Sunday, July 17, 2005
Diddling While Haiti Burns
Are we entering a new age of apathy? ABC News stirred up a fervor when they said, "Hey, no one's really paying attention to Iraq, so let's focus on what the people want." Has this mindset pervaded the entire media?
After the resignation of Jean-Bertrand Aristide (or coup; depends who you talk to), Haiti has fallen apart. Someone's obviously noticed; last May, the State Department issued a travel warning to all United States citizens wishing to visit Haiti, due to "volatile security situations". Last Tuesday, the UK followed suit, but for different reasons.
On July 6, an UN peacekeeping force entered the shantytown of Cite Soleil with the stated purpose of assassinating Emmanuel Wilmer and his lieutenants, men the country's media had labled as bandits. What happened, however, was a massacre. While the UN claims that most of the victims were armed and resisting arrest, video shows that many of them were clearly unarmed, and that children were among the dead. Indeed, the majority of survivors treated for gunshot wounds were women and children. The US is doing nothing to intercede, with Ambassador James Foley blaming a pro-Aristide rebel movement for acts of mounting violence, despite the fact that video has been taken of policemen planting guns on the corpses of slaughter victims, and the fact that eight Haitian police officers have been implicated and arrested in a recent spate of kidnappings.
This is not Iraq. This is not Darfur. This is not over there. This is here. This is one tiny sea away from us. And yet, no one is saying anything. Why?
Talk this up. Tell someone. Write to your Congressman. Call your local news station. Just don't let silence prevail.
After the resignation of Jean-Bertrand Aristide (or coup; depends who you talk to), Haiti has fallen apart. Someone's obviously noticed; last May, the State Department issued a travel warning to all United States citizens wishing to visit Haiti, due to "volatile security situations". Last Tuesday, the UK followed suit, but for different reasons.
On July 6, an UN peacekeeping force entered the shantytown of Cite Soleil with the stated purpose of assassinating Emmanuel Wilmer and his lieutenants, men the country's media had labled as bandits. What happened, however, was a massacre. While the UN claims that most of the victims were armed and resisting arrest, video shows that many of them were clearly unarmed, and that children were among the dead. Indeed, the majority of survivors treated for gunshot wounds were women and children. The US is doing nothing to intercede, with Ambassador James Foley blaming a pro-Aristide rebel movement for acts of mounting violence, despite the fact that video has been taken of policemen planting guns on the corpses of slaughter victims, and the fact that eight Haitian police officers have been implicated and arrested in a recent spate of kidnappings.
This is not Iraq. This is not Darfur. This is not over there. This is here. This is one tiny sea away from us. And yet, no one is saying anything. Why?
Talk this up. Tell someone. Write to your Congressman. Call your local news station. Just don't let silence prevail.
