Excerpts below from a June 2005 cable posted by the Brazilian newspaper Folha, in which the State Department, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, impresses upon Brazil the need to keep former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide out of Haiti, prevent him exercising any political influence, and for MINUSTAH to “robustly” deal with gangs (hat tip to lo-de-alla’s David Holmes Morris).

The discussion took place six months after MINUSTAH commander General Augusto Heleno Ribeiro told a congressional commission in Brazil, “We are under extreme pressure from the international community to use violence,” the day after Rice’s predecessor, Colin Powell, publicly demanded MINUSTAH crack down on gangs.

In the discussions, the GOB officials made clear continued Brazilian resolve to keep Aristide from returning to the country or exerting political influence, and reiterated Brazil’s strategy that security, assistance and political dialogue should move in tandem as priorities in the international effort. The GOB officials registered USG points on the need to curb spiraling violence and reinforce MINUSTAH credibility vice the gangs, but did not clearly share the same degree of urgency on this point…

They noted the meeting between Secretary Rice and FM Amorim in Florida on the margins of the OAS General Assembly in which the Secretary cited the need for firm MINUSTAH action and the possibility that the U.S. may be asked to send troops at some point (to which FM Amorim reportedly replied U.S. forces would be welcome under UN authorities). Ambassador and PolCouns also stressed continued USG insistence that all efforts must be made to keep Aristide from returning to Haiti or influencing the political process, and asked whether the GOB also remains firm on that point.

Using ref c points, Fisk emphasized that the USG is grateful for Brazil’s leadership in MINUSTAH, but expressed USG concern about growing violence, saying that the gangs are “losing their fear” of international PKO forces, creating violent instability and conditions for Aristide to exert his influence.

On Aristide, Patriota said that the mere fact of Aristide’s existence will always be problematic in terms of his influence on some elements of Haitian society, however much the international community works to isolate him. That said, the GOB had been encouraged by recent South African Government commitments to Brazil that the GSA would not allow Aristide to use his exile there to undertake political efforts (NFI).

From a cable two months later, which also notes that Brazilian President Lula’s thinking on Haiti was strongly influenced by a documentary he watched about the Rwanda genocide:

Brazil and other MINUSTAH contingents had launched successful “robust operations” in areas of Port-au-Prince over the past several weeks, Amorim said. In that context, he asked about USG funds for civil affairs and humanitarian projects that he had been led to understand would follow immediately on forceful MINUSTAH suppression actions against gangs and violent groups.

Another newly-released cable from November of 2004 discusses a Brazilian high-level advisor’s strong views of Aristide as a “criminal” who must be “exorcised” from Haiti after his fact-finding mission to the country.

Read up on the other Haiti-related disclosures in Wikileaks cables here.

UN peacekeepers guarding Haiti's Electoral Council from rioting protesters in December

He reemerged in the room and demanded everyone’s attention. The Haitian staff of the hotel were going straight home. Their families had called fearing violence would erupt in the streets, after a controversial speech by President Rene Preval in which he suggested he would stay on as head of state past for a few more months.

“If you don’t have private security with you, you should go back to where you’re spending the night right now,” he said gravely.

The foreign journalists exchanged nervous glances and some took their leave.

When I was ready, I left by bike to go home. The streets looked quiet, calm, normal. It seemed no such violence had broken out, not that night and not in the days after.

This is just to point out that fear of out-of-control violent Haitians is ever-present and often wholly disconnected from reality among the establishment foreign media and the privileged class of Haitians with which it mostly interacts.

The latest manifestation of that fear, in highly concentrated and sensationalized form, is Dan Reed’s new PBS Frontline documentary “The Battle for Haiti,” which lauds the United Nations peacekeeping mission and Haitian police chief Mario Andersol for waging a heroic but doomed battle against violent gangs. The film received an supportive, shallow review in the New York Times.

“We Must Kill the Bandits”, another new documentary, seemingly destined for obscurity but far more illuminating, examines the same so-called battle from a radically different angle. It’s the work of Kevin Pina, a Creole-speaking American journalist who has identified closely with Haiti’s political Lavalas movement for nearly twenty years. His is a tale of a grassroots struggle, with gang elements within it, straining to survive against an intense campaign of repression and assassination by the Haitian police and UN troops after the 2004 coup d’etat against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Both documentaries have weaknesses, but only one acknowledges them. Early on, Pina says of Lavalas, “This is their story, seen through my eyes and the lens of my camera,” admitting his bias and limited view. Read More…

A hard knot formed in my chest at 4:40 PM. I felt like my lungs was being clasped and pressurized by strong hands. Sitting in a chair near the bar at the Plaza Hotel, I was remembering what had happened exactly a year ago.

The rumbling, shaking. Speakers falling onto my laptop. Running over to grab it, then dashing to the outside door in case I needed to jump to the next roof. Downstairs, outside. My friends are ok. Screaming, people pushing past each other, crying, bloody, dusty, hurt, dead.

But I’ve relived those moments many times before, along with the rest of that night and the following days, without feeling so disturbed.

I was surrounded by well-heeled foreign journalists sipping drinks and munching on hamburgers, just hundreds of yards away from the miserable tent camps of Chanmas.

The Canada’s largest media outlet had called earlier in the day, asking for a live interview from the hotel. I told them about Ericq Pierre’s op-ed and that I would find them an English-speaking Haitian, a professor, activist, or lawyer, to do the interview. The producer agreed, but called back later:

“Sorry, but we’re just more comfortable with you.”
“That’s really disappointing. Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sorry, I can’t go any higher to ask on this.”

Over a plate of diri sos pwa, I mulled it over and talked with friends. They agreed I should do the interview and point out the CBC’s mistake on camera. Read More…

Co-authored with journalist Wadner Pierre and published today by Inter-Press Service.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Dec 2, 2010 (IPS) – Furious demonstrations continued across Haiti on Wednesday following the Nov. 28 highly contested election in which thousands found themselves unable to vote.

Rock-throwing and road-barricading protests were reported in Les Cayes, Hinche, Petit Goave and Archaie. On Tuesday, demonstrators clashed with United Nations peacekeeping troops in St. Marc and Gonaives. The U.N. mission issued several alerts to its personnel restricting movement.

Twelve of 19 presidential candidates called on Sunday for cancellation of the election results. They allege widespread fraud by the government in favour of the ruling party’s candidate, Jude Celestin.

Konpa singer Michel Martelly and another leading candidate have since backed away from the allegations.

“He saw all the fraud happening on election day,” motorcycle taxi driver Weed Charlot told IPS. “But now he sees he has some votes and power. So he’ll accept the election.”

Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) and the primary international observer mission said despite “irregularities”, there is not sufficient reason to invalidate the election. Read More…

I’m going to start splitting Haiti/Wikileaks-related content into separate posts.  Updates posted below or you can find them all collected at under the ‘wikileaks’ tag.

The Aftenposten 13: New Wikileaks Cables Show Extent of US Opposition to Aristide

Wikileaks: US Embassy Makes Its Case for MINUSTAH

Wikileaks: DR President Believes Brazilian MINUSTAH Commander Assassinated, Suspects Cover-Up

Wikileaks: UN Response to Gangs “Not Sufficiently Robust,” US tells Brazil; Blocking Aristide A Priority

Update 12/21: Diplomatic cables continue to paint Brazil as a reluctant participant in MINUSTAH, Haiti’s UN peacekeeping force. A March 2004 cable, just one month after the coup against Aristide, says Brazil communicated to the Bush administration’s Otto Reich that it would participate in the mission only so long as it was invoked under the UN Charter’s Chapter 6, not Chapter 7.

Brazil apparently gave up on that objection, but Haitians haven’t. As Camille Chalmers of PAPDA, one of many Haitian civil society organizations opposed to MINUSTAH’s presence, argued in October when the mission’s mandate was renewed again this year:

The presence of the mission deployed in Haiti under Chapter 7 of the United Nations charter is illegal, he states. This Chapter provides for the deployment of troops to maintain peace during genocides, civil war or crimes against humanity.

“Even if between 2003 and 2004 there was a severe political crisis [in Haiti], there was neither genocide, nor crimes against humanity, nor conflict within the population,” he recalls, maintaining that MINUSTAH enters into the framework of a “new offensive of American imperialism” to militarize the Caribbean region.

A professor described the difference between Chapter 6 and 7 to the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs this way:

The basic difference between Chapters VI and VII is that under Chapter VII, the Council may impose measures on states that have obligatory legal force and therefore need not depend on the consent of the states involved. To do this, the Council must determine that the situation constitutes a threat or breach of the peace. In contrast, measures under Chapter VI do not have the same force, and military missions under Chapter VI would rest on consent by the state in question.

By at least as early as May, Brazil had agreed to lead the mission but was insisting Washington do more to reach out to pro-Aristide political elements, according to another cable. Also today, the Guardian released a cable from Hilary Clinton in which she pointedly directs staff to counter “irresponsible” media coverage of US relief efforts in Haiti post-quake.

Update 12/12: A 2009 cable from the US Embassy in Rio De Janeiro describes a Brazilian General offering to “occupy and maintain control” of favelas, poor and violent shantytowns in Rio, arguing that his troops were “specifically trained and prepared” for the job because of their experience in Haiti with MINUSTAH.

A June 2007 cable entitled “A Southern Cone Perspective on Countering Chavez and Reasserting US Leadership” describes participation by Latin American countries in peacekeeping operations including MINUSTAH as “an increasingly unifying theme that completely excludes Chavez,” under the “Play to our Mil-Mil Advantage” section.

Update 12/6: From a just-released December 2009 cable from the US Embassy in Brasilia: “Less obviously, Brazil remains uncomfortable in its leadership on MINUSTAH. To the constant refrain of ‘we cannot continue this indefinitely,’ Brazil has been increasingly insistent that international efforts to promote security must go hand in hand with commitments to economic and social development-a theme it will take to the UNSC in January.”

Update 12/1: From a Jan. 2009 cable analyzing Brazil’s defense forces: “…the Army chapter does not, unlike the other services, raise the possibility of additional peacekeeping operations as a future mission, possibly a reflection of the Army’s frustration with the lack of an exit strategy in Haiti.”

The full text of the two classified cables analyzing President Rene Preval, written by former Ambassador to Haiti Janet Sanderson, are now available on the Cablegate site. The Le Monde article barely scratched the surface.

Key points and excerpts from June 2009 memo entitled “Deconstructing Preval”:

- “Managing Preval will remain challenging during the remainder of his term yet doing so is key to our success and that of Haiti. We must continue to find creative ways to work with him, influence him, and encourage him to recapture the activism of his first year in office”

- “He remains skeptical about the international community’s commitment to his government’s goals, for instance telling me that he is suspicious of how the Collier report will be used. He measures success with the international community – and the U.S.- in terms of positive response to his priorities, rather than according to some broader international benchmarks of success.” Read More…

Coffins block a downtown road in Cap Haitien.

I spoke to Democracy Now and Flashpoints Radio yesterday. A Free Speech Radio News story featuring some of the voices in the piece below aired on Friday.

CAP-HAITIEN – The first barricade looked harmless enough. Foot-long rocks piled next to each other in a line.

But as the bus driver slowed down, flying rocks landed in the street – thrown by youths crouching in the bushes up the hill.

“We don’t really have a country! The police don’t do anything!” a nun sitting across from me complained after the bus driver negotiated, with a little cash, our way past.

The man next to her said the country will always be mired in problems until a leader like Hugo Chavez or Fidel Castro takes power.

We must have passed a dozen more barricades, most unmanned.

After Limbe, where cholera has killed at least 100 people, we came to the biggest “barikad” yet in the highway. Thick trees lay across the road and hundreds of people, a few holding machetes, blocked the way.

The bus driver once again descended to negotiate, but didn’t appear to be making any progress. Most passengers grabbed their belongings and got out.

I decided to go too. As I gathered my things, there was a debate among the remaining passengers:

“He’s a blan (foreigner), he’s going to get hurt.”
“No no no, he speaks Creole, he’ll be fine.”
“They’re going to think he’s MINUSTAH. They’re not logical.”

MINUSTAH is the acronym for the UN peacekeeping mission. As I stepped off the bus, people standing at the road called me over and urged me not to go. It was the third day of so-called “cholera riots” against foreign troops blamed for introducing the disease into the country.

Someone said the protesters are violent “chimere,” a word for political gangs. I explained that it’s my job as a journalist to go talk to them.

Then two Haitian journalists who were on the bus pushed their way through the crowd and wrapped their arms around me. Everyone agreed, finally, that together with the two guys I could get through the barricades.

Elizer and Duval were coming back home to Cap Haitien. They were scared for me, saying under no circumstances should I talk with protesters or take photos. I reluctantly agreed to follow their instructions.

I wondered if perhaps the UN peacekeeping mission was right in saying these were protests were organized by a politician or gang. “Enemies of stability and democracy,” MINUSTAH mission head Edmond Mulet called them. So far, I’d only seen young men in the street.

But as we passed through each barricade, everyone – young girls and rotund market women mingling with demonstrators yelled out, “MINUSTAH ou ye?”

I yelled back, “Non, mwen se yon journalis Amerikan.” The suspicious stares softened into smiles and understanding looks. After passing the third barricade that way, we started laughing. Read More…

At a recent Port-au-Prince protest, a sign reads: Bill Clinton equals Cholera.

Published today by Inter-Press Service. Also spoke to Flashpoints Radio about cholera and the protests earlier this evening.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Nov 16, 2010 (IPS) – “People are going to take the body to MINUSTAH to show them what they did,” Jean-Luc Surfin told IPS by phone as riots erupted against Haiti’s U.N. peacekeeping force on Monday in the northern city of Cap-Haitien.

Surfin, a 24-year-old bank teller, said he walked by a young man lying dead in the street blocks away from his home, who bystanders said was shot by peacekeeping troops.

At least two protesters have been reported killed, one shot in the back, a local official told the media. U.N. troops say they acted in self-defence.

“I think the people are frustrated right now. That’s why they’re all over the street. They say they’re going to fight to the death,” Surfin told IPS.

He said demonstrators erected barricades in the street and pelted troops with stones and bottles. Two police stations were set on fire.

Protests were reported in the cities of Hinche and Gonaives in Haiti’s cholera-ravaged central region as well. Radio Levekanpe in Hinche reported that protesters tried to leave the coffin of a man who died of cholera in front of the city’s UN peacekeeping base.

Demonstrators blame foreign peacekeepers for introducing the infectious disease into the country. The U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention says the strain of cholera bacteria spreading in Haiti matches the one endemic in South Asia.

An estimated 200,000 people could be sickened before the epidemic is brought under control, an effort that could take up to six months.

The outbreak has killed over 900 people, just two weeks before scheduled elections. Read More…