Headlines, Human Rights, Latin America & the Caribbean

HAITI: Uruguayan Peacekeepers Are Good Neighbours

Darío Montero

LES CAYES, Haiti, Jun 3 2005 (IPS) - The family graveyards in front of the homes of rural residents were just one of the eye-opening experiences awaiting the Uruguayan soldiers who arrived in southwestern Haiti 11 months ago as part of the U.N. peacekeeping troops.

When a military contingent comes to “stabilise” an area – as in the case of the United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) – tombstones in the front yard and a chilly response from the local population do not make for a very welcoming climate.

But within a short while, the troops of the Uruguayan battalion, the second-largest MINUSTAH contingent, earned the trust and respect of the area’s residents.

And while the respect they command may stem in part from the fact that they are armed, people also recognise that their weapons are a way to ensure everyone’s security, the battalion members stress.

The Uruguayans have also learned from the experience. For instance, the tombstones and crosses reflect the practice of a variation of voodoo, the religion that came to Haiti from Africa with the slaves brought to the Caribbean island of Hispaniola (shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic) after the indigenous population was decimated by the European colonisers.

The first Uruguayan troops arrived in the southwestern region of Haiti in early August 2004. This is a primarily agricultural area, divided by a mountain, the greenest in a country that has barely two percent of the forest cover that existed prior to colonisation.

The troops were followed two weeks later by the “funny-looking war machines,” as the local children have dubbed the armoured vehicles the soldiers drive.

As of Thursday, with a new deployment of troops in the port of Miragoane, there are now four bases with 770 Uruguayan soldiers in an area covering 1,600 square km.

This is not only the quietest and best controlled area in the country, the military leadership told IPS, but also the largest of the nine operations zones covered by the U.N. mission, which encompasses a total of 6,700 troops from around 30 countries.

Not everyone in Les Cayes is comfortable with the presence of the military. Armed bands, political groupings and criminal gangs – often separated by a very thin dividing line – keep a watchful eye on the area, which was the birthplace of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the deposed president now living in exile in South Africa.

Haiti has been wracked by violence for close to two years. When Aristide stepped down in February 2004, armed bands took control of the capital, after having successfully advanced on various cities throughout the country over the preceding weeks.

Aristide later maintained that U.S. marines had forced him to resign and to board a plane that took him to the Central African Republic.

The former president’s party, the Lavalas Family, remains a dominant force in this part of the country.

Aristide was born in nearby Port Salut, and devoted many years to social struggles in the area as a Catholic priest. The Lavalas Family’s foothold here serves as a deterrent to the scattered bands of former members of the armed forces dissolved by Aristide in 1994.

This was an exclusive tourism destination back when Haiti was ruled by the Duvalier dynasty (1957-1986), ringed by mountains that keep out radio and television signals, but it is now as impoverished as the rest of the country.

The best hotel in the area, completed but not yet inaugurated, was transformed instead into the base of one of the Uruguayan peacekeeping units.

Aristide’s most notorious supporters, the armed bands known as “chimeres” or ghosts, took refuge in the practically inaccessible mountains of the area, and have kept a low profile. Nobody admits to membership in these groups, and the interim authorities forbid the very mention of them.

“But they are there,” say the MINUSTAH officials who have been unable to make contact with them, “primarily because they have no clear representatives.”

On the other hand, the peacekeeping mission is in fairly regular contact with a small group of former Haitian soldiers, who agreed to an interview with Uruguayan journalists visiting the country this week.

The meeting took place near the port of Les Cayes, where the main MINUSTAH base is located. “Lieutenant” Calixe agreed to speak with the visiting reporters, but eyed them with suspicion. When faced with a question he did not care to answer, he switched over to Haitian Creole, which is largely incomprehensible to the French-speaking interpreters of the U.N. mission.

Questioned about his group’s relationship with the local police, he responded, “We are soldiers on active duty, and the police force is our younger sister.”

Calixe stressed that Aristide issued a decree to demobilise the armed forces but that no actual law was passed, a fact that the soldiers use to back their claim that they form part of a legitimate institution in accordance with the Haitian constitution – which nobody respects, in any event.

He added that his group chose to position itself a short distance from the city centre, because the local residents “are very friendly and treat us with respect.”

It is well-known that the former soldiers, Lavalas Family members and criminal gangs alike are armed to the teeth, whether with old shotguns or the most sophisticated light weaponry.

One of MINUSTAH’s main tasks is to confiscate weapons, but only those that are not registered. To do this, a number of fixed and mobile “control points” have been established, where people can turn in their guns in exchange for being registered on the voter’s list, which serves as a sort of proof of citizenship.

The coming elections are scheduled for October and November.

Nevertheless, everyone knows – including the foreign soldiers – that there are still a great many unregistered weapons throughout the country. “There is no doubt that when people turn in a gun, they often still have others at home,” a MINUSTAH official commented to IPS.

A confiscation operation set up at a roadblock and observed by IPS took place without incident, with the full cooperation of the occupants of the vehicles searched. Not even the massive traffic jam that resulted, a daily occurrence in the country at any rate, managed to ruffle tempers.

For the Haitian authorities, “the south doesn’t exist,” a peacekeeping officer told IPS, referring to the climate of calm in the area and the population’s friendly acceptance of the U.N. mission.

But the south is not that far removed from Port-au-Prince, where violence erupted on Tuesday. Clashes between armed bands and the burning down of a market left 11 dead from gunshots or fire.

Also on Tuesday, the honorary French consul to the northern city of Cap-Haitien, Paul-Henri Mourral, was shot and killed while driving near Cité Soleil, the largest slum in Port-au-Prince.

In the capital and the northern part of the country, violence breaks out on a regular basis, and MINUSTAH troops from other countries sometimes respond with actions that border on abuse, said an Uruguayan official, who refrained from specifying the countries these troops hail from.

MINUSTAH was originally scheduled to wrap up its operations on Wednesday, but the day before, the U.N. Security Council extended its mandate until Jun. 24, and will discuss an even longer extension of the mission over the weeks to come. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan has proposed an extension of a full year.