The New Dark Age

14 March 2012 — HLLN

In this post

• Two Pakistani UN soldiers jailed for raping Haitian boy UN soldiers patrol in Port-au-Prince,  March 13, 2012, BBChttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-17351144
• Two UN Pakistani peacekeepers convicted in Haiti ?http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/story/2012-03-13/Haiti–UN-peacekeepers/53515134/1
• Haiti, Cholera and the United Nations: Negligence and the Rule of Law http://bit.ly/ABF3ox
• Link Ezili Danto’s Note on: Bill Clinton – Slick Willy’s-  recent and sudden admission that a UN soldier brought cholera to Haiti and the UN‘s apparent strategic denial.

Recommended HLLN Link: Video – RBM series written&performed by Ezili Dantò Video http://on.fb.me/AhOAUb

 

Video – Ogou m rele w… Ezili Danto with legendary Haitian Drummer and NEA fellow: Frisner Augustin for Bwa Kayiman Ceremony http://bit.ly/a8nZtH

 

Your drum beats on Frisner. We’ll always hear. Yon jou m tonbe m ap leve… Ogou m rele w… http://nyti.ms/yKNdD1

 

Support Ezili’s work Make donation http://bit.ly/7UMx7q

 

HLLN on Haiti‘s cholera case against the UN in light of UN–US recent admissions http://bit.ly/yxXZpt

 

Two Pakistani UN soldiers jailed for raping Haitian boy UN soldiers patrol in Port-au-Prince

 

March 13, 2012, BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-17351144

 

Two United Nations peacekeepers from Pakistan have been sentenced to a year in prison and sacked from the army for raping a 14-year-old boy in Haiti.

 

The soldiers were found guilty by a Pakistani military tribunal in Haiti and will serve their terms back home.

 

The attack in Gonaives in January was not the first time UN peacekeepers have been accused of assault.

 

Last year, five Uruguayan soldiers were accused of sexually assaulting a teenage boy at a UN base.

 

In that case a video which purported to show the attack was posted on the internet, leading to protests in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, and calls for the UN to leave the country.

 

There have also been demands that UN soldiers should be stripped of their immunity and be tried by Haitian courts.

 

Monday’s ruling was the first time that UN personnel have been tried and sentenced while still in the country.

 

Haitian Justice Minister Michel Brunache said the verdict was a small step in the right direction but that “we expected more from the UN and the Pakistani government”.

 

The UN peacekeeping mission has been deployed in Haiti since 2004.

 

Its reputation was particularly damaged by a cholera epidemic in 2010, which is thought to have been caused by sewage from a camp housing peacekeepers from Nepal.

 

Two UN Pakistani peacekeepers convicted in Haiti http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/story/2012-03-13/Haiti–UN-peacekeepers/53515134/1

 

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) – Two United Nations peacekeepers in Haiti have been sentenced to a year in prison with hard labor after a rare trial found them guilty of sexual abuse and exploitation, a U.N. spokeswoman said Tuesday.

 

Spokeswoman Sylvie Van Den Wildenberg said the United Nations was informed last week that the two Pakistani police officers were convicted by a Pakistani military court in the Haitian port city of Gonaives and were discharged. No U.N. personnel or Haitian officials were present for the trial, she said.

 

It was the first time that troops from the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Haiti, known by its French acronymn of Minustah, have been tried and sentenced within the country.

 

U.N. authorities also were told that Pakistan intends to compensate the victims, but has not determined the amount, Van Den Wildenberg said.

 

She added that Pakistan withdrew its 150 members of the U.N. peacekeeping mission on Friday. It was not clear if Pakistan planned to replace the unit.

 

The case involving the members of a police unit in Gonaives began in January, along with a separate case concerning U.N. police officers in Haiti‘s capital, Port-au-Prince. The troops were removed from duty pending the outcome of the investigations. U.N. officials didn’t release the nationality of these troops.

 

The trial came just months after six Uruguayan troops with the U.N. peacekeeping force in Haiti were accused of abusing a young Haitian man. The case was referred to the Uruguayan judicial system.

 

The cases have done little to improve relations between the U.N. and some Haitians who view the mission as an occupying force.

 

Tensions between the world body and Haiti were exacerbated after a peacekeeping unit from Nepal was blamed for introducing cholera to the Caribbean nation in the months following the January 2010 earthquake. The outbreak has killed more than 7,000 people and sickened more than 526,000 others, Haitian health officials say.

 

The cholera outbreak prompted a Haitian law firm and its international partner to file a complaint against the U.N. last year on behalf of the victims, which is under review by its legal office.

 

The case could prove tricky because U.N. personnel are granted immunity under a status of forces agreement signed between the U.N. and Haiti.

 

Haiti, Cholera and the United Nations: Negligence and the Rule of Law by Lauren Carasik, Feb. 29, 2012, http://bit.ly/ABF3ox

 

When the United Nations Security Council visited Haiti last week to assess its reconstruction progress, it should have evaluated the impact of the UN’s refusal to accept responsibility for the claims brought by victims of the cholera introduced to Haiti by UN peacekeepers.  Like any entity, the UN has a right to defend itself against claims leveled against it.  In this case however, the UN should consider whether efforts to thwart accountability undermines its overarching global mission of promoting the rule of law and fighting poverty. [ France 24)] (Photo: France 24)

 

Cholera, not seen in Haiti in almost a century and not endemic to the country, hitched its way into Haiti through the UN stabilization force, known by its French acronym, MINUSTAH.  The Independent Panel convened by the UN to investigate the source of the outbreak essentially conceded that cholera was brought to Haiti by its forces and was spread through its negligent oversight of waste disposal.  Since cholera began its deadly march in October, 2010, the epidemic has claimed 7000 lives, sickened hundreds of thousands, and made life more miserable for the millions of Haitians already struggling to eke out a living in grinding poverty.  Haiti now suffers the highest rate of cholera infection in the world, at 5% of the population.

 

Despite the strong evidence of malfeasance, the UN endeavors to insulate itself from liability by laying the blame for the spread of cholera on the conditions in Haiti that made it a particularly hospitable vector for transmission of the disease.  This defense flies in the face of traditional theories of tort liability, which require that wrongdoers take their victims as they find them. In essence, the “eggshell skull” rule holds that negligent actors cannot escape liability for the harms they cause by pointing to the particular vulnerability of their victims. This is exactly what the UN has done in this instance in attempting to attribute the epidemic to a “confluence of factors” endemic to Haiti rather than its own conduct.

 

As the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, Haiti’s woefully inadequate infrastructure for health and sanitation could surprise no one. The UN, along with the Centers for Disease Control and others had been warning of a cholera outbreak since the earthquake. Cognizant of the fragile conditions in Haiti, and the risk for the spread of cholera that such conditions presented, the UN should have taken heightened precautions to ensure that its peacekeepers were not carrying potentially epidemic diseases, and further exercised sound oversight of the waste disposal procedures.  The Independent Panel’s own recommendations for future safeguards demonstrate that such precautions were feasible. Wrongdoing on the part of the United Nations is beyond dispute: the UN tacitly admits as much in its report. By any standard, the UN was negligent.

 

The UN’s defense, that Haiti’s vulnerability absolves it of liability, would be laughed out of court, if the UN would ever permit the adjudication of claims leveled against it. Instead, the UN has constructed a web of procedural protections designed to ensure that it will never face a full and fair hearing on complaints about its conduct. The Status of Forces Agreement between Haiti and the United Nations confers broad immunity to MINUSTAH troops for criminal wrongdoing.  Civil claims against the UN are ostensibly to be resolved by a three person Standing Claims commission established by the United Nations, a tribunal which has yet to be constituted, despite the fact that MINUSTAH troop have been occupying Haitian soil since 2004.

 

It is notable that the UN has never established a standing claims commission in its other missions, or otherwise allowed claims of large scale malfeasance to be tested in any fair forum.  While the UN has a legitimate interest in ensuring that specious claims are not permitted to distract from its mission, it should not be given a free pass to commit acts of negligence with complete impunity.  As an institution that promotes the rule of law, the UN should apply those venerable standards to its own conduct.

 

The UN’s attempt to evade responsibility for the introduction of the cholera epidemic to Haiti and its devastating aftermath is inconsistent with the UN’s overarching mission of advancing the rule of law among its member states, without exception. The UN should take seriously its obligation to model good global stewardship:  when provided with the opportunity to set an excellent example, the UN should seize the opportunity to demonstrate that no one is above the law.

 

Lauren Carasik is a Clinical Professor of Law and the Director of the International Human Rights Clinic and the Legal Services Clinic at Western New England University School of Law ?                                                  Forwarded by Ezili’s Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network

 

HLLN on Haiti‘s cholera case against the UN in light of UN–US recent admissions http://bit.ly/yxXZpt

 

Haiti anger over alleged Uruguay UN rape http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-14796970

 

Christian Missionary played savior while abusing Haiti Street kids http://bit.ly/i5juga

 

2010: Justice for Haiti prevailed: Perlitz going away for a long time http://bit.ly/ienFwQ #Haiti

 

Video:Sentencing for Christian Missionary Douglas Perlitz Haiti Child sex abuser http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6a6LhV99yY

 

Humanitarian aid workers and UN peacekeepers raping and sexually abusing the poor and powerless in Haiti http://www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/festival.html#sexexploitation

 

“If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” — Lily Watson

 

“Why is there a UN Chapter 7 peace enforcement mission in Haiti for 8 years – a country not at war, without a peace agreement to enforce and with less violence than most countries in the Western Hemisphere?” — Ezili Dantò of HLLN (See the UN‘s own Global Study on Homicide at page 93 – http://bit.ly/pjeWvQ )