Chinese peacekeepers prepare for Haiti mission

[seemslikeadream]

Jiang Zhuqing
2004-06-07 06:30



At the request of the United Nations, China will dispatch a 125-peacekeeping force to war-torn Haiti in early September, according to the Public Security Ministry.

"It is the first time that China will send police to form a peacekeeping force to a country with which it has not established diplomatic relations," said Meng Hongwei, vice-minister of public security at a ceremony held at the opening session for the police training which kicked off on Friday.

Such a move displays the positive stance of China - as a permanent member of the UN Security Council - towards maintaining world and regional peace and stability, he said.

Some 148 police trainees, from police departments including Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Chongqing, will attend English training courses in marksmanship and anti-riot skills at the Academy of the Chinese People's Armed Police Force in Langfang of Hebei Province.

"I'm used to handling the emergency situations in my daily work," said Liu Guogang, a detective from Beijing told reporters. "So I am not afraid to face possible dangerous situations in Haiti."

more
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-06/07/content_337064.htm

China to send riot police on peacekeeping duty to Haiti


2004/6/6
BEIJING, Agencies



China will in September send 125 riot police on a six-month peacekeeping mission to Haiti, the Caribbean nation which has full diplomatic ties with Taiwan, state press reported.
Haiti is among 27 countries resisting pressure to abandon Taiwan and forge ties with China.

China kicked off a three-month training for 148 riot policemen on Friday, and will select 125 for its first mission in Haiti, Xinhua said citing the Ministry of Public Security. "China's active involvement in peacekeeping missions of the United Nations, especially in Haiti which has not set up a diplomatic relationship with China, fully exhibits a peace-loving and responsible image of the country," said Vice Minister of Public Security Meng Hongwei at a ceremony to start the training. Meng said the experience gained in peacekeeping missions abroad would help China in ensuring security during the 2008 Olympic games in Beijing.

Since 1999, the Chinese government has sent 253 police to participate in UN peacekeeping missions, including operations in East Timor, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Liberia, Afghanistan, Kosovo and Haiti, Xinhua noted. Currently, 55 policemen are still left in these areas for peacekeeping tasks
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/detail.asp?ID=49485&GRP=A

[madrchsod]

1. is china looking for a cheaper labor pool?

[denverbill]

2. Ahh. Good. The Tianamen Square gang 'helps' Haiti.

If I was looking for help in restoring order, I guess the gang that mowed down thousands of defenseless protestors is as good as it gets.

[struggle4progress]

3. I guess they're spreading the joy of totalitarian capitalism.

[seemslikeadream]

4. spreading the joy of totalitarian capitalism!

http://www.socialistviewpoint.org/sept_03/pboys+tanks.jpg

[Aidoneus]

5. At least the Chinese weren't involved with the overthrow

Unlike the rightwing regime in France, for example.. but that didn't stop people here from offering them up as potential "peacekeepers", citing with a straight face their past situation as imperialist occupyer of the nation as a credential! China looks pretty good there by comparison.

[seemslikeadream]

6. No friend of France on that one

EVERY DEATH CREATES NEW ENEMIES
MORE TERRORISTS
MORE DANGER
MORE DEATH
AND REMEMBER...
HE IS JUST GETTING STARTED...
BUSH'S PLAN FOR PEACE
IS THE PEACE OF THE COMMON GRAVE

http://www.bushflash.com/pax.html


Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!

Let America be America Again...by Langston Hughes