10 Reasons Why the UN Occupation of Haiti Must End

[Jefferson23]

An explosive cell phone video released earlier this month documents the alleged sexual assault of an 18-year-old Haitian man at the hands of five Uruguayan troops belonging to a contingent of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti located in the southern town of Port-Salut. As the story spreads internationally, MINUSTAH—the UN Stabilization Mission is known by its French acronym—has become the target of demonstrations in Port-Salut, in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince and in front of the Uruguayan Ministry of Defense in Montevideo. Defense Minister Eleuterio Fernández Huidobro ordered the immediate repatriation of the soldiers shown in the video, who now await further legal action in jail.

Earlier, as unconfirmed reports of misconduct began to multiply, Defense Minister Huidobro stated that “among such a large number of people, there will always be someone who behaves wrongly.” Two weeks after the cell phone video was released, MINUSTAH chief Mariano Fernández argued that “acts of a few should not also tarnish of thousands of military, police, and civilian personal serving MINUSTAH and Haiti impeccably since 2004.”

However, this is not a case of a few bad apples. MINUSTAH has had a consistently disastrous record of malfeasance in its seven-year military presence—much of it the result of institutional design. Although Brazilian Defense Minister Celso Amorim—charged with the largest contingent of UN soldiers in Haiti—recently discussed a gradual reduction in troops, he also admitted that no timetable has been drawn up for their eventual withdrawal.

Here are ten reasons why a timetable for a speedy withdrawal of all UN soldiers from Haiti is necessary:

in full: http://www.thenation.com/article/163632/10-reasons-why-un-occupation-haiti-must-end