Aba MINUSTAH
April 20, 2007
Jamaica Base
Bois Neuf, Last Op
Kite
La Pleine, Street Scene
Woman
Cane Processing Plant
Market Vendors
Girls
April 10, 2007
Trash Dump
Haiti's largest trash dump is also a receptacle for some of Port-au-Prince's young street kids who prowl and scavenge the dump for scrap metal in cheap Chinese sandals, and sometimes, barefeet. Armed with old rice bags and plastic 5-gallon buckets, they find scrap metal by following the bulldozer that pushes mountains beyond mountains of trash around the dump. The bulldozer turns over freshly exposed scrap metal underneath, rotting, hot fermenting trash to the kids who promptly place it in their sacks and pales while diligently avoiding being crushed by the bulldozer. If the children find enough scrap metal to sell, they can eek out a meal a day.
Aid Begins As An Uncertain Future Looms
As major fighting in Cité Soleil has seemingly drawn to a close, aid has begun trickling in. In the above photo, a Brazilian MINUSTAH soldier stands guard while scores wait for medical supplies. Many hope the new 'calm' will last and that a new chapter for Haiti's most notorious bidonville will open.
MINUSTAH stepped up operations in the December 22, 2006 operation in Bois Neuf — with a nod from President Rene Preval — and continued large-scale operations into the first three months of 2007. The mission has essentially wrested control of the area from armed groups and the force continues to fortify their positions in the area but at a cost to Preval's reputation and legacy in the slum that helped elect him.
But many questions remain.
According to residents, three or four men from Boston entered the Brooklyn section of Cité Soleil and killed four civilians as they slept, only days ago.
Cité Soleil has a long, violent history of gang warfare. Young men, whose allegiances are easily won in one of the most desperate, politicized places on the planet, are swept into a world where gun-barrel diplomacy reigns supreme and no other options exist.
MINUSTAH, the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti, now touts its success in "taking back" the slum and arresting hundreds of alleged gangsters in their revitalized anti-gang campaign. The numbers look impressive on paper and to anyone who has never been to Cité Soleil. Many say it had to be done, and that much is true. But, so long as the legions of young-men and children continue to roam the slum without education and opportunities, or hope of either, the option of wielding a gun will be ever tempting because that option will always exist. Band-aid aid only works for so long.
The UN will be in Cité Soleil at the very least until the end of 2007, but it is more likely they will be here for years. The international community has pledged over 1 billion dollars in aid — much of it tied up, as it always has been, in international lending institutions and by other stipulations. Politicians and diplomats continue to say oft-repeated phrases and sound bites that were said by different political and diplomatic actors fifteen years ago. Nothing has changed in that regard — nor is it likely to in the foreseeable future.
It's easy to get caught up in figures, statistics, and self-laudatory soundbites about progress. It is true, there is a calm in the area that hasn't been enjoyed in months and the population has paid for their newfound, relative peace in gross destruction of property and human life. The area, as if not already in complete economic crisis before, has been so thorougly beaten, that nothing short of an economic miracle will save it. The market vendors are back at the market, and other businesses have re-opened, but at tremendous cost.
A tempered and moderate look at the situation on the ground, much of it unchanged at the core, will lend a more sober, realistic perception of events and the areas' uncertain future.
April 05, 2007
Bottles
