If there's anything new I learned from this show, it's that the fact that the peacekeepers are armed plays a role in victims' fear during the incident (not just the power imbalance). People are asking "how can aid/humanitarian workers do this?" Or they think, "oh, a French peacekeeper would never." But the same logic you use for air workers doesn't apply to peacekeepers. IDK how NATO/AU peacekeepers are recruited, but AFAIK UN peacekeepers are not "UN employees" per se (as in they never applied for a job at the UN). Last time I checked, IIRC, they work for their respective national militaries and they're then deployed by the member state to participate in peacekeeping missions on behalf of the UN. Soldiers are trained to be patriots, not humanitarians (when they're deployed, they're following their countries' orders-doesn't guarantee they'll care about the citizens of the receiving country in the way that they'd care for their countrymen). So I get how some of the victims may feel like they've been treated like they're subhuman/have been dehumanised. "Sense of ownership" is a term we often hear from aid workers about their beneficiaries, but in this case, it seems like the aid/humanitarians also need to learn some of that. And even that logic can't be applied to all aid workers: I've worked for a private contractor that worked with a national foreign aid agency, and the people there were very different from genuine aid workers (they had that private sector air to them, cut-throat and all-they'd abuse authority in the office, including threats of violence). 👩🏻
Their purpose there is to provide humanitarian aid. Not humanitarian terror. People there have had enough trauma. They don't deserve this. Moreover, women aren't objects. They're human beings and deserve to be treated equally to men.
I think the U.N. has NOT mistreated Haitians in an attempt to continue a colonial type of hold on Haiti but rather because the most powerful nations in the U.N. see Haiti as a small, poor country with little to offer them. They have no interest in holding Haitians down. They would regard that as an utter waste of their energy. They just utterly disregard Haitians. Lumumba was briefly Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo, a very large country with vast mineral riches. Even there the West's primary interest was not to rule but to keep communists out by supporting (and possibly actually committing) Lumumba's assassination then supporting Mobutu who gave a wink to the West then nonetheless tried to play the Communists against the West. However he was deemed so ineffective and so corrupt that the West concluded it was good enough that he kept his country economically and politically a tangled mess, a technique that enabled him to endlessly play off factions against each other while he enriched himself, because a country divided against itself with a leader who cared not at all for his people was deemed no cold war threat. If people in Haiti and the Democratic Republic of Congo continue to think they are fighting colonialists who want to steal their riches rather than world powers who think its not even worth the effort they will be hindered in moving ahead. They need to reform themselves, stopping corruption by the power of pride and confidence in one another and to lift one another up while the large powers that snub them aren't bothering to even notice. The international effort to supposedly help Haiti after the earthquake ended up of course to be merely a chance for Clinton and other powerful people to promote themselves as great humanitarians while making a mint off the backs of Haitians. Haitians have spoken out and scared them away for now. This gives Haitians an opportunity to work on reform with little interference. I hope they take this chance. .
@Cheryl Stade Interesting comment. But you're promoting the CIA and imperialist narrative. The UN is a tool of empire. It's an undemocratic institution where the WW2 winners have veto power over 196 or so nations in the world. The US, France and Canada deliberately destabilized Haiti in 2004, financed paramilitary death squad leader Guy Philippe to help take down the democratically elected Haiti president and then once they had put Haiti to fire, they brought the UN in as firemen, not to stabilize Haiti but to bring back the old Duvalierist dictatorship to power and the mercenary Middle Eastern Arab families who act as overseer for empire. It's a colonial blueprint - the imperialist plays hero and villain. Create chaos to stop popular rule and empowerment and then brings their troops in to "restore order." The UN is that tool for the US-Eurasians, especially the Western Eurasian powers. Perhaps, you'd consider reading how former US ambassador to Haiti, Janet Sanderson, explains why the UN is a colonial force in Haiti, put there to stop political protest, silence unarmed protestors to the occupation, push forth Neoliberalism- that is the privatization of Haiti state assets and natural resources to the duopoly's transnational oligarchs while bringing the NGOs and "humanitarian" missionaries to obfuscate the plunder with images of saintly "philanthropy" or racist civilizing the natives rhetoric. (See wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08PORTAUPRINCE1381_a.html ) U.S. Embassy: “Without a UN-sanctioned …force, we would be getting far less help …in managing Haiti.”--- Janet Sanderson, US Ambassador to Haiti, October 2008 goo.gl/QZE7J4 Also pertinent evidence: Susan Rice has publicly stated: “The truth is: the UN Security Council can’t even issue a press release without America’s blessings.” --Susan Rice, former US Ambassador to the United Nations. February 11, 2011 As for the Clintons, they did not bow gracefully out of the US power citadels much less Haiti. The Clintons and establishment McCain republicans - Neocons and Neoliberals, are definitely continuing the tyranny in Haiti with their newest 2017 rigged election and puppet president, the accused money launderer, Jovenel Moise. Former Clinton-Obama ambassador to Haiti, Kenneth Merten, has not been removed by Trump and, to date, are continuing the Clinton-Obama warmongering devastations in Haiti. Read: Haiti Can’t Seem to Disengage from “Henchman” Merten www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/58ca91b0e4b0e0d348b340b1 Donald Trump Makes a Deal to Return the Clinton, Obama, Bush Colonists to Continue the Genocide for Resources in Haiti www.ezilidanto.com/2017/03/new-rochambeau-expedition-haiti-donald-trump-led-kenneth-merten/ Hillary Clinton and Quiet Genocide in Haiti Hides behind Humanitarian Front www.ezilidanto.com/2016/10/quiet-genocide-haiti-behind-humanitarian-front/ March 28, 2017 - Haitians protest rotten Hillary's Haiti henchmen, Kenneth Merten Brooklyn College protest targets ex-US ambassador to Haiti brooklyn.news12.com/news/brooklyn-college-protest-targets-ex-us-ambassador-to-haiti-1.13330485
Thanks for opinion and all those sources. Too busy right away to read them but will keep list for future. On the face of it though it seems nonsensical that the most powerful countries in the world would go to all that effort to subdue a small poor island country. In my experience things that don't make sense usually aren't true and that just doesn't make sense to me. The U.N. is no better or worse than its constituent countries which of course always have their self interests foremost in their minds. The after the earthquake effort, as I said in my first comment, was disgustingly corrupt and the people of Haiti were robbed. People should always be skeptical of foreign aid efforts.
Did you even read what I said in my original post? I said Lumumba was duly elected and the U.S. may have assassinated him. I said Clinton did what he did for his own gain and that the so called aid effort he helped managed after the earthquake only robbed Haiti. I never accused Haitians of being villains. The only critical thing I said about Haitians is that they need to work together because outsiders can never be fully trusted. You told me I think black people deserve nothing. Nothing I said justifies that comment. I am well aware that Haitians who've come to the U.S. (my country) are among the most successful of our immigrants. I have personally known a number of Haitian immigrants to my country and they are amazing people. I think as highly of them as I do of the brightest and most caring white citizens I know. I said nothing good about the U.N. in Haiti. Not one word. I agree w/ you that the U.S. replaced Lumumba with Mobutu. Speaking of Mobutu I said "... the West concluded it was good enough that he kept his country economically and politically a tangled mess..." thereby accusing my country and Europe of a most horrific moral crime. I acknowledged in that comment that instead of respecting the people of the DRC we supported a man who stole from his own country. While I did not mention the DRC's vast mineral wealth I certainly know of it and so realize indeed we robbed the people of the DRC of what they might have otherwise done with it yet you tell me I think the riches of non-whites belong to the Central banks of Europe and America. As for saying the secret of America's wealth is slavery it is true that slaves and successive generations of black U.S. citizens have been exploited but many many others in our country have also made huge contributions to our prosperity. Also, I do not believe that Haiti's amount of mineral wealth is significant to a huge wealthy country like the U.S. or that communism was a Western created straw man. Surely you know how many people Stalin massacred and how vast Eastern Europe's military arsenals were for generations. I also disagree that Haitians cannot succeed due to foreign oppression. On a personal note your torrent of name calling and presumptions about me are both unwarranted and inaccurate. I will not respond in kind because I don't think that way about people.
@Cheryl Stade Google "Haiti riches," "Haiti Riches Ezili dantò." Learn about the economic reasons for the US occupation of Haiti behind mercenary UN guns. Haiti's vast oil and gas reserves, purest of iridium, its over $20 billion in gold, copper, its purest marble, mineral riches, deep water ports for oil transshipment, offshore islands the US-Euro want to grab...(Ile a Vache, La Gonave, Mole St Nicolas).. et al.
Fair enough I will google that sometime soon. My father who died recently was an economist working in the oil industry. Unlike most in this business he had a degree in both business and petroleum engineering. If I remember correctly he told me while he was still working that nearly half of the oil used in the U.S. was coming from North America (meaning the US, Canada and Mexico which are all rich in oil). Then came large Middle Eastern countries and large North African countries including Algeria and Libya. The infrastructure needed for a major company to begin drilling is massive and oil companies have to foot huge bills upfront with assurance that countries will not suddenly shut the door after the work has begun and take over the site. But I an open to claims of abuse. No person, people or government is immune from fault or corruption. That's for sure.
If there's anything new I learned from this show, it's that the fact that the peacekeepers are armed plays a role in victims' fear during the incident (not just the power imbalance).
People are asking "how can aid/humanitarian workers do this?" Or they think, "oh, a French peacekeeper would never." But the same logic you use for air workers doesn't apply to peacekeepers. IDK how NATO/AU peacekeepers are recruited, but AFAIK UN peacekeepers are not "UN employees" per se (as in they never applied for a job at the UN). Last time I checked, IIRC, they work for their respective national militaries and they're then deployed by the member state to participate in peacekeeping missions on behalf of the UN. Soldiers are trained to be patriots, not humanitarians (when they're deployed, they're following their countries' orders-doesn't guarantee they'll care about the citizens of the receiving country in the way that they'd care for their countrymen). So I get how some of the victims may feel like they've been treated like they're subhuman/have been dehumanised.
"Sense of ownership" is a term we often hear from aid workers about their beneficiaries, but in this case, it seems like the aid/humanitarians also need to learn some of that.
And even that logic can't be applied to all aid workers: I've worked for a private contractor that worked with a national foreign aid agency, and the people there were very different from genuine aid workers (they had that private sector air to them, cut-throat and all-they'd abuse authority in the office, including threats of violence). 👩🏻
DNA samples and databanks before shipping out on UN missions. How hard is that today? Finding those babies' fathers would be a breeze.
Their purpose there is to provide humanitarian aid. Not humanitarian terror. People there have had enough trauma. They don't deserve this. Moreover, women aren't objects. They're human beings and deserve to be treated equally to men.
How much longer are we gonna put up with this?
I think the U.N. has NOT mistreated Haitians in an attempt to continue a colonial type of hold on Haiti but rather because the most powerful nations in the U.N. see Haiti as a small, poor country with little to offer them. They have no interest in holding Haitians down. They would regard that as an utter waste of their energy. They just utterly disregard Haitians. Lumumba was briefly Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo, a very large country with vast mineral riches. Even there the West's primary interest was not to rule but to keep communists out by supporting (and possibly actually committing) Lumumba's assassination then supporting Mobutu who gave a wink to the West then nonetheless tried to play the Communists against the West. However he was deemed so ineffective and so corrupt that the West concluded it was good enough that he kept his country economically and politically a tangled mess, a technique that enabled him to endlessly play off factions against each other while he enriched himself, because a country divided against itself with a leader who cared not at all for his people was deemed no cold war threat. If people in Haiti and the Democratic Republic of Congo continue to think they are fighting colonialists who want to steal their riches rather than world powers who think its not even worth the effort they will be hindered in moving ahead. They need to reform themselves, stopping corruption by the power of pride and confidence in one another and to lift one another up while the large powers that snub them aren't bothering to even notice. The international effort to supposedly help Haiti after the earthquake ended up of course to be merely a chance for Clinton and other powerful people to promote themselves as great humanitarians while making a mint off the backs of Haitians. Haitians have spoken out and scared them away for now. This gives Haitians an opportunity to work on reform with little interference. I hope they take this chance. .
@Cheryl Stade
Interesting comment. But you're promoting the CIA and imperialist narrative. The UN is a tool of empire. It's an undemocratic institution where the WW2 winners have veto power over 196 or so nations in the world. The US, France and Canada deliberately destabilized Haiti in 2004, financed paramilitary death squad leader Guy Philippe to help take down the democratically elected Haiti president and then once they had put Haiti to fire, they brought the UN in as firemen, not to stabilize Haiti but to bring back the old Duvalierist dictatorship to power and the mercenary Middle Eastern Arab families who act as overseer for empire.
It's a colonial blueprint - the imperialist plays hero and villain. Create chaos to stop popular rule and empowerment and then brings their troops in to "restore order." The UN is that tool for the US-Eurasians, especially the Western Eurasian powers.
Perhaps, you'd consider reading how former US ambassador to Haiti, Janet Sanderson, explains why the UN is a colonial force in Haiti, put there to stop political protest, silence unarmed protestors to the occupation, push forth Neoliberalism- that is the privatization of Haiti state assets and natural resources to the duopoly's transnational oligarchs while bringing the NGOs and "humanitarian" missionaries to obfuscate the plunder with images of saintly "philanthropy" or racist civilizing the natives rhetoric. (See wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08PORTAUPRINCE1381_a.html )
U.S. Embassy: “Without a UN-sanctioned …force, we would be getting far less help …in managing Haiti.”--- Janet Sanderson, US Ambassador to Haiti, October 2008 goo.gl/QZE7J4
Also pertinent evidence: Susan Rice has publicly stated:
“The truth is: the UN Security Council can’t even issue a press release without America’s blessings.” --Susan Rice, former US Ambassador to the United Nations. February 11, 2011
As for the Clintons, they did not bow gracefully out of the US power citadels much less Haiti. The Clintons and establishment McCain republicans - Neocons and Neoliberals, are definitely continuing the tyranny in Haiti with their newest 2017 rigged election and puppet president, the accused money launderer, Jovenel Moise. Former Clinton-Obama ambassador to Haiti, Kenneth Merten, has not been removed by Trump and, to date, are continuing the Clinton-Obama warmongering devastations in Haiti. Read:
Haiti Can’t Seem to Disengage from “Henchman” Merten
www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/58ca91b0e4b0e0d348b340b1
Donald Trump Makes a Deal to Return the Clinton, Obama, Bush Colonists to Continue the Genocide for Resources in Haiti
www.ezilidanto.com/2017/03/new-rochambeau-expedition-haiti-donald-trump-led-kenneth-merten/
Hillary Clinton and Quiet Genocide in Haiti Hides behind Humanitarian Front www.ezilidanto.com/2016/10/quiet-genocide-haiti-behind-humanitarian-front/
March 28, 2017 -
Haitians protest rotten Hillary's Haiti henchmen, Kenneth Merten
Brooklyn College protest targets ex-US ambassador to Haiti
brooklyn.news12.com/news/brooklyn-college-protest-targets-ex-us-ambassador-to-haiti-1.13330485
Thanks for opinion and all those sources. Too busy right away to read them but will keep list for future. On the face of it though it seems nonsensical that the most powerful countries in the world would go to all that effort to subdue a small poor island country. In my experience things that don't make sense usually aren't true and that just doesn't make sense to me. The U.N. is no better or worse than its constituent countries which of course always have their self interests foremost in their minds. The after the earthquake effort, as I said in my first comment, was disgustingly corrupt and the people of Haiti were robbed. People should always be skeptical of foreign aid efforts.
Did you even read what I said in my original post? I said Lumumba was duly elected and the U.S. may have assassinated him. I said Clinton did what he did for his own gain and that the so called aid effort he helped managed after the earthquake only robbed Haiti. I never accused Haitians of being villains. The only critical thing I said about Haitians is that they need to work together because outsiders can never be fully trusted. You told me I think black people deserve nothing. Nothing I said justifies that comment. I am well aware that Haitians who've come to the U.S. (my country) are among the most successful of our immigrants. I have personally known a number of Haitian immigrants to my country and they are amazing people. I think as highly of them as I do of the brightest and most caring white citizens I know. I said nothing good about the U.N. in Haiti. Not one word. I agree w/ you that the U.S. replaced Lumumba with Mobutu. Speaking of Mobutu I said "... the West concluded it was good enough that he kept his country economically and politically a tangled mess..." thereby accusing my country and Europe of a most horrific moral crime. I acknowledged in that comment that instead of respecting the people of the DRC we supported a man who stole from his own country. While I did not mention the DRC's vast mineral wealth I certainly know of it and so realize indeed we robbed the people of the DRC of what they might have otherwise done with it yet you tell me I think the riches of non-whites belong to the Central banks of Europe and America. As for saying the secret of America's wealth is slavery it is true that slaves and successive generations of black U.S. citizens have been exploited but many many others in our country have also made huge contributions to our prosperity. Also, I do not believe that Haiti's amount of mineral wealth is significant to a huge wealthy country like the U.S. or that communism was a Western created straw man. Surely you know how many people Stalin massacred and how vast Eastern Europe's military arsenals were for generations. I also disagree that Haitians cannot succeed due to foreign oppression. On a personal note your torrent of name calling and presumptions about me are both unwarranted and inaccurate. I will not respond in kind because I don't think that way about people.
@Cheryl Stade
Google "Haiti riches," "Haiti Riches Ezili dantò." Learn about the economic reasons for the US occupation of Haiti behind mercenary UN guns. Haiti's vast oil and gas reserves, purest of iridium, its over $20 billion in gold, copper, its purest marble, mineral riches, deep water ports for oil transshipment, offshore islands the US-Euro want to grab...(Ile a Vache, La Gonave, Mole St Nicolas).. et al.
Fair enough I will google that sometime soon. My father who died recently was an economist working in the oil industry. Unlike most in this business he had a degree in both business and petroleum engineering. If I remember correctly he told me while he was still working that nearly half of the oil used in the U.S. was coming from North America (meaning the US, Canada and Mexico which are all rich in oil). Then came large Middle Eastern countries and large North African countries including Algeria and Libya. The infrastructure needed for a major company to begin drilling is massive and oil companies have to foot huge bills upfront with assurance that countries will not suddenly shut the door after the work has begun and take over the site. But I an open to claims of abuse. No person, people or government is immune from fault or corruption. That's for sure.
It's okay! They are there to help. Right?
Also DynCorp.
Donna Maertz that's what I was thinking soon as I watched this video!these poor people get abuse from all sides including the clintons!