Chuck Kolesar's Report From Layaye

Dear friends of the Haiti ministry:

I would like to provide some good news concerning developments in our sister parish of Layaye. On December 31st, I spent a long night with the good people of Layaye praying, adoring, singing, dancing, and asking for forgiveness and peace for the new year. Layaye has been transformed by the gift of our own Dixie Brown. There is a light in Layaye, which is composed of both physical and spiritual properties. The generator provided by Dixie provides light well into the night which has drawn many new parishioners to church and many children back home from Hinche to study. Soon it will also provide light for the peasant farmers in the community to learn how to read. No other village or city in the area has light. This light has truly sparked a new pride and joy in the people of our sister parish. It will also make the work of the physicians from Partners in Health easier and provide opportunities to provide a level of care that would otherwise be impossible. May God bless you Dixie.

With all of these thoughts in mind, however, please allow me to also draw your attention to the fact that we as a sister community simply are not doing enough. There is still not enough money to pay all of the teachers, the children in the schools have no books, pencils, or paper and are still hungry (we have not fed a single soul), there is no clean water to drink (I failed in my efforts to get a system installed), and young and old alike are dying needless deaths. Some of you may remember Magalie, the beautiful young teacher in Layaye who spent time with us. When I asked how her Christmas was, she replied that they did not celebrate Christmas because her sister died the day before. Her sister was a 26 year old woman who died of something I am sure she should not have died from. She developed stomach pains, went to the doctor, received some sort of inadequate care, went home, and died. She left two small children 2 and 4 years old who clung to Magalie and cried for their mother during my entire visit with the family.

Why are these people so easily forgotten? Why are they living in wooden huts with no water to drink and constant hunger? A child was brought to me with a large hole in her head. She fell on some rocks some days earlier and had a large uncovered wound with a very slight chance that she will ever receive care. What is going to happen to her and to the hundreds and thousands of other children in the parish who live equally precarious lives? These are our children, they always have been, but now we know their names.

Our names have all been written in these mountains by the hand of God. We as a faith community must answer His call and provide these people with our purest hearts and finest efforts.

Thank you,

Chuck Kolesar

January 6th meeting

Dear Friends,
We will have our next meeting on Thursday, January 6th at 7 pm; I’ll update you on the venue as soon as I get a room booked. Our main topics of discussion will include the fundraiser, which will be held on Jan 21, and the upcoming trip to Haiti on Feb 3rd. Chuck Kolesar will also have returned from his trip to Layaye by then, and so we’ll hopefully have an update from him as well (not to put you on the spot, Chuck!). I know that we have a lot of new members. With the fundraiser coming up, this will be a great opportunity to get involved in the ministry. Also, if you’re interested in hosting a party for the fundraiser, please contact Lois Chamblin ASAP.

Finally, I want to extend to everyone my sincere wishes for a most blessed Christmas and true peace in the coming year.
Peace,
Bob

Haiti struggles with elections

by Claire Schaeffer-Duffy, NCR contributor

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's stopover in Haiti last September was notably brief. The itinerary of her less-than-24 hour visit included a cameo appearance at a voter registration site, a tour of the slums of Port au Prince, Haiti's capital, from the seat of a helicopter, and a press conference during which she expressed U.S. support for the Haitian people and the importance of voting in the country's upcoming elections.
She advised Haitians, "please go and register and reclaim your right to choose a democratic leader for Haiti."
There was a bitter irony to the secretary's recommendation. Without any encouragement from Rice, Haitians had already claimed their "right to choose" during the presidential elections in 2000. They voted overwhelmingly for Jean Bertrand Aristide. In February 2004, the democratically elected leader was forced to leave Haiti in the face of an armed rebellion that many believe was made possible with U.S. and French assistance.
The extent of U.S. involvement in Haiti's coup remains unexamined in the mainstream press. Representative Barbara Lee (D-CA) has requested a congressional investigation into the former president's precipitous departure. According to several reports, the U.S. Agency for International Development helped orchestrate political opposition to Aristide's government and the International Republican Institute, created during the Reagan-era to "advance democracy," funded and armed the rebels who overthrew him. Aristide says U.S. forces "kidnapped" him from his homeland; an allegation the State Department denies.
Undeniable, however, is the chaos that has followed Haiti's regime-change. Approximately 1,600 people have been killed since the 2004 coup. Like Iraq the sources of Haiti's violence -- political repression, militant resistance and lawlessness -- are multiple and fuel each other.
The United Nation's top human rights official in Haiti recently described the country's human rights situation as "catastrophic." Numerous human rights reports have documented abuses committed by the Haitian National Police that include beatings, illegal arrests and summary executions. On Aug. 20, members of the police accompanied a band of machete-wielding civilians who attacked a crowd at a soccer game in Port au Prince, killing at least ten people. Sixteen police officers were disciplined but no civilian attackers have been charged, according to the human rights organization Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti.
Even U.N. peacekeeping troops have been implicated in some of the violence, accused of shielding the police from accountability or participating in assaults on poor neighborhoods. In mid-November, a dozen U.S. rights groups, attorneys and activists submitted petitions to the human rights arm of the Organization of American States requesting measures to protect Haitians from U.N. peacekeepers and the Haitian police.
Encumbered by the instability, election preparations have been neither swift nor fair. After changing the date four times in five months, Haiti's interim government has scheduled the first round of presidential and legislative elections for Jan. 8 with run-offs to be held Feb, 15. Haitians' "right to choose" their government comes a full two years after their president was removed.
It is hard to know how much of the election delay is due to corruption, incompetence, or a deliberate effort to disenfranchise the poor, many of whom support Fanmi Lavalas, the country's largest political party. The voter registration center Secretary Rice visited last September was unavailable to most Haitians because these centers were not installed in poor urban and rural areas. Under pressure from the international community, the CEP, the electoral agency responsible for running the elections, expanded voter registration opportunities. Seventy-five percent of Haitian voters have reportedly registered.
As one observer noted, Haiti's interim government, with much help from the international community, might overcome the remaining logistical obstacles to the electoral process and pull-off "technically acceptable elections." But unless the country's political prisoners are freed, the 2006 vote cannot be considered a fully democratic event.
Among the incarcerated is Fr. Gerard Jean-Juste, the Catholic pastor of a large poor parish in Port au Prince. Arrested July 26, he is falsely accused of participating in the murder of his cousin, journalist Jacques Roche. Like so many Haitian prisoners, Jean-Juste is being held without charge. He sits gravely ill in the annex of Port au Prince's National Penitentiary where many fear he will remain until the elections are over.
Thousands have called for his release, and even Secretary Rice urged that his case be dealt with quickly.
The first Haitian priest ordained in the United States, Jean-Juste has defined his priesthood by a courageous commitment to justice. In 1978, while living in Miami, he founded the Haitian Refugee Center, an organization that has fought for the rights of Haitian immigrants all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court. He is well-loved and well-remembered in Miami as the "gutsy" priest who spoke out against the repression of Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier and what many consider the discriminatory policies of the United States toward Haitian refugees.
A long-time friend and ally of Aristide, Jean-Juste is an outspoken critic of the interim government. He has repeatedly called for Aristide's return, the release of political prisoners, and respect for Haiti's Constitution. (The document grants democratically-elected presidents a four-year term in office and requires the judiciary to charge prisoners within 48 hours of their arrest.) The price for preaching such a message has been high -- seven weeks of imprisonment in the fall of 2004 and now a second incarceration.
The Haitian Catholic hierarchy recently distanced themselves from the outspoken priest because of confusion over his decision to enter the presidential race. Jean-Juste pondered a try; last August he told the Associated Press he would run for president "if Aristide approved my candidacy." The following month, Fanmi Lavalas, without consulting the priest, named him as their presidential candidate. (Some have speculated the announcement was little more than a tactic to draw attention to the plight of the imprisoned cleric and other political prisoners.) In response, the Haitian hierarchy swiftly suspended his faculties as priest. The action seemed precipitous. A devoted and much-needed pastor, Jean-Juste decided not to enter the presidential race. He is appealing the suspension to the Vatican.
In a country where armed leaders abound and the gun is the most consulted tool for political conflict, Jean-Juste has remained unequivocally nonviolent. He counts Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. among his guides. In his cell at the penitentiary, he sleeps beneath a picture of Salvadoran martyr Archbishop Oscar Romero.
When pro-Aristide demonstrations erupted into violence in September 2004, he advocated repentance.
"Haiti has gone too far in being violent to our sisters and brothers," he said. "We must kneel down, ask forgiveness, and start over."
In November 2004, Haiti's Catholic Justice and Peace Commission estimated that as many as 700 political prisoners filled the country's jails. Grass-roots activists, local leaders for Fanmi Lavalas, Aristide's party, they were rounded up in the months immediately following his removal. How many remain imprisoned is unknown but among those still incarcerated are folk-singer Anne Sosin and former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune. Arrested May 2004, Neptune has yet to go to trial.
Some see Secretary Rice's words for the Haitian people, however noble, as disingenuous. Too many questions remain about the U.S. role in Aristide's overthrow for Haitians to take seriously her exhortation about voter's rights. The interim government's commitment to free and fair elections needs to be better demonstrated. Passing out ballots while imprisoning the opposition is a meaningless expression of democracy.

Schaeffer-Duffy, a longtime contributor to NCR, is a part-time writer and full-time member of the Sts. Francis and Therese Catholic Worker in Worcester, Mass.

Annual Report to the Parish

Dear Cathedral Parishioners,
It is now one year since the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception embarked on a twinning relationship with the parish of Notre Dame d’Altagrâce in Layaye, Haiti. We in the Haiti ministry want to use this opportunity to bring everyone in the parish up-to-date with regard to the accomplishments, current projects, finances and future goals of this ministry. Of course, we first would like to extend our sincere appreciation to Fr. Val Handwerker, the members of the Pastoral Council and especially the parish at large for your most generous financial and spiritual support of this ministry.

WHY HAITI?
Before its formation, members of this ministry were searching for ways in which the Cathedral parish could reach out in a meaningful way to the neediest and most desperate members of our human family. Through much reflection, reading and prayer, we identified Haiti as a place where we could turn. We learned that Haiti finds itself at the top or nearly so of many lists for bad socioeconomic indicators:
•Haiti is the poorest country in western hemisphere and one of the poorest five countries in the world, with the average Haitian subsisting on just $1 a day.
•Haiti is the most water-poor country in the world according to the international water poverty index
•The per capita expenditure for health care in Haiti is only about 1% of that in the U.S.
•The infant mortality rate in Haiti is over 10 fold higher than that of the U.S.
•Over 250,000 people in Haiti have HIV/AIDS, compared with 900,000 in the U.S. a country with a population 37 times larger than that of Haiti.
•Over 50% of the population is illiterate, and only 50% of children receive any elementary education

These facts and figures clearly indicate a tremendous need in Haiti. We therefore sought a way to develop a direct relationship with those in need in Haiti.

ESTABLISHMENT OF CATHEDRAL HAITI MINISTRY
The Parish Twinning Program of the Americas (PTPA) was started over 20 years ago by Ms. Theresa Patterson of Nashville, TN. The PTPA works to link Catholic parishes in the United States to parishes in Haiti with the goal of fostering relationships that help to bring dignity and justice to the lives of Haitians and spiritual renewal and focus to American Catholics. This approach offered us exactly what we were searching for, namely the opportunity to intimately join another parish and to grow in faith and solidarity. Therefore, in May 2004, we invited Ms. Patterson, together with Fr. Ilric Louis-Jeune, pastor of the newly formed Notre Dame d’Altagrâce parish in Layaye Haiti, to visit the Cathedral parish. They met with members of the ministry team, and Fr. Ilric concelebrated Mass with Fr. Val. Everyone who recalls his visit will remember the spiritual and emotional response of the Cathedral parish to Fr. Ilric’s faith, sincerity and passion on behalf of his people. In the wake of Fr. Ilric’s visit, we obtained the approval of Fr. Val and the Pastoral Council to embark on a twinning relationship with the parish of Notre Dame d’Altagrâce.

MINISTRY LEADERSHIP
Currently, the Mache Ansanm ministry is jointly led by Debra Bartelli, Chuck Kolesar, and Bob Lorsbach. Pat Burns heads communication efforts including maintenance of our blogsite (www.memphistohaiti.blogspot.com), and Lois Chamblin is head of fundraising coordination.

FINANCES
With the approval of Fr. Val and the Pastoral Council, we initiated monthly “Haiti Sunday” collections to help provide a baseline level of financial support. We began with the modest goal of collecting just $1 per month per parish family, or about $600 monthly. After 10 months of collections, we are delighted to report that the parish has responded very generously by providing an average of over $2000 of monthly support for the ministry. In addition, our first parish wide fundraiser in January 2005 (coinciding with the feast day of our sister parish’s patron saint) raised over $7000. Finally, Ms. Dixie Brown, a member of the Haiti ministry team, kindly donated the necessary funds for Fr. Ilric to purchase a generator to provide electricity for the rectory and church in Layaye. For all of this support, we in the ministry sincerely thank the Cathedral parish.

What have we done with these funds? As detailed below, to date (11/04 – 8/05), we have provided Fr. Ilric with $7950 of support for schools and other parish administrative costs. We are currently sending $800 monthly to Fr. Ilric for support of the schools in Layaye.

$5100 monthly support for parish schools
$1500 tuition costs for Layaye high school children
$1000 emergency funds to Fr. IIric
$ 350 donations from IC kindergarten and high school French club
$ 254 camera for Fr. Ilric

Finally, we want to stress that 100% of the funds raised by the parish have or will be used to assist our sister parish. All of the costs incurred by members of the ministry for work on the ministry and travel to Haiti have been paid by these ministry members themselves.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS
During the first full year of its existence at the Cathedral, we have achieved several important milestones:
• Initiation of twinning relationship with Notre Dame d’Altagrâce
• Initiation of monthly collections to provide basal support for the ministry
• Through the parish IC-A-Need project, collected and gave to the people of Layaye, school
supplies, toys, basic medical and personal hygiene items
• First visit (October 2004) to Haiti to meet the people of Layaye & gain better understanding of
needs/challenges faced by the people there
• Began monthly support of schools in Layaye
• Held first major, parish-wide fundraiser for ministry in January 2005
• Hosted Fr. Ilric’s second visit to IC in May 2005

By necessity, much of our effort during this first year has been directed toward getting the ministry on its feet financially and in assessing the needs of our sister parish. We felt that an important aspect of the latter would be to actually visit our sister parish so that we would have a better understanding of the needs and challenges that our sisters and brothers in Layaye face daily in their lives.

ONGOING AND FUTURE PROJECTS:
• Financial support for schools in Layaye. There is no public education system in Haiti. Fr. Ilric and the people of Layaye understand the importance of education and strongly desire that their children have an opportunity to attend school. We will continue to support the elementary schools in Layaye and the surrounding villages.

• Provision of water treatment kits & water purifier. The provision of clean water to our sisters and brothers in Layaye and the surrounding villages is an essential first step in helping them to improve their health and overall economic situation. We are purchasing a portable, solar-powered water treatment unit for Layaye. We are also going to enroll in a program ran by Gift of Water, a non-profit organization that has long worked in Haiti, that will provide 400 families during the first year with portable low maintenance water filtration units.

• Establishment of professional school. Together with Fr. Ilric, we have agreed to fund the establishment of a professional trade school in Layaye. As in many underdeveloped countries, the lack of job skills drives many people from rural areas into large urban centers, such as Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince, where they are far from families and often the targets of exploitation and violence. Helping the people of Layaye to obtain the skills they need to support themselves is critical to enabling them to live dignified, self-sufficient lives in Layaye.
• Worm treatment program. Soil-transmitted helminthic infections (hookworms, whipworms and roundworms) are a major source of morbidity in children in many rural areas throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, including Haiti. As a component of our visits to Layaye, we will initiate a deworming program. For only about 25¢ a child, we can provide effective treatment against these parasitic worms that are a major contributing factor to anemia and malnutrition in the children of Haiti.

• Vision program. During our visit to Layaye we encountered perhaps 2 or 3 people wearing eyeglasses. Sadly, this observation reflects the fact that the people of Layaye have no access to eye care. During the upcoming trip in February 2006, Dr. Jared Powelson (son of Deacon Powelson) will join us and hold optometry clinics in Layaye. We have already started collecting eyeglasses for these clinics, and Dr Powelson has generously agreed to clean and service donated eyeglasses.

• Medical/mission trips. Currently, there is virtually no medical or dental care available for the people of Layaye. The nearest hospital, Sainte Thérèse Hospital, is located in Hinche which is a 1-2 hour hike on foot. Mr. Chuck Kolesar has been working hard to establish a relationship between our ministry and Partners in Health (PIH), a major health care and human rights force in Haiti directed by Dr. Paul Farmer (the subject of the book Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder); PIH also operates Sainte Thérèse Hospital. Chuck is currently working to identify individuals in Layaye who can work as community health works to assist PIH staff and us in delivering health care to the people of Layaye. As our ministry develops, we hope to be able to organize one or two medical trips to Layaye each year. Therefore, if you or someone you know has medical, dental, or nursing skills, please contact us if you or they would be interested in joining this effort.

HOPE FOR THE FUTURE
During his first visit to the Cathedral in May 2004, Fr. Ilric delivered the Sunday Gospel reading from John that, as Providence would have it, has become the underpinning for our ministry:

“I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

In the years to come, we hope and pray that the Haiti ministry will continue to grow and be an important manifestation of the compassion and mercy that Christ implores us to have for our sisters and brothers, particularly those who are the most impoverished and vulnerable. An important lesson that we in the ministry have learned is that each of us, irrespective of what our skills and talents might be, have something to contribute to this ministry. Therefore, we invite you to join us as we continue to work to bring compassion and justice to the lives of the people of Layaye. On behalf of the entire Haiti Ministry team and our sister parish in Layaye, we thank you for your generous financial support, kind words, and most of all your prayers. We pray that the Cathedral parish will continue to “walk” physically and spiritually, with our sisters and brothers in Layaye.

Indifference is not a beginning, it is an end. And, therefore, indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor -- never his victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten. The political prisoner in his cell, the hungry children, the homeless refugees -- not to respond to their plight, not to relieve their solitude by offering them a spark of hope is to exile them from human memory. And in denying their humanity we betray our own.

Elie Weisel

Report from Haiti

From The National Catholic Reporter...
U.S. guns arm Haiti's corrupt police force

By CLAIRE SCHAEFFER-DUFFY

Despite an arms embargo and numerous human rights reports that have documented widespread abuses committed by the Haitian police force, including killings, arbitrary arrests, beatings, illegal searches and detentions, the U.S. government continues to support the police with training, non-lethal equipment and guns.
A year ago, the State Department, the agency responsible for regulating international traffic in arms, sanctioned a transfer of 2,636 weapons to the Haitian National Police that included 1,900 .38 caliber revolvers, nearly 500 pistols, eight submachine guns and 13 M-14 rifles.
Additionally, the Haitian government has asked the U.S. agency to approve the sale of $1.7 million worth of weaponry. The sale would include several thousand small handguns, 500 12-guage shotguns and 200 M-14 rifles and Bushmasters, according to Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., who introduced legislation this summer that would require the State Department to document all weapons transactions to Haiti since the United States imposed an arms embargo on the Caribbean nation in October 1991.
In early June, the U.S. government gave $2.6 million worth of police equipment to Haiti. At a ceremony celebrating the donation of vehicles, motorcycles and protective gear, American Ambassador James Foley spoke of a supervision and training program that would allow the Haitian government to purchase arms in the United States.
“Those weapons are a very important element in the capacity of the Haitian police to ensure security,” Foley told Reuters.
Haiti’s security crisis is acute. Political and criminal violence has killed hundreds of people, including 51 police officers, since last September. This spring, a French diplomat and a Haitian employee of the International Red Cross were abducted and killed. Kidnappings have become frequent.
A 7,400-strong force of U.N. peacekeepers, which includes a contingent of civilian police, has not been able to quell the violence. The United Nations is investigating its own troops after a deadly assault in early July on Cité Soleil, Port-au-Prince’s largest slum, that resulted in the deaths of a popular gang leader and 20 residents, according to reports on the ground.
The Haitian police, the country’s only national security force, are woefully understaffed and ill-equipped. There are approximately 5,000 police officers for Haiti’s 8.6 million people. More than half of the police stations around the country were destroyed during last year’s coup that ousted former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
Haiti’s interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue has asked the international community for more weapons to combat antigovernment forces, viewed by him as the primary perpetrators of the current violence.
But reports from groups like Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, the Center for the Study of Human Rights at the University of Miami Law School, and Refugees International have documented widespread abuses committed by the police that are exacerbating the violence in Haiti.
Excessive use of force among the Haitian National Police is common. Police have conducted deadly assaults rather than arrests and fired on crowds of peaceful protesters during demonstrations that have become frequent since Aristide’s ouster.
Most of the abuses have occurred in poor neighborhoods where support for Aristide remains strong. Last March residents of Cité Soleil told Refugees International that even though they were afraid of the criminals here, the police were worse. The residents said they did not trust the police.
Earlier this year, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged Haiti’s transitional government to investigate allegations of human rights violations committed by national police officers.
Attorney Tom Griffin, a former law enforcement official who wrote the University of Miami Law School report that documented police abuses in Haiti, said, “It is extremely dangerous to arm that police department. They are totally untrained scared guys with officers who have huge political interests against the poor.”
Griffin, a frequent visitor to Haiti, acknowledged the country’s deteriorating security situation but said funding reconciliation and disarmament programs would better serve the Haitian people. “More weapons don’t give you better police work,” he said, noting that just law enforcement required a respect for due process. “If they want to send handcuffs or bulletproof vests, all right. But not machine guns, not handguns,” he said.
Eric Calpas, regional director of the United Nation’s disarmament and demobilization program in Haiti, said the police need more equipment but said any transfer of weapons ought to be done through CIVPOL, the U.N. agency responsible for vetting and training the country’s police force.
“The [Haitian National Police] is very weak. We see a lot of corrupt elements,” Calpas said. “In the current context of Haiti, it would not be a good idea to send the weapons directly to them.”
Haiti is already overly armed and heavily militarized. Because of political instability most of the country’s weapons are unregulated, according to a report issued last April by the Small Arms Survey, a Geneva-based organization funded by the Swiss government. Written by arms control expert Robert Muggah, the report said the majority of weapons in the hands of Haiti’s armed factions have been “leaked” from official stockpiles. Human rights monitors have accused the Haitian police, some of whom are former members of the military, of funneling weapons to armed militias.
Muggah’s report states that although many nations have shipped arms to Haiti, the United States is the country’s biggest supplier of legal and covert weapons. The report also claims that in November 2004 a shipment of weapons valued at $6.95 million allegedly entered Haiti from the United States for “probable sale to the [Haitian National Police].”
A State Department official told NCR that the account of the November sale was “erroneous.” The official said the U.S. government’s program for training and supervising Haiti’s police force was “fully coordinated and complementary” with the efforts of CIVPOL.
Some observers fear importing weaponry to Haiti will undermine a U.N. disarmament effort that reportedly began this past spring.
“It is damaging to disarmament efforts to supply an unstable security sector with new weaponry when we know that some of those weapons will almost certainly end up in insurgent and criminal hands,” wrote Muggah in an op-ed article that appeared in the Canadian daily Globe and Mail last April.
The U.S. arms embargo on Haiti, imposed after a military coup ousted Aristide in the fall of 1991, allows for exceptions on a “case by case” basis. The embargo requires the State Department to notify Congress prior to any transfers or licensing of sales of weapons. Typically given to committee chairpersons, those notifications are not seen by most legislators, said Nathan Britton, communications officer for Rep. Lee.
Some observers have interpreted this year’s weapons transactions to Haiti as a reversal of the embargo. Although questioned repeatedly by NCR, State Department officials refused to say whether or not the ban on weapons sales remains in effect.
Earlier this summer, Lee introduced an amendment to the State Department Authorization Bill requiring that agency to document all weapons transactions to Haiti since the start of the arms embargo in October 1991. The House approved the authorization bill and sent it to the Senate for approval in July.
The congresswoman, who has also called for an investigation of U.S. participation in last year’s coup against Aristide, is concerned that the information about what has happened in Haiti “gets out there,” Britton said.
“The climate of intimidation and fear is mounting and too often the Haitian National Police are implicated as the offenders,” Lee said. “The United States must not be complicit in helping to arm criminals and Congress should be apprised to the United States’ role, if any, in arming criminals.”

It's getting worse

International Red Cross says staff member kidnapped, killed in
Haiti
GENEVA (AP) -- A worker for the International Committee of the
Red Cross was kidnapped and killed in Haiti, the humanitarian
agency said Friday.
Joel Cauvin, a Haitian, was abducted Wednesday evening and found
dead near his home Thursday, the ICRC said.
"The ICRC is deeply distressed by the death of Mr. Cauvin, who
had been taking an active part in the organization's humanitarian
activities for the past 10 years," the agency said in a statement,
adding that it was "extremely concerned about the growing
insecurity in Haiti."
It said it would continue to administer humanitarian aid to
Haiti despite the current violence in the country.
More than 700 people have been slain in Haiti since September,
when supporters of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide stepped
up calls for his return from exile in South Africa.
Gangs loyal to Aristide are blamed for most of the violence.

Latest on Violence in Haiti

Disturbing news continues to come out of Haiti about the increase in the level of violence there. Chuck Kolesar reported Father Ilric had been carjacked twice, and a representative with Food for the Poor told me last week that many volunteer groups were pulling out because of the violence. Below is a Washington Post article that shows the violence is finally getting some international attention.

Annan Makes Plea For Troops in Haiti
By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 30, 2005;

UNITED NATIONS, June 29 -- United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan asked the United States this week to consider sending troops to Haiti to support a U.N. peacekeeping mission beset by mounting armed challenges to its authority, according to senior U.N. officials.

Annan told Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in a meeting at U.N. headquarters Tuesday afternoon that he may have to ask for American "boots on the ground" in the coming months to reinforce more than 6,500 Brazilian, Chilean, Argentine and other peacekeeping forces serving in Haiti, the officials said.

He expressed hope that the United States would participate in a planned U.N. rapid reaction force, authorized by the Security Council earlier this month, that would have the firepower to intimidate armed gangs threatening the country's fragile political transition. Officials said that similar requests are being considered for other countries, including Canada and France. "We want scarier troops," one senior U.N. official said.

Annan told Rice that the Haitians "respect the U.S. military," according to a senior U.N. diplomat familiar with the closed-door meeting. Annan added that the United Nations may make a formal request for troops later, the diplomat said.

The plea from Annan comes weeks after Rice questioned the need for U.S. military intervention in Haiti, saying that it would be a "mistake" to abandon confidence in the ability of the Brazilian-led peacekeeping force to do the job. Rice provided Annan with no pledges of military support, officials said, but offered to help persuade France and Canada to contribute to the mission.

Following the meeting, Annan's office made no specific mention of his suggestion about U.S. troops. Instead, Annan's spokesman issued a statement saying that the U.N. chief had highlighted the "need for greater military support" for the U.N. mission during his talks with Rice.

The Pentagon has been weighing a request from the U.S. ambassador to Haiti, James B. Foley, and other senior U.S. officials to present an American show of force in the troubled Caribbean island nation, according to U.S. officials. The officials, who said they were not authorized to speak publicly on the issue, expressed concern that violence could spiral out of control, threatening the country's municipal and presidential elections scheduled for October and December.

U.S. and U.N. officials have begun a series of preliminary discussions about a possible U.S. military role in Haiti, including the provision of logistical and intelligence support to the planned U.N. rapid reaction force, according to senior U.N. diplomats. But the diplomats said that the United States, which currently has only four military staff officers serving in the U.N. mission, has made no formal commitment to expand its military presence.

The chief U.N. peacekeeping official, Jean-Marie Guehenno of France, declined to discuss the specifics of any military contacts with Washington. "At the moment, we are discussing a range of options," he said. "We don't exclude any options."

The Bush administration sent U.S. troops into Haiti in March 2004 to halt an upsurge of violence that culminated in former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide's flight from Haiti. A Brazilian-led U.N. peacekeeping force replaced the United States as the country's chief guarantor of security.

In Port-Au-Prince on Wednesday, hundreds of U.N. peacekeepers raided a slum filled with gangs loyal to Aristide, killing six gunmen. The largely Brazilian force suffered no casualties during the eight-hour offensive. About 300 soldiers participated in the operation. Troops detained 13 suspected criminals and turned them over to Haitian police