Haitian civilians died in raid, residents say

[Judi Lynn]

Posted on Fri, Jul. 22, 2005

HAITI
Haitian civilians died in raid, residents say

People living in a Port-au-Prince slum said a July 6 raid by U.N. troops left nine civilians dead. In Miami, about 60 people protested the killings.

BY ALFRED DE MONTESQUIOU
Associated Press

PORT-AU-PRINCE - People in a sprawling Haitian slum say at least nine civilians were killed when U.N. troops raided their shantytown this month in one of the multinational force's largest offensives against supporters of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Journalists were not allowed inside Cité Soleil when more than 400 U.N. troops stormed the slum at 5 a.m. July 6, and it was impossible to verify claims by residents that peacekeepers were responsible for civilian deaths in the slum that is dominated by armed supporters of Aristide.
(snip)

Ali Besnaci, who heads the Paris-based Doctors Without Borders mission in Haiti, said his hospital received 27 gunshot victims on the day of the raid. All said they were from Cité Soleil, he said.''It's an enormous figure for a single day,'' Besnaci said.
(snip)

They carried poster-size pictures of mutilated bodies, some of them of small children. Many waved the Haitian flag shouting, ``Bush, Lula, stop killing Haitians!''.
(snip/...)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/12193231.htm

[malaise]

1. Democracy on the move n/t

remove the elected president, impose your will, secure your interests and slaughter those who oppose. Freedom is on the march.

[wli]

2. to get an idea of what the US thinks of Haiti

Check 1915-1934, where the US military was called in to administer martial law and orchestrate "corvee labor" (a.k.a. slave labor).