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Human rights lawyers
representing the victims of the United Nations cholera epidemic
in Haiti expressed their outrage that the Uruguayan UN
Peacekeepers caught on tape raping a Haitian teenager last
summer were freed in Uruguay. They called on MINUSTAH, the UN
peacekeeping mission in Haiti, to waive the immunity that
enables regular acts of rape, torture and even murder by
MINUSTAH troops, and to allow an independent mechanism to
evaluate claims by cholera victims and others hurt by MINUSTAH
malfeasance.
“It is hard to think of a
stronger rape case,” said Mario Joseph, Av, the Managing
Attorney of the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI) in
Haiti. “The perpetrators documented it on their cellphone.
Yet the UN still denied it happened at first. Under public
pressure MINUSTAH promised justice, but did not deliver it.”
“This case follows a
familiar pattern established over seven years,” said Brian
Concannon Jr., Director of the Boston-based Institute for
Justice & Democracy in Haiti (IJDH), and former UN Volunteer in
Haiti. “MINUSTAH denies all malfeasance, then delays. Its’
explanations would be laughed out of court, except that the UN
makes sure that it never gets brought into court. In the
meantime Haitians are regularly raped and exploited and
occasionally tortured and murdered, and tens of thousands
contract cholera every month.”
“The UN should demonstrate
its commitment to its own principles of justice and human rights
by conducting serious, prompt investigations, waiving its
immunity where possible and allowing civil claims against it to
be decided by an impartial tribunal,” said Joseph.
MINUSTAH has operated in Haiti since June 2004, and
has an annual budget of $800 million. The mission contains 10%
of all UN Peacekeepers, even though Haiti has not had an
internationally-recognized war in decades. The UN cholera
epidemic is the world’s worst, and kills about 200 Haitians each
month. For more information about MINUSTAH impunity and the
cholera case, see www.IJDH.org. |
