By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/haiti2bullets020110.html
UNITED NATIONS, February 1 -- Of the UN's use of tear gas in Haiti, the UN first denied it, then called it routine and regulated. Now, with its quasi partner Wyclef Jean saying he will speak to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon about this "unacceptable" practice, the UN is at once acknowledging past use and saying it won't happen in the future.
Inner City Press at the February 1 noon briefing asked top Haiti envoy Edmond Mulet and his new adviser Michele Montas about Wyclef Jean's protest of the UN. Video here, from Minute 25:51.
Mr. Mulet answered that in the "first days" after the earthquake, there were "some of this incidents."
"All that has been taken care of," he said. "That is not happening anymore." This was tied, as he presented it, not to any swearing off of pepper spray, but due to what he called the instant success of the World Food Program's shift to distributing food coupons rather than food, only to women. He was asked about reports of some distributions breaking down this very day.
Ban Ki-moon traveled to Haiti with Wyclef Jean in March 2009, accompanied by Bill Clinton. What does he think of the UN's use of tear gas?
The Haitian National Police, with whom the UN proudly collaborates, are known to have shot and killed a number of "scavengers," and even some others.
Inner City Press asked Mulet about this. Mulet said the UN has "heard reports," acknowledged that "maybe elements of the HNP" shot at "looters." Video here, from Minute 27:37.
Earlier, the UN had urged journalists not to report on "looters."
And see, www.innercitypress.com/haiti2bullets020110.html
