UNITED NATIONS, September 9 -- After Bill Clinton's pep talk on Haiti at the UN Security Council on September 9, the actual head of the UN mission in the country responded testily to questions from the Press. Despite the canned and glowing words in the Council, there is a far from marginal view in Haiti that the peacekeepers act like they are on vacation, may at times sexually exploit or even kill Haitian with seeming impunity, and have at times been involved at least as middle men in kidnappings for money in the country.\
Inner City Press asked Hedi Annabi to report on how many of the 111 Sri Lankan peacekeepers who were accused of sexual abuse and repatriated to Sri Lanka were in fact disciplined in the country. Annabi complained that the question had been asked before, each time he is at the UN in fact -- but it has yet to be answered.
Annabi's boss Alain Le Roy some months ago promised a transparent process for reporting how many repatriated peacekeepers are disciplined. But the promised web site is not online, and from Wednesday's stakeout answers by the Prime Minister, it appears that even the Haitian government has not been told what discipline was meted out. So the question will continue to be asked. Annabi said "a number" without specifying, then added that evidence is difficult in these cases. So this is the UN's zero tolerance policy?
Inner City Press asked the Prime Minister for the outcome of the investigation into who killed the marcher on June 18 at the funeral of Reverend Gerard Jean-Juste. She said this was up to "the authorities," and refused to confirm reports that earlier on Wednesday police arrested students in Port au Prince who were protesting for a higher minimum wage and for the removal of UN peacekeepers. She called this a "marginal" view.
With Annabi still at the stakeout as it hit 9 p.m., Inner City Press prefaced a question on kidnapping by saying Annabi's answer was predicable. Annabi replied, then why do you ask the question? To get it on the record: have UN peacekeepers or UN police at any time been involved, even as protection for payment of ransom, in kidnappings in Haiti? Annabi appeared to answer "no."Video here. We'll see.
And see, www.innercitypress.com/ungo6haiti090909.html
