Peter Hallward on Haiti: A Year On

“I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that much of the population has been repeatedly traumatised. It’s hard to imagine how people can still manage to endure it...

The UN continues to play the same role it has played for the last six years, which is keeping a lid on social discontent by military-style policing...It has invested virtually all its money—more than $600 million a year—in an extremely well-armed, expensive occupation force. One report last spring showed that the UN didn’t pull anyone out of the rubble in the first three days of the earthquake. It’s incredible. They had 8,000 young, well-trained men, and couldn’t rescue a single person.

It is beyond shocking that this foreign occupation is being presented as a positive ‘peace-keeping’ mission. Its only function has been to impose an unpopular coup on a very resentful population and to prevent them from taking significant political steps to counter or reverse it.”
Full interview online here