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News > Latin America

Haitians Mobilize Against Renewal of UN Mission

  • A soldier with the U.N. Stabilization Mission in Haiti gestures to local residents waiting to receive bottled water.

    A soldier with the U.N. Stabilization Mission in Haiti gestures to local residents waiting to receive bottled water. | Photo: Reuters

Published 12 September 2016
Opinion

In August, the U.N. finally admitted its peacekeepers played a role in the spread of cholera in Haiti after years of denying responsibility.

Haitian social organizations are planning three mobilizations starting Tuesday in opposition to the possible renewal of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, or MINUSTAH.

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David Oxygene, leader of the Movement of Liberty, Equality of Haitians for Brotherhood, told the Haiti-based Alterpresse that they oppose any U.N. mission to the island after a report from the organization recommended Haitian authorities renew their presence for a further six months.

The popular Democratic Movement has also joined the calls against the U.N. “The cholera pandemic has been one of the biggest disasters caused by MINUSTAH, not even mentioning the rapes of minors and adults," said the group's leader Guy Numa.

The first mobilization will take place Tuesday in front of the presidential palace in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince in order to urge interim President Jocelerme Privert to reject U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon's proposal.

Another sit-in will be staged a week later on September 20 in front of the MINUSTAH base in Port-au-Prince.

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On September 27, yet a futher sit-in will take place at the country's Ministry of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Rural Development, which will demand the government better protects local products from the export industry. The protest will also demand compensation for the cholera epidemic.

In August, the U.N. finally admitted its peacekeepers played a role in the spread of cholera in Haiti after years of denying responsibility. Before 2010, no cases of cholera had been detected in the country for around a century, but an expert panel in 2011 confirmed the outbreak had originated in a U.N. camp in the upper Artibonite River valley.

The U.N. reports there have likely been around 10,000 cholera-related deaths since the outbreak in 2010, though Doctors Without Borders have argued the actual death toll is likely to be higher. Hundreds of thousands have also suffered from the disease, which is now endemic in the country.

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