For the immediate withdrawal of MINUSTAH troops from Haiti: Letter to Ban Ki-Moon
The following Open Letter has been sent to the United
Nations Secretary General and the members of the Security Council by several
signatories including Adolfo Pérez
Esquivel, Nobel Peace Laureate; Nora Cortiñas, Mother
of May Square-Founders’ Line; Beverly Keene, International Coordinator Jubilee
South; Jubilee South/Americas; Peace and Justice Service of Latin America;
Foundation Peace and Justice Service-Argentina.
To the
Secretary General of the UN, Dr. Ban Ki Moon;
To the Governments of States members of the Security Council and MINUSTAH;
To the international community and public at large
Receive
our greetings.
It is
surprising and humiliating to certify that "Haiti is a threat to world
peace and security", as the UN Security Council does, year after year, in
order to ratify the presence there of a military-police mission said to be for the
purposes of stabilization: the MINUSTAH.
It is a statement that hides the impunity of the
major powers and the hypocrisy that allows them to intervene militarily,
politically, and economically in Haiti, drawing as well on the services of
others.
The real threat is that intervention itself, a laboratory as well for new forms
of domination and popular control.
The intervention of foreign troops over years, whether from the United States,
France, other powers, or now the MINUSTAH, has not improved the lives of the
Haitian people. Rather, their presence undermines the sovereignty and dignity
of that people and ensures the process of economic recolonization
that is directed from outside by a virtual parallel government - the Interim
Commission for the Reconstruction of Haiti - whose plans are more responsive to
the lenders and entrepreneurs than to the rights of Haitians.
As if this were not enough, the intervention directly usurps USD 800 million
per year (equivalent to nearly half of Haiti's annual budget) of resources
needed by the people for their health, education, housing, water and
sanitation, food sovereignty and job creation. Worse still, the MINUSTAH has built-up a real criminal record: it abuses
and rapes women and youth, and it kills. It kills
with bullets when people stand up to hunger and low wages, and it kills with
cholera: some 5,000 Haitian women and men have been killed by the disease
introduced by the MINUSTAH. Enough!
We demand the immediate withdrawal of troops
and non-renewal of the MINUSTAH mandate.
The Security Council will have to address the situation in Haiti, before
October 15. If it really wants to defend world
peace and security it must also ensure the non-interference of any foreign
military or police presence in that country, as well as the sanctioning and
reparation for the crimes committed by these.
We further urge the States and organisms involved to urgently review their
policies of regional and international cooperation with Haiti. It is not a
question of responding to the problems that do affect the social peace and
security of that people with short-term and assistencialist
measures that sharpen their dependency. The country needs changes whereby the
Haitian people are the protagonists of their own life and builder of their own
history. The Cuban medical presence is irrefutable proof that another
cooperation is possible.
Haiti, predecessor and benefactor of antislavery and anticolonial
struggles throughout the region, renowned for the creativity of its artists and
the organizational strength of his people, has endured throughout its life
enormous depredation and calamities. But the Haitian people have also
demonstrated their persistence and solidarity in the struggle to build
alternatives in the face of injustice and adversity. It is essential that their
right to sovereignty and self-determination be respected: ridding them of
occupations and illegitimate debts; supporting them in their struggle against
impunity; acknowledging their abilities; and restoring to them the resources
that have unjustly been taken from them - the historical, social, ecological,
and financial debt due to the Haitian people - and that they need for life and
dignity.
September 2011
Initial signatories:
Adolfo Pérez
Esquivel, Nobel Peace Laureate; Nora Cortiñas, Mother
of May Square-Founders’ Line; Beverly Keene, International Coordinator Jubilee
South; Jubilee South/Americas; Peace and Justice Service of Latin America;
Foundation Peace and Justice Service-Argentina...
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