A Giant Haitian Slum that suddenly matters (NYT/IHT)

[Up2Late]

(This is so sad, why couldn't * just leave these poor people alone?)

A Giant Haitian Slum that suddenly matters

By Walt Bogdanich and Jenny Nordberg The New York Times

MONDAY, AUGUST 29, 2005
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti Sitting at the gateway of the nation's capital, Cité Soleil is an unsightly birthmark of modern Haiti, a broiling Haitian slum of shacks, dust and ditches filled with human waste. It is home to several hundred thousand people who now live with virtually no government services, no police officers and only an occasional helping hand from international aid groups.

Yet with national elections scheduled for this fall, what happens in Cité Soleil is increasingly important to the world beyond its squalor. Not only does it have one of the biggest blocks of potential voters - many of whom back the ousted president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide - but it also can generate the kind of violence that could disrupt those elections.

For United Nations peacekeeping forces, bringing some semblance of order to Cité Soleil and giving its residents a chance to vote in the elections is seen as an important step in establishing a new, credible government in Haiti. But while United Nations troops have managed to set up command posts in sections of other poor, violent neighborhoods, large parts of Cité Soleil remain all but impenetrable.

Cité Soleil is now so foreboding that the international peacekeepers, who wear flak jackets and drive armored personnel carriers, conduct no regular patrols in its densely populated neighborhoods. In their last operation, about 400 UN troops entered the slum on July 6 and fought a five-hour gun battle with gangs that control the area.

<http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/08/28/news/haiti.php>
(More at link above)

[NVMojo]

1. why do I have a feeling there were be more areas like this in other

countries in this decade?

[Fridays Child]

2. To give you some idea of the place...

[wli]

3. The Republican's vision of the future of America. n/t

[beetbox]

6. East St. Louis and so many other places in the US

Nuevo Laredo-by-products of the disposable industrial society.

Border towns all over the world. Borders and fences.

With the colossal bandits sitting in the pretty houses with marble floors.

[Judi Lynn]

7. Sad, sad, sad. I've never seen a good look at the place like this.

God bless these poor, helpless people. Hope it's true "The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth."

[wli]

4. Bushler probably wants to redo its 1915-1934 stunt. n/t

[bobbieinok]

8. for those, like me, unsure of the reference, read abt US occupation

of Haiti 1915-1934

http://www.counterpunch.org/feldman03102004.html

[Darranar]

5. Seems that the occupiers are encountering some trouble...

Hopefully these elections will be truly legitimate, but I doubt it.