Saturday, November 26, 2011

Slow Saturday Special: Cholera Keeps on Killing in Haiti

I'm surprised it was even mentioned.

"Haitian president knocks UN errors" September 24, 2011|Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS - Haiti’s new president said yesterday that United Nations peacekeepers have committed “unacceptable errors’’ in his country but that they should remain to help with the stalled post-earthquake reconstruction. 

What do you mean stalled reconstruction?

President Michael Martelly’s first speech to the UN General Assembly bridged the anti-UN sentiment he campaigned on in an election held months after the January 2010 earthquake with his more conciliatory approach to the foreign troops since taking office.

The president’s position regarding the UN peacekeeping force has been a major theme of his diplomacy during the opening week of the General Assembly. The force has been in Haiti since 2004. It was hard-hit by the earthquake but increased its troop levels to more than 12,000 in the weeks that followed.

Sentiment in Haiti has turned further against the UN mission after an unsanitary base used by peacekeepers from Nepal was found to be the source of a cholera epidemic that has killed more than 6,200.  

Related: Sunday Globe Special: Helping Haiti 

Some help.

Then this month, five sailors with the mission were repatriated to Uruguay and jailed after a cell-phone video surfaced which opponents say show them sexually abusing an 18-year-old Haitian man.

--more--"  

FLASHBACK:

"UN peacekeepers investigated in Haiti" Associated Press / September 3, 2011

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - The United Nations is investigating allegations that five Uruguayan peacekeepers in Haiti sexually molested an 18-year-old man in an attack reportedly captured by a cellphone camera, a spokeswoman said yesterday....

As part of the inquiry, investigators are trying to determine the authenticity of video, UN spokeswoman Eliane Nabaa said.... 

Pffft!

A 50-second video on ABC News’s website purports to show the alleged assault.

The video shows several men laughing as they pin down a young man on a mattress. One of the men is shirtless. But the cellphone video jumps around, the alleged victim’s face is blurred out and it is not clear what is happening.

That should make it easy for the UN to cover this up with their "investigation."

It is also not clear how ABC News obtained the video....  

As if the AmeriKan media ever questioned each others sources before! 

Tensions worsened last year after a unit of peacekeepers from Nepal was blamed by many people for an outbreak of cholera in Haiti.

I'm actually surprised they even put the word into print.

Related: Cholera Comes to Haiti

Yeah, but the U.N. told the media not worry about where it came from, and they have not.

 --more--"

Related: 

"International officials and the Haitian government credit MINUSTAH with improving security in Haiti. But some Haitians see the foreign troops as prone to using reckless force with impunity. When last summer massive crowds attended the Port-Au-Prince funeral of Father Gerard Jean-Juste, a popular priest, U.N. troops were seen on state television opening fire"

"The coup was promoted to advance the process of neoliberal capital accumulation, break the left and the unions, and break Famni Lavalas and the civil society organisations sustaining resistance. For years, UN 'peacekeepers' have slaughtered thousands of Haitians, and the residents have been put through rigged election procedures."  

That is peacekeeping?