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Haiti gov’t begins back pay plan to veterans
A Haitian government effort Wednesday to register hundreds of veterans so they can receive pensions and back pay failed to demobilize a band of rogue soldiers whose presence is becoming an embarrassment to the Caribbean nation and its United Nations peacekeeping mission.
The rogue group of ex-soldiers and their young recruits has defied repeated orders from the administration of President Michel Martelly to clear out the former military barracks they’ve seized in recent months in their push to revive the national army. Their increasingly visible presence has heightened tensions as they parade around the capital in military fatigues and carry automatic rifles.
The Haitian government and the U.N. mission say they recognize the country’s police force as its lone public security force but authorities have taken no action to disband the rogue soldiers aside from forming a panel to study the matter.
The group includes an estimated 3,500 former soldiers and followers too young to have served in the military that was abolished in 1995 because of its abusive past. Some of them operate from an army barracks in the district of Carrefour just outside Haiti’s capital.
“We will address those guys in Carrefour later,” Reginald Delva, the Haitian secretary of state for public security, told The Associated Press at the pension registration. “Hopefully, we will do it peacefully. We will offer them an opportunity to get a job, especially for the young guys.”
Martelly raised the hopes of former soldiers seeking to re-enlist when he said as a candidate and later as president that he would reinstate the army, despite opposition from Western diplomats who thought money for the army would be better spent on the understaffed police force.
For the past year, hundreds of ex-soldiers have been training in camps. A few months ago, they took over the old military bases without opposition from the government. They’ve since paraded around the capital, in front of police, and the U.N.’s top envoy to Haiti has called them an “unnecessary provocation.”
