Why desperate Haitians want to kick out UN troops
Guardian UK - You may have heard about the civil unrest in Haiti over recent days, on the heels of a hurricane that thwarted efforts to contain a cholera epidemic that is now a national emergency. All this may fit the image often painted of this much-maligned country: crushing poverty, endemic corruption, the threat of violence so constant that international peacekeepers are required to stop Haitians tearing each other apart.
Well, the poverty and the corruption may be true. But on Thursday, demonstrations calling for the departure of the UN troops, known as Minustah, will be held throughout Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, by students, grassroots organisations, opposition groups excluded from the elections, and – most importantly – citizens united by a common cause: that Haiti's escalating nightmares must end now.
As deaths from the cholera outbreak soar past 1,000, fear is taking hold in neighbourhoods that have been so deprived of any civic investment that sanitation infrastructure often amounts to little more than open sewers filled with rubbish and human excrement. Read more.
Well, the poverty and the corruption may be true. But on Thursday, demonstrations calling for the departure of the UN troops, known as Minustah, will be held throughout Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, by students, grassroots organisations, opposition groups excluded from the elections, and – most importantly – citizens united by a common cause: that Haiti's escalating nightmares must end now.
As deaths from the cholera outbreak soar past 1,000, fear is taking hold in neighbourhoods that have been so deprived of any civic investment that sanitation infrastructure often amounts to little more than open sewers filled with rubbish and human excrement. Read more.
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