Isabel MacDonald; December 01, 2005
PORT AU PRINCE - Luckson Docius, a 48-year old metalworker who supported his family of seven by making saucepans was at work on November 24 when a bullet fired by a UN "peacekeeper” working with the UN Mission for Stabilization in Haiti (MINUSTAH) ripped through the metal wall of his studio and killed him. The bullet, which a MINUSTAH soldier in a tank-like armoured personnel carrier (APC) fired from an automatic gun, blasted through his right arm, tore into the right side of his abdomen and came out the other side, to lodge itself in his left arm; moments later, Docius was lying dead in a pool of blood before his co-workers’ eyes.

Thursday, November 10, 2005
http://www.flashpoints.net
Flashpints Radio's Nora Barrows-Friedman interviews Dave Welsh, Haiti Action Committee
Flashpoints: The paltry coverage of the situation in Haiti these days mainly consists of speculation and U.S. response to the upcoming elections, which many people ion Haiti believe will be a total and complete sham. Meanwhile, vicious attacks on Haitians continue unabated by the United Nations forces and the death squads. Two days ago the Cite Soleil neighborhood in Port au Prince was attacked by the UN forces. Joining us to talk about this is Dave Welsh. Welsh, an activist with the Haiti Action Committee, just returned from a fact-finding delegation [to] Haiti. Dave Welsh, welcome back to Flashpoints.
Welsh: It's good to be here.
Flashpoints: First of all, tell us what happened in Cite Soleil two days ago, talk about these attacks by the UN so-called "peacekeeping" forces.