News
Martelly proposes to rebuild Haiti Army
The plan also calls for creation of a “national intelligence service,” a special unit to deal with terrorism threats, criminal syndicates and illegal trafficking networks. It would also monitor “extremist organizations and movements intended to spread anarchy.”
A U.S. Embassy spokesman, Jon Piechowski, said by email that Haitian government officials had recently met with embassy personnel to discuss the plan.
“We are reviewing the information they have shared in support of their vision,” Piechowski said.
A human rights lawyer criticized the idea, noting that the military has long been used in Haiti as a tool to quash democratic movements.
“The problems raised in the proposal are real, but there is little basis for believing that the army would be an effective solution,” said attorney Brian Concannon, director and founder of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti.
“The army did not successfully defend the borders against foreign attacks, and the other listed functions: development, disaster response and policing are done more cheaply and efficiently by civilian entities. What the army has done well throughout its history is attack unarmed civilians and stunt democracy.”
Haiti-born political observer Jocelyn McCalla said the country would be better served by creating a job program that focuses on young people.
“An army is the last thing that Haiti needs at this point,” McCalla wrote in an email.
Martelly’s push to bring back the army stems in part from uneasy relations between United Nations troops and many Haitians, who view the peacekeepers as an occupation force and an affront to national sovereignty.
Such opposition has been stoked by evidence suggesting that U.N. peacekeepers from Nepal accidentally started a cholera outbreak that has killed more than 6,200 people and by a recent video allegedly showing U.N. soldiers from Uruguay sexually abusing a Haitian youth.
Despite the outcry, Martelly has said he would seek to renew the U.N. force’s mandate for another year. On Friday, he said at the U.N. General Assembly that the force has committed “unacceptable errors” in Haiti but it should stay to help rebuild the country after last year’s devastating earthquake.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.
