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After Haitian Collapse, UN Uses Batons But No Building
Codes, School Chief Said Arrested
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
November 10 -- In the wake of a
deadly school collapse in Petionville in Haiti,
the UN's strange role in the country was
exemplified by its peacekeepers beating back parents who surged on the
ruins to
determine the fate of their children, while the UN said it had no role
in
improving the construction practices that even President
Rene Preval says led to the
collapse.
UN
Spokesperson Michele Montas told Inner City Press, which asked
whether the UN given its central role in Haiti might be trying to
encourage
improvements in building codes, that "there is a government in Haiti...
those codes have existed for two hundreds years." That might be the
problem.
Following
the collapse, not only concerned parents but neighborhood residents
converged
on the school. Some of the latter tried to get in and remove debris,
reportedly
accusing "the internationals" of moving slowing in order to make more
money off Haiti. Reportedly
"anger boiled over as
thousands of Haitians looked on in the blazing sun, with the stench of
rotting
bodies beginning to rise from the rubble. Rumours have circulated that
the
international rescuers were working slowly to inflate their wages.
About 100
men rushed the unstable pile... Thousands cheered them on, chanting,
'We don't
need money to do the work!' Baton-swinging Haitian police and United
Nations
peacekeepers in riot gear drove the men away, only for them to return
and throw
rocks."
In New York
on Monday, Ms. Montas was asked who decided on this use of force.
Initially and cordially,
she said that a "serious problem of crowd control" had existed as
parents tried to get to the school, which "two teams, French and
American,
were working with MINUSTAH" to clear the rubble. Video here,
from Minute
13:20.
One
wonders, given the insistence that the UN system which includes the UN
Development Program can do nothing about the building codes and
practices that
led to the collapse, why MINISTAH is described as being in charge of
the rescue
effort. Also, if the UN's Hedi Annabi can
call for a delay in using
construction equipment on the site, why cannot he not call for better
building
codes or enforcement?
UN Peacekeepers outside a school in Haiti,
kids in tank's shadow
Inner City
Press asked again, who controls MINUSTAH's use of force against
civilians in
Haiti? Ms. Montas answered that the Haitian National Police were
working with
MINUSTAH at the site. So did MINUSTAH need and get consent?
In response
to Inner City Press' question about Haitian President Rene Preval's
statement
that "what occurred was the result of instability and disorder on a
state
level in Haiti," Ms. Montas countered diplomatically that the collapse
did not reflect on
"the state as a whole." Video here,
from Minute 21:02.
Inner
City Press was later informed by a UN
official who stress they were not speaking as an international civil
servant,
and is therefore granted anonymity even without explicitly requesting
it, that
"the person in charge of the school was arrested on Saturday."
To come
full circle, the UN in the past month has twice spoken about
its work on the
prisons in Haiti.
News analysis: So in Haiti as in
the Congo, the UN is everywhere when there
is success, and tried to be nowhere, at least in terms of
accountability and
transparency, when things go wrong.
That Haiti
and Haitian need help is clear. Whether the UN, Minustah or UNDP are
the right
ones to deliver it is another question.
Click here for Inner City
Press Nov. 7 debate on the war in Congo
Watch this site, and this Oct. 2 debate, on
UN, bailout, MDGs
and this October 17 debate, on
Security Council and Obama and the UN.
* * *
These
reports are
usually also available through Google
News and on Lexis-Nexis.
Click
here
for a Reuters
AlertNet piece by this correspondent
about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click
here
for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali
National
Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an
undefined trust fund. Video
Analysis here
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