In June, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, asked member states to allow him to repurpose $40.5m (£30m) of leftover money to the Haiti cholera fund, which he said could have an “immediate impact in saving lives”.The appeal to reallocate unspent money designated for Haiti in 2015-16 has met with strong resistance from major donors. None of the five UN security council’s permanent members, which includes the US and the UK, approved the proposed funding reallocation. The UN Haiti cholera multi-partner trust fund, which gathered more than $2m, now lies almost empty.Brian Concannon, executive director of the Boston-based Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH), said: “We have had conversations with the UK about cholera for years. They have been saying, ‘This is a matter of principle and we need to expect the rule of law.’”“Now that the money is on the table, the fact that the UK is not reallocating it is very concerning. No one else is going to step up.”Concannon, who was in the UK this week to meet the all-party parliamentary group on Haiti, said: “We’re asking the UK to take a leadership role in the UN security council. All the [permanent security council members] spend hundreds of millions of taxpayers dollars on the UN. But the UN is flouting its legal responsibilities towards the people of Haiti on cholera.”The UN only admitted its role in the outbreak last year. Former UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon issued a carefully worded apology and said that the UN and member states had a “moral obligation” to relieve the Haitian suffering. The agency promised to raise $400m from member states to provide assistance to the Haitian victims. Since the fund was set up, however, only about $2.6m has been collected. The UK has donated $623,000 to this fund. Its share of the unspent $40.5m would be more than double that amount, at $2.3m.The IJDH works with thousands of cholera victims through the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux, a Port-au-Prince based human rights law firm. A lawsuit the groups filed on behalf of 5,000 cholera victims in a New York federal court in 2013 was dismissed by a judge, on the basis of UN immunity. After an appeal, the UN second circuit court of appeals in New York upheld the decision in 2016.Concannon is also working with the US Senate, to mobilise support for reallocating the funds. Democratic and Republican lawmakers have in the past criticised the Obama administration and the UN for failing to ensure Haiti’s victims were helped.Concannon said it was “shameful” the UN couldn’t come up with even a tenth of the amount originally promised. “The underspend idea wasn’t supposed to be the end result, but low-hanging fruit.“People in the UK or the US can forget about people in Haiti, but the people in Haiti cannot forget people in the UK or US.”Mario Joseph, a lawyer with BAI, said: “Imagine what would have happened if the Nepalese had brought the disease to the UK? What would be the reaction here – would there be the same disregard as people have shown the people of Haiti? For that reason alone, the UK should take a leadership role.”A Foreign and Commonwealth Office spokesperson said: “The UK recognises the devastating impact that cholera has had on the Haitian people, and we welcome the crucial role the UN is playing to eradicate it. The UK is the fourth largest donor to the UN trust fund, in addition to other contributions to tackling cholera in Haiti.“It is for each UN member state to decide how to use returned unspent peacekeeping funds. We call on all countries to volunteer contributions to the UN trust fund from whatever source is appropriate for them.”By: Karen McVeigh for TheGuardian.com | November 2, 2017
Haiti Calls For Funds To Deal With Cholera
UNITED NATIONS – President Jovenel Moise has called on the international community to provide the funding needed to help the French-speaking Caribbean Community (CARICOM) country deal with the cholera epidemic.Addressing a round table discussion at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), Moise said that while significant progress had been made since the epidemic was first reported in 2010, the disease continues to claim victims in Haiti.He said much funds are needed if the country is to eradicate the disease completely by 2022.“I am advocating to the UN General Assembly to remind the urgency of continuing international funding to defeat cholera. We will need an estimated US$390 million if we really want to end this epidemic by 2022,” he said, adding that Haiti had a plan that is already operational to eradicate cholera.
“If the resources provided are available to us, the elimination of the disease will be within our reach,’ Moise said, recalling that the US$390 million request corresponds to the United Nations multi-partner trust fund for cholera in Haiti, which was launched in December 2016 by former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.But Moise told the meeting that despite the repeated calls of the former secretary general and his successor, Antonio Guterres, only two per cent of the promises made by international donors have been met.The fund has two main components including establishing a new strategy to develop a programme of material assistance and support to Haitians most directly affected by cholera as well as reducing the incidence of cholera, while addressing short- and long-term water, sanitation and health system improving access to care and treatment.The cholera outbreak here is being blamed on United Nations peacekeepers deployed from Nepal.The authorities have said more than 10 000 people have died since the first case was reported in October 2010 and several hundred thousand others have been sickened by the disease. (CMC)
U.N. criticized for failing on promise to help Haiti cholera victims
(A relative drip-feeds Louis Rosu Marcelle (R) in the Cholera Treatment Center of Diquini in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, September 7, 2016. Picture taken September 7, 2016. REUTERS/Andres Martinez Casares)
Haiti was free of cholera until 2010 when peacekeepers helping after a devastating earthquake accidentally dumped infected sewage into a riverBOGOTA, April 30 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Haitians battling cholera blamed on United Nations peacekeepers are getting little support with only two percent of promised funds materialising, according to campaigners accusing the global community of again failing the Caribbean nation.Haiti was free of cholera until 2010 when peacekeepers helping after a devastating earthquake that killed more than 250,000 people accidentally dumped infected sewage into a river.Since then about 9,750 Haitians have died of the waterborne disease that has infected more than 800,000 people, with the epidemic continuing to affect dozens of people every week.The United Nations has not accepted legal responsibility for the outbreak but in late 2016 outgoing U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon apologised to Haiti for the organisation's role and announced a $400 million fund to help affected Haitians.But to date - almost halfway through the fund's expected three-year term - the U.N. Haiti Cholera Response Multi-Partner Trust Fund has only raised $8.7 million or 2.2 percent of the total - and less than half has been spent, U.N. figures show.Sienna Merope-Synge, a human rights lawyer at the U.S.-based Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH), said this showed "a failure by the U.N. system to honour that promise"."The U.N. promises, in particular to create a package of assistance that would provide redress to victims, (have) not been moved forward," she said.The IJDH previously filed a lawsuit against the U.N. on behalf of cholera victims, including a demand for financial compensation, but in 2016 a U.S. federal appeals court upheld the organisation's immunity from damages.
SLOW PROGRESS
The spotlight on the failure to eradicate cholera comes after the United Nations and aid organisations have faced criticism for slow reconstruction efforts in Haiti due to a lack of coordination and bypassing the government and businesses.The behaviour of aid workers in Haiti after the earthquake has also come under scrutiny with Oxfam rocked by allegations that staff, including a former Haiti country director, used prostitutes during the relief mission.Eight years after the disaster Haiti remains the poorest nation in the western hemisphere. World Bank figures show only one in four rural Haitians has access to a toilet, and less than half to clean water.Experts said improving the country's water and sanitation systems is vital to overcome Haiti's vulnerability to new cholera outbreaks, particularly after hurricanes.In emailed comments, the U.N. Special Envoy for Haiti, Josette Sheeran, said nearly $700 million had been spent by the U.N. and global community on fighting cholera in Haiti since 2010 but funding for the Multi-Partner Trust Fund was lacking.The office said Sheeran was working on "new innovative financing mechanisms" to raise funds but gave no details."There is still a big funding gap, and we urgently need $80 million to complete the next phase of cholera reduction, and community support," Sheeran said by email.Cholera is currently infecting about 74 more people each week although this is down from 18,500 at the outbreak's peak.Cholera expert Louise Ivers, executive director of the Centre for Global Health at the Massachusetts General Hospital said it was not enough to say things had improved since 2010."This has been one the biggest cholera epidemics in recent history and we are into the eighth year," said Ivers, a doctor who led cholera response efforts during the outbreak in Haiti as head of mission for medical charity Partners In Health."Epidemics go down because people have had the disease, they have some natural immunity now."
NO COMPENSATION
The U.N. fund envisions a two-track process.The first track would focus on eradicating cholera and building infrastructure for sanitation and clean water.The second is described as "a package of material assistance and support to those most affected by the disease" which Ban described as a "concrete expression of the regret of our organisation for the suffering so many Haitians have endured".But Merope-Synge said so far no one has received any type of financial compensation, and projects to help rebuild affected communities - such as constructing markets and clinics - were virtually non-existent.Ivers said working out which families could receive support is "daunting" because it is now hard to prove who died of what but that this should not account for the slow progress made."What's happened over the last year is a real reluctance by the U.N. system, including the donor states, to support direct payment to households," Merope-Synge said."There's a fear among the donors and within the U.N. system that it could set a precedent, that if the U.N. does something bad in the future it might have to compensate."In response to emails from the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the U.N. Office of the Special Envoy for Haiti did not confirm whether the U.N. had provided any direct financial assistance to individual cholera victims or families, or plans to do so.The U.N. office also did not provide requested details about any development projects that are up and running.It did say Sheeran and Haitian government officials met some cholera victims in February to discuss proposed pilot projects.Following consultations with four communities in the central town of Mirebalais, the first set of projects had been chosen, and will start next week, with $1.1 million disbursed, the U.N. office said.The United Nations did not provide details about what this would entail or look like on the ground but said it planned to carry out similar work in at about 140 more communities.However Ivers said some Haitians feel they have been excluded from the U.N. consultation process which had led to street protests over the past year.Merope-Synge said the cholera outbreak had left thousands of families struggling to rebuild their lives with little support."Families lost breadwinners that have plunged them further into poverty, people took on debt to buried loved ones. All these very real financial consequences," she said. (Reporting by Anastasia Moloney @anastasiabogota, Editing by Robert Carmichael and Belinda Goldsmith. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property rights, climate change and resilience. Visit http://news.trust.org)By: Anastasia Moloney for Thomson Reuters Foundation News| April 30, 2018
UN eyes transition of Haiti role from peacekeeping to development
The United Nations has already started to prepare for a post-peacekeeping presence in Haiti, a senior UN official said Tuesday, stressing there are many reasons to be optimistic that the country’s progress towards stability is now irreversible.
Haiti, U.N. Clash Over Probe Into Alleged Misuse of Petrocaribe Funds
Haitian Women Seek Support for Children Fathered by UN Troops
BOGOTA, COLOMBIA — Lawyers representing 10 Haitian women who say they had children with U.N. peacekeepers have filed the first legal actions in Haiti against the U.N. and individual peacekeepers for child support and paternity claims.The lawsuits filed by the Haiti-based human rights group Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI) are part of a legal battle by Haitian women to force peacekeepers who they say fathered their children to contribute to their upbringing."Having and then abandoning children is not within the official capacity of a U.N. peacekeeper and therefore we argue that this does give a Haitian court jurisdiction to resolve paternity and child support claims," Nicole Phillips, a lawyer at the U.S.-based Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH), who is working on the case, said Tuesday.Ten mothers of 11 children who they say were abandoned by U.N. troops are seeking financial support from them. One of the mothers was 17 when she gave birth, which amounts to statutory rape under Haitian law, the IJDH said.Under the U.N.'s "zero-tolerance policy," sexual relationships between peacekeepers and residents of countries hosting a U.N. mission are strongly discouraged.Farhan Haq, a spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation responsibility for child support rests with those "individuals who have been established to have fathered children."The United Nations "cannot legally establish paternity or child support entitlements ... compensation is a matter of personal accountability to be determined under national legal processes," Haq said by email.The 13-year U.N. mission left Haiti in October after being sent in to stabilize a country plagued by political turmoil.The mission introduced a cholera epidemic that killed 10,000 people and has been dogged by accusations of sexual assault.The Haitian mothers are struggling to bring up their children they say were fathered by soldiers from the U.N.'s peacekeeping force stationed in Haiti, known as MINUSTAH, who came from Uruguay, Argentina, Nigeria and Sri Lanka, said their lawyer, Mario Joseph at BAI, who filed the lawsuits."These mothers and their children face severe economic difficulties and discrimination," he said, adding that six of the mothers were left homeless after Hurricane Matthew devastated the Caribbean island last year.By: VOANews.com | December 12, 2017
UN to Haiti: 'Proof is in the pudding' on Corruption
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AFP) — The United Nations, which last month launched a fresh mission to promote long-term development in Haiti, has had it with nice words: when it comes to corruption and human rights, "the proof is in the pudding.""They have said they want to fight corruption, so they have to take responsibility," insisted Susan Page, who is heading the UN Mission for Justice Support in Haiti (MINUJUSTH)."I'm going to take them at their word, but I'm also going to help them if that is really what they want," the American career diplomat said.Elected president after an electoral crisis that paralyzed the country for two years, Jovenel Moise insists he is going to use his time in office to clean up Haitian politics."Corruption, in all its forms, eats away and atrophies the economy, it profoundly weakens the political foundations and destabilizes society's social tissue: corruption is a crime against development," the president, who took office earlier this year, told the UN general assembly in New York in September.The concern is that his words are taking their time in being translated into action. In late August, a minister was sacked over corruption allegations, but no legal action has yet been taken.The new UN mission starts just as one of the symbols of financial waste in Haiti resurfaces: on Thursday, the Senate will debate a parliamentary report accusing a dozen former ministers, who held office between 2010 and 2016, of "fraud on a grand scale.""We'll see how they react, not just in regard to the report but in general," said Page, pointing to Haitian institutions in charge of fighting corruption and money laundering."Will they strengthen the capabilities of agents in these organizations? Really put investigations in place which they will then pursue to the very end? Will they bring people to justice? We will see."Gnawed away by corruption, the country's justice system is notoriously slow-moving. Its prison population, 400 percent above capacity, is one of the highest in the world.Maintaining the rule of law also demands a real commitment to improving conditions in detention centers, but there, too, MINUJUSTH will not take the lead."It's an age-old problem that the Haitians will have to sort out themselves," said Page. "We are here to support, not to do it for them. They need to have the political will to do it."Restoring the UN's image in Haiti during this new mission will prove almost as big a task as overhauling its justice system.The 13 years of the preceding UN mission, known as MINUSTAH, were blighted by sex crimes perpetrated against Haitian woman and children by UN police and peacekeeping troops, as well as a cholera epidemic sparked by Nepalese peacekeepers that has already claimed 10,000 lives.MINUJUSTH is the UN's sixth peacekeeping mission in Haiti over the past 25 years, a country where there is very little risk of civil war, regional conflict or terrorist attacks. The label "peacekeeping" exasperates many Haitian politicians, who may support the drive against corruption but also want a debate to redefine the UN mandate.Aware of that debate, Page prefers not to take sides: "The UN Security Council considers it necessary to keep a certain level of stability here and to tackle the great challenges which threaten long-term development... that is not a mandate for development – that is to enable a transition between a peacekeeping mission and a lasting development."
By: Jamaicaobserver.com | November 29, 2017
UN 'Will Walk With Haiti' On Path Towards Sustainable Development, Senior Official Pledges
United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed and UN Special Envoy for Haiti Josette Sheeran wrapped up a three-day visit to the island on Sunday, pledging more help to defeat cholera and assist the Government in achieving the broader aims of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.“The UN will walk this path with Haiti,” Ms. Mohammed said on Twitter, referring the work under way inside Haiti towards becoming an emergent country by 2030, the finish line agreed by all nations to achieve of the Agenda and its landmark 17 Goals, knows as the SDGs.The high-level delegation was dispatched by Secretary-General António Guterres to reaffirm the commitment of the United Nations to the Haitian people in a “new spirit of partnership.”In an opinion piece late last week in the Miami Herald, the UN chief said the partnership would stretch across the UN's work on the island – including to continue addressing Haiti's cholera challenge and the “unacceptable incidents” of sexual exploitation and abuse by UN personnel – and aims to help Haiti move “from an emergency approach to durable solutions, from assistance to investment support, from handouts to hand-to-hand cooperation for sustainable development, to democracy and dignity for all Haitians.”On Saturday, Ms. Mohammed echoed the “new spirit of partnership” set out by Mr. Guterres, saying: “We come to try to find another way to do things better; because in the past, we have fallen short. We were not able to do what we had planned,” she said in a joint press conference with Haitian President Jovenel Moise in the capital, Port-au-Prince.The visit of the two UN officials comes just after the appointment of Susan Page, of the United States, as the Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of the UN Mission in Support of Justice in Haiti (UNMIJUSTH), which succeeded the UN Stabilization Mission, known as MINUSTAH, on 16 October.The role of the new UN mission is to assist the Haitian Government to strengthen the rule of law institutions, to continue to develop the capacity of the national police and to promote human rights.
UN reaffirms commitment to eradicating cholera
As a key part of the visit, the two UN officials met families affected by cholera and coping with lack of access to water and sanitation.Ms. Mohammed and Ms. Sheeran also co-Chaired a High-Level Cholera Committee meeting (HLCC) alongside Haitian Prime Minister Jack Guy Lafontant. The Haitian Government and the UN representatives jointly expressed their determination work in partnership to achieve zero transmission of cholera. They further expressed their commitment to achieving the SDGs, including improving access to water, sanitation and healthcare.While cholera transmission has dropped dramatically, from over 18,000 new cases per week at the onset of the epidemic in 2010, to 250 per week this year, success will require more funding to maintain the highly effective work of emergency response teams, and commitment to the fight against cholera in the medium and long-term, the officials jointly agreed.Urging UN Member States and partners to provide comprehensive support, the Deputy Secretary-General emphasized during the meeting that “addressing the root causes of cholera in Haiti is critical to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Additionally, in the immediate term, we urgently require funding to ensure continued operation of the rapid response teams; failure to do so risks losing the gains achieved to date.”The Deputy Secretary-General and the Special Envoy also witnessed the efforts of the “many heroes” working to eradicate the disease. Their visit was also an opportunity to learn about successful cholera control programmes, including in communities that ended open defecation, mobilized to build toilets, and raised awareness of the importance of sanitation.By: UN News Centre | November 5, 2017
'Shameful': UK and US Under Fire Over Blocked Funds For Haiti Cholera Victims
China, France and Russia also among major UN donors resisting appeal to spend $40m of UN money on victims of cholera epidemic, claim lawyers
Minustah Leaves Haiti Only to Be Replaced by a New UN Mission
The latest mission, which has a six-month renewable term ending April 15, 2018, is being met with much skepticism from some quarters in the Carribean country.
The U.N. mission in Haiti, MINUSTAH, which ran from 2004 until Oct. 5, has quickly morphed into a deployment of the U.N. Mission for Justice Support, Minujusth, described as an effort to bolster Haiti's police force, democracy, justice system and other institutions. The latest mission, which has a six-month renewable term ending April 15, 2018, is being met with much skepticism from some quarters in the Carribean country.Former Haitian presidential candidate Eric Jean-Baptiste criticized Haitian President Jovenel Moise for pulling out the red carpet for Minujusth. "The country should expect nothing positive from this new mission which is only a tactic to continue with the occupation that the Haitian people have rejected," he said.Jean-Baptiste went on to argue that the new mission weaves an external "social contract" between elected officials and the people.A strong rebuttal of the mission was also offered by another former presidential candidate and retired Army Colonel Himmler Rebu.The UN stabilization mission has been here for the past 13 years and they have done nothing, except for preventing armed thugs from taking over the presidential palace," he said.Mamdou Diallo, acting head of the new mission and deputy special representative of the U.N. Secretary-General in Haiti, said the new mission's aim is to build upon the work done by Minustah.Of the previous mission, however, most Haitians recall the controversies and scandals, including allegations of sexual abuse by U.N. troops and the introduction of cholera, which led to thousands of deaths in the country.A total of 1,276 U.N. police will incorporate into the Minujusth mission and are tasked with training Haiti's police force.By teleSUR | October 24, 2017
A New Chapter for the Disastrous United Nations Mission in Haiti?
The year the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) came to the country was a deadly one for my family. In February of 2004, Haiti’s first democratically elected President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was forced out of office for a second time, having been reinstated, and then reëlected, after a 1991 military coup. This time, Aristide was replaced by Gérard Latortue, a former United Nations official, who called those who took up arms against Aristide “freedom fighters.” (Their leader, Guy Philippe, is serving a nine-year sentence in a U.S. prison after pleading guilty to receiving multimillion-dollar bribes from cocaine traffickers.)
That April, claiming that the situation in Haiti constituted “a threat to international peace and security in the region,” the U.N. Security Council passed Resolution 1542, establishing the Brazil-led MINUSTAH. The mission, which officially began in June, 2004, lasted thirteen years and five months, and cost more than seven billion dollars, before officially ending this past Sunday.
Part of MINUSTAH’s mandate was to assist the transitional government in insuring “a secure and stable environment.” This is where my loved ones and others came into the mission’s crosshairs.
I spent the first twelve years of my life in an impoverished neighborhood in Port-au-Prince called Bel Air, where many Aristide supporters live. My eighty-one-year-old uncle, a minister, had called this neighborhood home since the nineteen-fifties, and was there on September 30, 2004, when protests began on the thirteenth anniversary of the first coup d’état. In response, the Haitian national police and MINUSTAH soldiers conducted joint raids in Bel Air that led to dozens of mostly unreported injuries and deaths. The following month, U.N. soldiers and Haitian riot police climbed up to the roof of my uncle’s church and killed some of his neighbors below. My uncle was forced to flee to Miami, where he died in the custody of U.S. immigration officials after being denied asylum.
Bel Air was not the only area subjected to these raids. During one of their bloodiest operations in Cité Soleil, another poor and densely populated neighborhood in the capital, MINUSTAH used more than twenty-two thousand bullets and seventy-eight grenades, among other artillery, to kill seven alleged gang members. No other deaths were acknowledged despite further raids until early 2007, when the mission head at the time, Edmond Mulet, brushed off such killings as collateral damage. This combat terminology was not incidental. MINUSTAH was a continuous military operation in a country in which there was no war.
There would be more collateral damage. In October, 2010, nine months after an 7.0-magnitude earthquake nearly flattened Port-au-Prince and the surrounding areas and killed more than three hundred thousand people, and while more than a million people were still displaced or living in makeshift tent camps, Nepalese peacekeepers stationed in the north of Haiti allowed raw sewage from their base to leak into one of Haiti’s largest and most intensively used rivers, causing a cholera epidemic. The U.N. at first refused to investigate the source of the outbreak and instead blamed Haiti’s lack of sewerage and water-treatment facilities. More than ten thousand people have died from cholera since 2010, and more than eight hundred thousand have been infected.
It took the U.N. six years to acknowledge its role in the cholera epidemic, and even though the former Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, declared last December that the U.N. needed to “do the right thing”, the U.N. continues to reject victims’ legal claims by citing immunity. The U.N. has also failed to deliver on Ban’s promise of a four-hundred-million-dollar fund to halt the spread of cholera and compensate the “most affected” victims. The fund has only raised $2.7 million, and the current U.N. Secretary General, António Guterres, seems unwilling to provide direct payments to the cholera victims and their families, many of whom have lost their sole breadwinner.
Neither the U.N.’s impunity nor the lack of accountability would surprise the women and boys and girls, many as young as twelve, who have told of being raped—one boy says that he was gang-raped—by MINUSTAH peacekeepers, who, according to the Associated Press, have used sex rings, offers of food, and other methods to trap their victims. Unacknowledged “MINUSTAH babies” and their destitute mothers are treated as though they do not exist. Though MINUSTAH rapes remain underreported, those who have come forward have had to confront the same type of repudiation faced by the initial cholera victims. Their rapists were rarely punished. They were simply sent home.
MINUSTAH has now been replaced by MINUJUSTH, a smaller mission which began on Monday. MINUJUSTH , the United Nations Mission for Justice Support in Haiti, has a mandate to “help the Government of Haiti strengthen rule-of-law institutions, further develop and support the Haitian National Police and engage in human rights monitoring, reporting and analysis.” MINUJUSTH, which will will consist of twelve hundred and seventy-five officers and support personnel, seems like a rebranding effort, an attempt by the U.N. to give itself a clean slate and erase MINUSTAH’s past. But if the U.N. were serious about justice and human rights in Haiti, it would wind down its presence in the country by having MINUJUSTH also investigate the damage done to both individuals and entire communities by MINUSTAH. Or, better yet, assign an independent body to do so, then offer the warranted compensation for the extrajudicial and civilian killings, the sexual assaults, and the introduction of cholera.
Haiti’s current President, Jovenel Moïse, whose two heavily contested election cycles are often touted as a MINUSTAH success, told the Miami Herald in an interview this month that “the conversion of MINUSTAH to MINUJUSTH is the recognition of the progress made by our country in recent years. Today, Haiti is no threat to regional and global peace and security.” To fill in the gap being left by MINUSTAH, Moïse plans to revive the defunct Haitian Army, whose history of human-rights abuses, the coup d’état against Aristide, in 1991, and its subsequent reign of terror led to an earlier United Nations mission, UNMIH, in 1993.
Moïse’s proposed budget for 2017, which calls for new tariffs and increased taxes on goods and services, has been a subject of mounting protests in Haiti. MINUJUSTH, like its predecessors, will likely find itself facing angry Haitians, or training those who do. Why should Haitians trust another group of U.N. “peacekeepers” who claim to promote the same human rights, justice, and rule of law that have been so blatantly violated by their colleagues? The U.N. may want to leave MINUSTAH’s dark chapter behind, but Haitians will have to suffer the consequences of the group’s actions for generations to come. And no new mission, under whatever acronym, will change that.
Edwidge Danticat is the author of many books, including, most recently, “The Art of Death: Writing the Final Story.”
By: Edwidge Danticat, The New Yorker | October 19, 2017
UN Peacekeepers Leave Haiti: What Is Their Legacy?
As the controversial 13 year peacekeeping mission in Haiti wraps up, Al Jazeera examines what the mission leaves behind.
![A UN peacekeeper argues with a supporters of 2010 presidential candidate Michel Martelly in Port-au-Prince [File: Gulliermo Arias/AP Photo]](http://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2017/10/5/93b587f0214543e6a5c044dc19ff741b_18.jpg "UN peacekeepers leave Haiti: What is their legacy?")
PEACEKEEPERS IN HAITI
- What will be their legacy?
- Why were they there?
- What has taken so long?
- Why are they leaving now?
- What have Haitians said about the mission?
The United Nations peacekeeping mission in Haiti lowered its blue flag on Thursday, 13 years after it began.While the mission has been credited with helping bring stability to the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, it has also been mired in controversy.The mission is blamed for bringing cholera to the country, and at least 134 of its peacekeepers have been involved in sexual abuse scandals.As the last of the thousands of peacekeepers who were in the country leave, Al Jazeera answers some of the key questions about why the blue helmets were there and what they are leaving behind.
What will be their legacy?
The presence of UN troops in Haiti has been a point of controversy on the island since the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) mission first began in 2004.UN officials have praised the mission for helping to re-establish law-and-order in the country marred by political unrest and bolster Haiti's democratic institutions. MINUSTAH has also helped recruit and train a new civilian police force, something that was virtually nonexistent before their arrival.However, critics argue the mission's forces have done more harm than good, pointing to the peacekeepers' involvement in the country's 2010 cholera outbreak and sex abuse scandals as evidence.Cholera outbreakThe source of the waterborne disease, which killed more than 9,000 people, was traced to a UN base.Al Jazeera's Fault Lines investigated the outbreak in 2010. The film - Haiti in a Time of Cholera - helped further expose the source of the disease on the island, and put additional pressure on the UN to investigate the allegations, and eventually admit its role in the outbreak.In August 2016, the UN for the first time acknowledged that it played a role in the spread of the disease.The UN at the time promised to respond to the epidemic with a "significant new set of UN actions".
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| A demonstrator spray paints the message in Creole "We demand justice for all cholera victims" on a building outside the UN headquarters in Haiti [File: Dieu Nalio Chery/AP Photo] |
In a report, the then UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, said that "the preponderance of the evidence does lead to the conclusion that personnel associated with [a UN peacekeeping] facility were the most likely source".Ban said the way the UN handled the outbreak "leaves a blemish on the reputation of UN peacekeeping and the organisation worldwide".He added: "For the sake of the Haitian people, but also for the sake of the United Nations itself, we have a moral responsibility to act and a collective responsibility to deliver."Ban created a $400m voluntary trust fund for Haiti's fight against cholera. The fund was also supposed to partially compensate victims of the disease.But earlier this year, The New York Times revealed that the fund only received a few million dollars and was nearly empty.In a statement in June, the UN deputy secretary-general said that "without additional resources, the intensified cholera response and control efforts cannot be sustained through 2017 and 2018".
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Rape and other forms of sex abuseUN troops have also been implicated in sexual abuse scandals in Haiti since the MINUSTAH first began.Most recently, a UN report obtained and revealed by The Associated Press in April documented the sexual exploitation of nine children on the island from 2004-2007 at the hands of at least 134 peacekeepers.Al Jazeera later spoke to Maria Kalichi*, who had been raped by a peacekeeper when she was 17 years old. She became pregnant as result of the rape."I want justice by finding the person who did this," she told Al Jazeera."I want to hear what he has to say to me … I am walking around the streets feeling destitute because of the UN."A leaked report in 2015, found that UN peacekeepers in Haiti engaged in "transactional sex". At least 229 women said they traded sex for money and goods likes food and medicine.In 2012, at least two peacekeepers from Pakistan were jailed and fired from the army after raping a 14-year-old boy.Other cases of rape and other instances of sexual abuse have been reported and documented by the UN during the mission's 13-year term.In September, a UN fund to help the survivors of sexual abuse by peacekeepers worldwide grew to $1.5m after more than 10 countries made contributions.
Why were they there in the first place?
MINUSTAH, running since 2004, was the latest installment in a series of UN peacekeeping missions in the country, which shares a landmass with the Dominican Republic.
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Peacekeepers first arrived in Haiti, home to 10.8 million people, in September 1993 as part of The United Nations Mission in Haiti (UNMIH).The mission had a mandate to modernise the Haitian army and establish a new national police force two years after Haiti's elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, had been removed from office during a coup d'etat.After Aristide was restored to office in October 1994 following the UN-sanctioned, and US-led, "Operation Uphold Democracy" launched the month before, the mission's mandate was expanded to include helping to stabilise the government.However, UNMIH, which concluded in June 1996, appeared to have failed to deliver long-term stability. A decade later, history repeated itself as Aristide was overthrown for a second time.
Following Aristide's removal, Justice Boniface Alexandre assumed office as acting president.Alexandre appealed to the UN for help in ending the violence that had gripped Haiti in the wake of the political revolt, causing crime and murder rates to spiral.MINUSTAH, launched on June 1, 2004, in response to the crisis, led to the deployment of 6,700 UN-sanctioned troops - and 1,622 UN police - in Haiti.
Why has it taken so long for them to leave?
MINUSTAH was originally set up to support Haiti’s transitional government for a period of six months, with the aim of establishing a stable and secure environment following Aristide's removal.The mission was extended with adjusted mandates in the months and years that followed in order to allow peacekeepers to "adapt to the changing circumstances … and evolving requirements as dictated by the political, security and socioeconomic situation prevailing in the country", according to the UN.By the beginning of 2010, it appeared the mission had achieved its goals as violence had largely been removed from Haiti's politics and the country was experiencing economic growth.However, a devastating 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit the island on January 12, 2010, killing more than 220,000 people.The natural disaster destroyed vast swathes of Haiti's capital city, Port-au-Prince, and decimated the fragile Haitian economy.In response, the UN added additional peacekeepers and police officers to its mission as it sought to support the country in its efforts to rebuild following the earthquake.Force numbers have been gradually reduced in the last seven years, by a series of resolutions.
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| A UN peacekeeper from Paraguay patrols the streets of Port-au-Prince, 2011. [File: Ramon Espinosa/AP Photo] |
Why are they leaving now?
The UN Security Council (UNSC) unanimously adopted a resolution in April of this year, ordering the removal of peacekeepers from Haiti by mid-October.The April 13 resolution sanctioned the gradual withdrawal of the 2,370 peacekeepers stationed in Haiti, according to The Los Angeles Times.The resolution was the result of a US-led review into the cost and effectiveness of the UN's current peacekeeping operations.Nikki Haley, the US representative to the UN, told the UNSC prior to the vote that the political context was right for the withdrawal of a military presence in Haiti.
The "peaceful transition of power" demonstrated by Haiti's November 2016 presidential election showed the country had made an "important step towards stability and democracy", she said.As such, developments warranted an amended approach focused on fostering "the independence and self-sufficiency of the Haitian people".The peacekeeping mission will officially end on October 15 when a new UN mission made up of nearly 1,300 international civilian police officers, and about 350 civilians will begin in an effort to help the country reform its political system.In a recent interview with Al Jazeera, Sandra Honore, head of MINUSTAH, said the UN is winding down the mission because it has achieved its aims."It is a vote of confidence in the Haitian people," she said."It is an indication of the recognition by the Security Council that the stabilisation work which was entrusted to the mission did in fact produce positive results."
What have Haitians said about the mission?
Though February's presidential election seems to demonstrate Haiti is more politically stable now than when MINUSTAH began, a number of Haitians recently told Al Jazeera the mission has done little to improve their lives.Mothers who say they have had children, fathered by peacekeepers, also say they feel abandoned.
"After years of running around and false promises from the UN, nothing has happened," Saintil Benite, a mother, told Al Jazeera."They make us do a lot of stuff but there's no results," she said.Another mother, Roselaine Duperval, added that the mission has failed those people it sought to serve."I am very angry that the UN is leaving as it's left us with nothing," she said."They should take responsibility. They know about the kids. They did DNA tests and they told us they're positive but never give us the results."
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| Children play in the street while UN peacekeepers from Brazil patrol in Port-au-Prince [File: Dieu Nalio Chery/AP Photo] |
As peacekeepers leave, Haiti continues to experience political turbulence.Protests last month over the government's new budget plans brought much of the country to a halt.The government has defended its plans, which include increased taxes on fuel and property, saying the money raised will be invested in improving public services and infrastructure.*Name changed to protect identity
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By: Al Jazeera and news agencies | October 6,2017
UN Ending 13-year Military Peacekeeping Mission In Haiti
A U.N. peacekeeping mission in Haiti that has helped maintain order through 13 years of political turmoil and catastrophe is coming to an end as the last of the blue-helmeted soldiers from around the world leave despite concerns that the police and justice system are still not adequate to ensure security in the country.The U.N. lowered its flag at its headquarters in Port-au-Prince during a ceremony Thursday that was attended by President Jovenel Moise, who thanked the organization for helping to provide stability. After a gradual winding down, there are now about 100 international soldiers in the country and they will leave within days. The mission will officially end on Oct. 15.Immediately afterward, the U.N. will start a new mission made up of about 1,300 international civilian police officers, along with 350 civilians who will help the country reform a deeply troubled justice system. Various agencies and programs of the international body, such as the Food and Agricultural Organization, will also still be working in the country."It will be a much smaller peacekeeping mission," said Sandra Honore, a diplomat from Trinidad and Tobago who has served since July 2013 as the head of the U.N. mission in Haiti known as MINUSTAH, its French acronym. "The United Nations is not leaving."MINUSTAH began operations in Haiti in 2004, when a violent rebellion swept the country and forced then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide out of power and into exile. Its goals included restoring security and rebuilding the shattered political institutions. In April, the Security Council deemed the country sufficiently stable and voted to wind down the international military presence, which then consisted of about 4,700 troops.Many Haitians have viewed the multinational peacekeepers as an affront to national sovereignty. U.N. troops are believed to have inadvertently introduced the deadly cholera bacteria to the country and have also been accused of causing civilian casualties in fierce battles with gangs in Port-au-Prince and of sexually abusing minors.But the mission, with additional help from the U.S. and other nations, is also credited with stabilizing the country, particularly after the January 2010 earthquake, and building up the national police force."The job may not be complete but they have essentially done much of what they were originally designed to do in terms of preventing any kind of armed takeover of the state, in terms of increasing the safety of civilians," said Mark Schneider, a senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "It takes work to maintain that and Haiti needs to maintain that."MINUSTAH, Schneider said, has been key in helping Haiti develop a credible civilian national police from "almost zero" to its current level of about 15,000 officers, which most experts believe is still too small for a country of nearly 11 million. The police force was intended to replace the army, which was disbanded by Aristide in 1995 because of its repeated role in a series of coups and that the Haitian government is now seeking to reconstitute over international objections."Haiti needs an atmosphere of peace so we can take responsibility for ourselves," said Haitian Sen. Jacques Suaveur Jean. "We don't need foreign soldiers."The new U.N. mission will consist of seven police units that can respond to major incidents, in addition to officers deployed throughout the country to advise and assist their Haitian counterparts. Civilians will also be working with the government to improve the country's justice system, which the State Department said in this year's annual human rights report has serious flaws, including severe prison overcrowding, prolonged pretrial detention and an inefficient judiciary.Honore, in an interview ahead of Thursday's ceremony, cited the training and hiring of police officers as one of the U.N. successes.MINUSTAH had already been scaling back before the Security Council voted to end the mission. In the aftermath of the earthquake, which killed 96 U.N. personnel, including former head of mission Hedi Annabi, the number of troops reached more than 10,000. But when Honore arrived there were about 6,200 soldiers from around 20 countries, a figure that dropped again by nearly a third within two years.The cholera outbreak, which started in October 2010 after peacekeepers from Nepal contaminated the country's largest river with waste from their base, killed an estimated 9,500 people and irrevocably damaged the reputation of the organization in Haiti. Many critics felt the U.N. did not adequately respond to the outbreak, something the organization sought to later remedy."It was a fundamental error because it undermined the image not just of MINUSTAH, but of the international community," Schneider said.By: Evens Sanon, Associated Press | October 5, 2017
Video & Summary: President Jovenel Moise Addresses UN's General Debate, 72nd Session
By: UN News Centre | September 21, 2017
Haitian President Backs Paris Climate Accord, Calls On UN To Honor Commitments On Tackling Cholera
21 September 2017 – Addressing the United Nations General Assembly today, Jovenel Moise, President of Haiti, expressed deep commitment to the environmental targets in the global goals on sustainable development and said his island nation is seeking to build its resilience against the natural disasters and extreme weather events that consistently beleaguer its people and other countries in the Caribbean.“My Government is committed to the Paris Agreement on climate change,” Mr. Moise told delegations gathered for the Assembly’s annual general debate, adding that he wished to see those countries most responsible for greenhouse gas production contribute the resources necessary for implementing that accord.In the Caribbean, recent back-to-back extreme weather events had drawn attention to the ways in which climate affects Haiti. “Such weather phenomena are due to the impact of humans on the environment,” he stressed, and noted that in January 2018, when Haiti assumed the presidency of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), it would organize a regional conference aimed at establishing an inter-State commission that would devise a strategy for addressing climate issues, such as the availability of climate insurance.More broadly, he said Haiti has taken steps to consolidate democracy and the rule of law, having made significant efforts to promote development and political stability. Noting that corruption has “infected” and eroded Haiti’s economy, and compromised its political situation, he said it is time that official development assistance (ODA) and domestic resources upheld the interests of the Haitian nation. In the meantime, Haiti’s new leaders are waging an unwavering struggle against corruption.Addressing two phenomena stemming from the UN presence in Haiti – heinous sexual abuse and exploitation by peacekeepers and other personnel, and the cholera epidemic – he said the Organization is morally obliged to provide the recourses to ensure that cholera left the country.Improving Haiti’s health system, including by eradicating cholera, is a Government priority for his Despite some progress, the number of cholera victims stood at 10,000 people and continued to grow. Further, there were tens of thousands of cholera orphans. The United Nations must live by and give tangible form to its noble ideals, including the announced ‘new approach’ to dealing with cholera, he stressed, by shouldering all its responsibilities to remedy the situation, which had caused grave harm to the Haitian people.Full statement (in French) available hereBy: UN News Centre | September 21, 2017
Positive Meeting Between Moïse And The IDB
On Tuesday, on the sidelines of the 72nd Ordinary Session of the United Nations General Assembly, President Jovenel Moïse received in audience Luis Alberto Moreno, President of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to discuss the priorities of the Government of Haiti.President Moïse insisted on the Caravan of Change as a strategy to bring the State closer to the population by providing basic services and giving it the tools it needs to develop its environment. A medium-term strategy aiming to attract investment in the region; to build road, energy and social infrastructures.For his part, the President of the IDB welcomed initiatives to deconcentrate public services, fight corruption and reform public administration.Moreno indicated that he intended to take steps to support the implementation of the priorities of the Moïse Administration and announced that he will visit Haiti on October to inquire about the progress of the Caravan of Change and assess its needs.This meeting is part of President Moïse' determination to find more opportunities for the country and to attract potential investors to Haiti.By: HL/ HaitiLibre | September 21, 2017
Dubai sends Dh712,500 emergency airlift to Haiti
His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, has provided, upon request from the United Nations World Food Programme and UNHRD partners, the B747-400 aircraft which flew out of Dubai International Airport at 4:30 am, September 7, to Port-au-Prince, Haiti airport. The plane is expected to land in Haiti tomorrow, the 8th of September 2017, at 8:00 pm UAE time.The Dubai Air Wings aircraft to Haiti carried more than 90 metric tonnes of key relief items, valued at more than $194,000 (Dh712,500), made available by the International Humanitarian City members.The air cargo transporting aid on behalf of the World Food Programme, Catholic Relief Services, and CARE came in response to the forecast of a monster storm, Hurricane Irma, as it bears down South America, and is expected to hit the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Haiti, and Cuba in the coming days.Upon hearing about Irma, believed to be one of the most powerful Atlantic storms ever recorded, a quick mobilization was crucial to be able to reach the destination before any potential closure of airports. It was made possible thanks to the coordinated efforts of IHC and its members, under the chairmanship of Her Royal Highness Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein.HRH Princess Haya hailed the emergency airlift as a symbol of the UAE commitment to humanitarian assistance. "This rapid response is the fruit of an unprecedented cooperation and a proof of our robust support to vulnerable populations all over the world," she said.Among the relief and survival items, on board are food and non-food supplies: 2000 tarpaulins, enough high-energy biscuits to feed 47100 people over 3 days, mobile storage units, lighting equipment, water purification kits, and pool testers.This is the fifth relief plane sent in 2017 by IHC with the support of HH Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum to crisis and disaster-stricken areas; earlier this year, aid was air dispatched to Madagascar, South Sudan, Uganda and Iraq.Similarly, HRH Princess Haya flew last year in October 2016 to Haiti and personally oversaw the delivery and distribution of relief supplies after hurricane Matthew had demolished the island.By: Khaleej Times |September 7, 2017
What Bill And Hillary Clinton Did To Haiti!
(ThyBlackMan.com) ‘BUT YOU DISOWNED THE HOLY AND RIGHTEOUS ONE AND ASK FOR A MURDERER BE GRANTED TO YOU ! …ACTS 3:14LIKE all crime families the CLINTON’S are involved in many illicit endeavors , bank fraud, charities, drug dealing and murder when necessary but even by the CLINTON’S standards the theft of billions of dollars from the already impoverished nation of HAITI after the devastating 2010 earthquake that killed 300,000 people was a new low.ACCORDING to former and present HAITIAN officials only .06 % of the donated money given by international donors to the CLINTON FOUNDATION for the rebuilding HAITI actually went to HAITIAN organizations and another 9.6 % wound up in the hands of the HAITIAN government the remaining 89.8 % about $ 5.4 BILLION was stolen away from the HAITIAN people .THE CLINTON’S were also accused of raising another $100 million for the purpose of construction a hospital that was never built , it’s funny because the only presidential candidate that bought up the HAITIAN issue during the presidential campaign was TRUMP when he accused BILL CLINTON of using his influence to solicit donations from his FOB’S of ‘friends of bill’s’ in return for political favors and rebuilding contracts and according to the UNITED NATIONS office of special envoy to HAITI BILL CLINTON had undertaken 75 projects himself in the first year worth $3.2 billion but only five had been completed for only $84 million and the second year 2012 the IHRC reported that $ 9.5 billion been pledged and only $ 5.9 million had been disbursed but nobody knows where.THE CLINTON’S have a long history in HAITI starting with their honeymoon and prior to the earthquake BILL CLINTON was named U.N special envoy to HAITI in 2009 but it still didn’t stop them from raising money in these poor people’s name and simply walking away with it and leaving a devastated country in complete ruins 7 years after the earthquake and also leaving the HAITIAN people hurt and angry. https://youtu.be/3c2oBh1yDhcWHO IS LAURA SILSBY ?MOST of us may not know this but HAITI is the child trafficking capital of the world and these people ‘child traffickers’ actually gravitate to calamities like natural disasters and war knowing these societies are busted up and many of its children are unprotected , LAURA SILSBY and her NEW LIFE CHILDREN’S REFUGE and 10 missionaries from IDAHO were some of these people who were caught trying to cross the DOMINICAN REPUBLICAN border with 33 HAITIAN children who were not orphans and had families and fake bandages had been placed on them to feign injury and since they did not have authorization to transport the children the HAITIAN government who were on the look out for traffickers arrested her and the group of missionaries.NINE of the ten missionaries were later released but LAURA SILSBY was detained and put on trial and the found guilty but was only given time served and released.AND now thanks to HILLARY’S aide HUMA ABEDIN who’s emails were leaked by WIKILEAKS , we know HILLARY had a long history with the child trafficker LAURA SILSBY and it started around 2001 , the emails also state HILLARY’S interest in LAURA purchasing the land in the DOMINICAN REPUBLIC to build a orphanage but the D.R said she never made such a application. https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/3776HUMA was constantly sending articles to HILLARY about LAURA and her organization , they discussed her lawyer ‘JORGE PUELLO TORRES’ a man who also a convicted child trafficker https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/32/323249_-os-haiti-us-legal-adviser-to-u-s-haiti-missionaries.html and even more disturbing , how much does it cost to transport the children and also the most important thing that was discussed was HILLARY urging BILL to put pressure of the HAITIAN government to get LAURA released.I can’t say for sure HILLARY is directly involved in child trafficking but the articles and emails paint a disturbing picture because LAURA SILSBY and her associates are all known child traffickers but you do have to ask yourself why would HILLARY have anything to do with a person like her?https://youtu.be/xPBk7YHzdBM THE CLINTON’S KILL!THIS is a update of the HAITIAN story,in the wake of the CLINTON’S long political career the have left a trail of dead bodies long enough to wrap around the planet and almost all died mysteriously and at the most opportune time for the CLINTON’S like prior to elections and or court appearances and now we have the latest , it was a HAITIAN official due to testify last month at the HAITIAN SENATE -ETHICS AND ANTI- CORRUPTION COMMISSION, he was going to expose the extent of the corruption that went on in HAITI with the CLINTON FOUNDATION.HIS name was KLAUS ERBERWIN and he stated many times to friends and family that he feared for his life , obviously he knew the history of the CLINTON’S, his friends and family are all shocked and claimed he was in good health and spirits and can’t believe he took his own life.HIS death was ruled a suicide although he was shot in the head with a shot gun, KLAUS ERBERWIN was a fierce critic of the CLINTON’S and he was one of the HAITIAN official that openly protested at the CLINTON’S foundation headquarters in NEW YORK where he said of the CLINTON’S ‘ they are thieves, they are liars and a disgrace and he should’ve added they’re also killers!ThyBlackMan.com - August 9, 2017