By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/haiti1rentchina012710.html
UNITED NATIONS, January 27 -- UN peacekeepers have been firing tear gas and, according to eye witnesses, rubber bullets at Haitian aid seekers. Meanwhile, the UN confirmed on Wednesday that the Chinese search and rescue team which appeared so quickly in Haiti left just as quickly, as soon as it recovered the bodies of its own national who had been visiting the UN Mission, MINUSTAH.
Inner City Press asked MINUSTAH's David Wimhurst about the use of rubber bullets and tear gas, which Wimhurst previously said he had not witnessed in Cite Soleil on January 24.
Wednesday, Wimhurst counted the Cite Soleil "incident" as one of two uses of tear gas. He said the use by the UN is under "strict rules and regulations" that are "well established." Video here, from Minute 32:31.
Wimhurst said he is "not aware of rubber bullets" being used, despite numerous eye witness accounts of both Uruguayan and Brazilian UN peacekeepers firing into the air. Inner City Press asked about similar reports of peacekeepers leaving behind food and in one case a pile of radios, which were then fought over.
Wimhust said he was "not aware of [these] being left behind," adding that battalions take their equipment with them. But these are transistor radios. Inner City Press asked him to confirm that the UN was paying $94,000 a month for the Christopher Hotel, now collapsed. "The number you mention is probably close to the amount," Wimhurst replied, saying that Security informs him the Hotel was MOSS compliant. Video here, from Minute 12:15. We'll see.
Wimhurst remained silent when asked to explicitly confirm that the Chinese search and rescue team left immediately after digging out its own national. But when asked twice to name a single other place in Haiti where the Chinese team had dug, he could not. "They went back to China," he said. Video here, from Minute 10:02.
China is this month's UN Security Council President. We will be pursuing this. Watch this site.
Footnote: The UN's noon briefing on Wednesday, 15 days after the Haiti earthquake, was limited to a video link to MINUSTAH, with no other UN questions taken on any other topic. Some said that Spokesman Martin Nesirky was still busy from having accompanied Ban Ki-moon into the Security Council earlier on Wednesday. But his Office has other staffers.
And see, www.innercitypress.com/haiti1rentchina012710.html
