Extra / & Flash Fiction: On Haiti UN Cholera and US Diss Recounted Then Hostage Taking and Barbecue the Focus - then an extra
More - a flash fiction of sorts - below the fold / paywall line here
On Haiti UN Cholera and US Diss Recounted Then Hostage Taking and Barbecue the Focus
by Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book Substack
UN Gate, July 23 – The United Nations' abuse of Haiti, killing 10,000 people cholera and not paying a penny, is but a footnote in recent reporting on the country, for example the New Yorker magazine's July 24 piece, "A Land Held Hostage."
The seventh paragraph recounts that UNSG "Antonio Guterres promised to 'stand by Haiti,' and recommended that the Security Council consider a deployment. But no international force has been willing."
And so one might conclude that Guterres means well, but those pesky member states are too cheap or cowardly, chief among them the Administration of Joe Biden, who is quoted: "if Haiti just quietly sunk into the Caribbean, or rose up three hundred feet, it wouldn't matter a whole lot in terms of our interests."
Perhaps. But what happened last time UN peacekeeper were in Haiti?
This is left for 16 paragraphs further in, that is, 24 grafs over all: "In July 2003, hundreds of peacekeepers engaged in a seven-hour firefight with gang members in Cite Soleil, reportedly firing more than 22,000 bullets and killing as many as fifty people." And that was just the beginning. It continues: "the peacekeepers were accused of sexual misconduct" - this was beyond accusations, with the blue helmet babies to prove it - "and also caused a cholera epidemic, by dumping raw sewage into a river. Though ten thousand Haitians died, the UN never formally acknowledged responsibility, let alone compensated the victims' families."
Is it any wonder, then, that the article later still quotes Mirlande Manigat, described "one of the country's most respected public figures, that "because of the sour legacy of the UN peacekeeping force, she did not favor an international stabilization force. 'The idea demoralizes Haitians,' she said. 'We know what happens.'"
And so do we. Inner City Press accompanied and wrote about the UN Security Council's last trip or "mission" to Haiti - and soon after, was thrown out of the UN, and is banned still (though applying to re-enter, here).
More - a flash fiction - below the fold / paywall line here
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