"Haitian Police Distribute Machetes in Bel Air"

Worry not, super-rich Angelenos! The headline of this story does not refer to that exclusive L.A. community, but to the Bel Air in Haiti.

While I'm skeptical of anything printed in the Village Voice, it does include this interesting-if-only-slightly-true bit:

...MINUSTAH, the U.N. mission in Haiti, may bear a certain level of responsibility for the actions of the police. Installed three months after Aristide's controversial ousting, their mandate is, in part, to "restructure and reform the Haitian National Police, consistent with democratic policing standards."

MINUSTAH spokesperson Damian Onses Cardona told the Voice that MINUSTAH was not made aware of the deadly incursion until the next day, when the story hit the media. When asked how this could be possible, given the fact that MINUSTAH has two large bunkers full of peacekeepers in Bel Air, staffed 24 hours a day, Cardona said that "gunfire is not that unusual in Bel Air." He added that a hotline has been set up so that people can phone to anonymously report violence—police and otherwise. "We are going to investigate this," he said.

In March 2005 Harvard University released a highly critical 50-page report on MINUSTAH entitled "Keeping the Peace in Haiti?"

The study contends that "MINUSTAH has effectively provided cover for the police to wage a campaign of terror in Port-au-Prince's slums." And that "even more distressing than MINUSTAH's complicity in HNP abuses are credible allegations of human rights abuses perpetuated by MINUSTAH itself."

Miscellania · Tue, 08/23/2005 - 02:43 · · Importance: 1