UN admits Haiti force is not up to the job it faces

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

International forces in Haiti are to be bolstered by hundreds of extra troops following an admission by the UN's top peacekeeping official that the soldiers it has are not sufficiently trained and equipped. The move comes amid mounting evidence that UN forces may have recently killed up to two dozen civilians.

Jean-Marie Guehenno, the under-secretary general for peacekeeping, on Thursday told the UN Security Council in New York that forces in Haiti were not trained for carrying out raids and targeting criminal gangs. "The forces we have do not have the kind of very specialised capacity ... that makes absolutely sure that there will be zero civilian casualties in a densely populated environment," he said.

His admission came amid allegations that up to 23 unarmed civilians, including children, were killed by UN earlier this month in the Cite Soleil slum in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince. On Thursday it was announced that an additional 750 troops from Jordan - the same nationality as many of those involved in the 6 July raid - are to be dispatched to Haiti. There has been no word yet on Mr Guehenno's request for specialist troops.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article302517.ece

[Warren Stupidity]

1. The UN mission appears to be

propping up bandit gangs and enforcing stability while the plundering of hati for the benefit of the elites continues.

See Naomi Klein's analysis in The Nation:
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050801&s=klein

[Judi Lynn]

2. Thanks for adding that great article by Naomi Klein.

I had never seen it explained that our pResident was leaning on Aristide to privatize all of their resources. My God. It took a strong Haitian president to stand up to such a large, powerful country, and he paid a hell of a price. It's a miracle _Bush didn't arrange to have him killed. (Of course that could happen anytime, still.)

Haitians are tremendously courageous to keep on telling the world they want their president back. May they find the freedom someday their predecessors fought so hard to secure.

[Warren Stupidity]

4. she is damn good. nt

[wli]

9. I hate to say it, but the Haitians have been getting beaten down forever

From Toussaint L'Ouverture to Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti has been on the butt end of military adventures and thoroughly brutalized throughout its history as an "easy target" for imperialists wanting to prop up their military self-esteem.

Whatever may be going on on a semi-covert basis now is overshadowed by the even crueller period from 1915-1934, when the US invaded and imposed "corvee labor," a euphemism for slave labor, on Haiti in the 20th century.

[Warren Stupidity]

11. It wasn't L'Ouverture - he was a good guy.

He liberated Haitians from slavery. However the French, embarrased and infuriated by the victory of the Haitian people, returned with their warships and imposed a peace that sunk Haiti into perpetual debt and divided the island between the landed elites and the regular haitian people. The endless debt and the division resulted in the social system that exists today and is a major reason why haiti is the most impoverished nation in the western hemisphere.

[wli]

12. hmm? Both of the Haitian leaders I cited I view as overthrown victims

As far as I know Aristide is a "good guy," like L'Ouverture.

[Warren Stupidity]

13. oh

never mind, I misread your post.

[bemildred]

3. Todays "No Shit, Sherlock!" award.

:banghead::banghead:

[seriousstan]

5. These are the fools so many want to take over in Iraq?

The U.N. is a joke. How are they doing in Sudan?

[Warren Stupidity]

10. uh actually

I don't want the UN to 'take over in Iraq' I want the Iraqis to 'take over in Iraq'.

However they UN does what it is told to do and frequently what it is told to do is very questionable. For example, in Hati the UN is there propping up bandit gangs and providing enough stability so the hatian elites can continue to plunder the country, but that was the mission they were given. In Sudan, once again, the UN mission in severly limited. Your criticism essentially is that "we send the UN in to do the wrong thing and look they do the wrong thing".

[wuushew]

14. I will have no more groundless U.N. bashing

the U.N. is currently engaged in dozens of peace keeping missions all over the world, most of them successful. That is a hell of a lot more than this fascist country does.

Also Haiti only descended into its current state of chaos after the Bush administration cut off all aid in 2001. Please explain why any sane person would do such a thing to the poorest country in the western hemisphere?

[Judi Lynn]

6. What a shame that the very organization the Republican idiots

have been trying to destroy from the beginning is actually acting to try to establish peace after a filthy, vicious, murderous arrangement forced upon the Haitian population by the _Bush administration.

There's no mystery here.

[K-W]

7. They arent just enforcing peace, they are enforcing US policy.

The Republican idiots should know that the UN basically allows the US to do whatever it wants in Haiti and then does the best it can to help clean up the mess.

[Judi Lynn]

8. You've described it perfectly, unfortunately.Shame many won't see it. n/t