Sonson, son of Haiti, a wounded nation
Port-au-Prince. The adolescent is awaiting a sign from his inert leg. His eyes are staring at the emptiness of the room, desperately looking for the indication of an improbable visit. Sonson Castin is 16 years old. He has scars all over his body, indelible traces of the urban guerilla tearing apart his country, Haiti. The story he is telling that morning, is a story of a long and painful fall that ended up in a wheelchair of the rehabilitation Center of Doctors without Borders in Port-au Prince. Sonson was born and raised in Les Cayes, a peaceful town on Southern tip of the island. But after he lost both his parents to a disease he cannot name, he had to make his way last year to his aunt’s house in one of the violent slums of the chaotic Haitian capital. Three months ago, he was caught in the crossfire of a gun battle between the gangs that control the slums and the UN troops. Seven bullets hit Sonson in the abdomen, his hands and his feet. Since then he is club-footed. He cannot go to school anymore. His aunt gave up on him and does not visit him anymore. And he is afraid of the violent Haitian streets, that are, according to the British NGO Oxfam, infested with 210 000 guns. In 2005, Doctors Without Borders treated 1500 patients wounded by gunshots. Last December, the UN registered 150 kidnappings for that month alone. After a peak in attacks in the last couple of months, violence receded with the presidential elections approaching. Haiti, the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, seems to be waiting for the ballot to finally take place after it was postponed four times since October 2005 due to security and logistical problems. The usually lively and chaotic streets of Port-au-Prince are eerily quiet. Schools were closed on Friday. These elections are taking place in a difficult political and security context. The Brazilian-lead peacekeeping force dispatched to Haiti after Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s exile in 2004, has been unable to quash gangs and curb the violence inside the slums of Port-au-Prince they control “It is always the same problem. We do not have enough troops to stabilize the country”, said a European UN diplomat about the 9000 UN peacekeepers sent to Haiti two years ago. “During the Balkan war, everybody was ready to contribute troops because the conflict was taking on Europe’s doorstep, he added after requesting anonymity. The Western countries pledged more money for that conflict than for any crisis taking place in the Third World”, “We would need at least $50 million to rebuild the destroyed infrastructure of the Haitian police”, said a UN official involved in the formation of Haiti’s 6000 policemen. “But we will never get those amounts. We therefore have to focus on the manpower and the formation of local policemen”, he added on condition of anonymity. There is no police left inside Cité-Soleil, one of Haiti’s largest and most troubled slum. The last police station has been set ablaze long ago by pro-Aristide gangs, who control this shantytown of 350 000 people. Last month, two Jordanian peacekeepers were killed in a gunfight with gangs inside Cité-Soleil. The UN tanks will not patrol further than the very dangerous Route Nationale 1, one of the main roads of Cité-Soleil. The bare structure of an old hospital now used by UN soldiers as headquarter and shelter inside the slum, is riddled with bullets. And the peacekeepers have had to give up the control of the different sections of the ghetto – some of them named after American cities like Brooklyn and Boston – to gangs. The security situation is so desperate that the Haitian authorities have decided not to put voting booths inside Cité-Soleil. Located by the sea, the fetid and stinking slum serves as waste dump for the richer neighborhoods situated on the hills overlooking Port-au-Prince. Two years ago, the International Committee of the Red Cross launched a program to try to sanitize Cité-Soleil and provide drinkable water. “I hope we could have hygiene, security, electricity and schools (there are no schools left inside Cité-Soleil)”, said Charles Mackenson, 18, a Cité-Soleil resident, while he was watching Top Adlerman, a local hip hop star, shoot his new video inside the slum last Friday. Back in the rehabilitation center of Doctors Without Borders, Sonson is talking about his plight and loneliness in his fight to recover the mobility he lost to the violence of Haiti. An image suddenly pops up as. That Friday in Cité-Soleil, Top Adlerman stood on the truck with a large colorful message painted on the side. The message read: “Real friends are rare”. Port-au-Prince / Jean-Cosme Delaloye A democracy on life supportHaiti is the story of a crisis unfolding without much attention. Last month, Doctors without Borders made an appeal for the troubled Caribbean nation. For the French organizations, Haiti is one of the world’s top forgotten crises. After Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted from power on February 29 2004, an interim government was appointed and the United Nations launched a multimillion-dollar, nation-building project in the poorest and least developed country of the Western hemisphere. Nearly 3,5 out of the 4,5 million Haitians eligible to vote, are expected to cast their ballots tomorrow in the first presidential elections since Aristide’s exile. The first round had to be postponed four times due to security and logistical problems. One Haitian elector in ten still has not received his voting ID card. The interim government has set up 800 polling stations, far less than what international election officials had recommended. René Préval is leading the pack of thirty-three candidates A former ally of the ousted Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Préval already served as president of Haiti from 1995 to 2000. Préval’s closest rival is Charles-Henri Baker, a business owner and former US resident, who played a leading role in the anti-Aristide movement in 2004. Another well-known candidate is Guy Philippe, the former rebellion leader, who also played a major role in the coup against Aristide two years ago. J-C De A French version of this story was published on February 7 2006 in 24heures and Tribune de Genève in Switzerland CommentsYou must be logged in to post a comment. |
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