{"id":9889,"date":"2011-12-09T04:38:24","date_gmt":"2011-12-09T04:38:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theredphoenixapl.org\/?p=9889"},"modified":"2011-12-09T04:38:24","modified_gmt":"2011-12-09T04:38:24","slug":"a-rape-in-haiti","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/2011\/12\/a-rape-in-haiti\/","title":{"rendered":"A Rape in Haiti"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Video Shows UN Troops in Sexual Assault<\/span><\/h3>\n

by MARK WEISBROT<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The video is profoundly disturbing. It shows four men, identified as Uruguayan troops from the UN mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), apparently raping an 18-year old Haitian youth. Two of them have the victim pinned down on a mattress, with his hands twisted high up his back so that he cannot move. Perhaps the most unnerving part of the video is the constant chorus of laughter from the perpetrators; it\u2019s just a big drunken party to them.<\/span><\/p>\n

ABC News<\/span> reports<\/a> that Uruguayan Navy Lieutenant Nicolas Casariego confirmed the authenticity of the video. A medical certificate filed with the court in Port Salut, a southern coastal town where the incident took place, says that the victim was beaten and had injuries consistent with a sexual assault.<\/span><\/p>\n

The incident is likely to pour more gasoline on the fire of resentment that Haitians have for the UN troops that have occupied their country for more than seven years. There has been a terrible pattern of abuses: in December 2007, more than 100 UN soldiers from Sri Lanka<\/span> were deported<\/a> under charges of sexual abuse of under-age girls. In 2005, UN troops invaded Cit\u00e9 Soleil, one of the poorest areas in Port-au-Prince,<\/span> killing<\/a> as many as 23 people, including children, according to witnesses. After the raid, the humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders<\/span> reported<\/a>: \u201dOn that day we treated 27 people for gunshot wounds. Of them, around 20 were women under the age of 18.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Wikileaks cables<\/span> released<\/a> in the last week reveal that the Timothy Carney, representing the United States government as the top-ranking diplomat in Haiti in 2006, warned that such raids would \u201cinevitably cause unintended civilian casualties given the crowded conditions and flimsy construction of tightly packed housing in Cit\u00e9 Soleil\u201d. But Washington \u2013 showing its lack of respect for human life in Haiti \u2013 offered no objections to further raids, which continued into 2006.<\/span><\/p>\n

And make no mistake about it: the UN occupation of Haiti is really a U.S. occupation \u2013 it is no more a multilateral force than George W. Bush\u2019s \u201ccoalition of the willing\u201d that invaded Iraq. And it is hardly more legitimate, either: it was sent there in 2004 after a<\/span> U.S.-led effort<\/a> toppled Haiti\u2019s democratically elected government. Far from providing security for Haitians in the aftermath of the coup, MINUSTAH stood by while<\/span> thousands of Haitians<\/a> who had supported the elected government were killed, and officials of the constitutional government jailed. Recent Wikileaks cables<\/span> also confirm<\/a> that the U.S. government sees MINUSTAH as an instrument of its policy there.<\/span><\/p>\n

This latest incident could shed some light on the nature of its mission, just as the photos from Abu Ghraib made plain for most of the world the brutality of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Images cannot be so easily dismissed or buried as words. And the images from this video are symbolic of what the \u201cinternational community\u201d has been doing to Haiti since the country won its independence from France in the world\u2019s first successful slave-led revolution.<\/span><\/p>\n

There is no legitimate reason for a military mission of the United Nations in Haiti. The country has no civil war, and is not the subject of a peace-keeping or post-conflict agreement. And the fact that UN troops are immune from prosecution or legal action in Haiti encourages abuses. The occupying troops don\u2019t speak the language either, which severely limits their capacity for any positive security role; can you imagine how effective a Washington D.C. police force would be if it spoke only Japanese?<\/span><\/p>\n

To make things even worse, it is now<\/span> virtually certain<\/a> that MINUSTAH brought the cholera bacteria to Haiti<\/span> that has killed<\/a> more than 6000 Haitians and infected more than 400,000 in the last 10 months. This was an act of gross negligence: there should have been supervision to make sure that fecal waste from UN troops was not dumped into the water supply, given the risks of such a deadly contamination and the known incapacity of Haiti\u2019s water, sanitation, and public health system.<\/span><\/p>\n

How long can MINUSTAH continue to occupy and abuse Haiti?<\/span><\/p>\n

Mark Weisbrot<\/strong> is an economist and co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. He is co-author, with Dean Baker, of Social Security: the Phony Crisis.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Fuente<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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