Statement
of Haitian mother of five, raped and sodomized by Jordanian Soldier
"peacekeeping" in Haiti
Interview of Haitian mother in Haiti raped by Jordanian "Peacekeeper"
on Saturday, November 26, 2005 - Interview
conducted November 28, 2005, Ezili Danto Witness Project
English translation
by Frantz Jerome
Ezili Danto Witness Project
Correspondent in Haiti: ....Right now, very quickly,
we will enter into another chapter, as we announced yesterday,
(Sunday, Nov. 27, 2005) we enter into another chapter, an ugly
affront, where amongst the United Nation’s soldiers, there
is a Jordanian soldier who perpetrated a crime on a lady that
was raped under strange circumstances ("lan Kondityon dwol").
This madam, a mother of five small children, she was miraculously
saved, because she did not want to be gang raped by other soldiers,
when this Jordanian left the little guard house("Ti Cay la")
and went to get his other colleagues. She ran for dear life,
cutting across incoming traffic. Let’s listen to the testimony
given by this lady who is a victim by the hand of this Jordanian
soldier who violated her, again, under strange circumstances.
Haitian Mother, (the rape victim): [inaudible]I was going
home. It was about 5 pm when I started to wait for a “tap-tap”
to first drop me at the Cazeau station where I would transfer
to another one to drop me by Kafou Drouya. When I got to the Cazeau
station, I could not find transportation, so I decided to walk
to [inaudible]. There I could only find “tap-taps”
going down in the other direction. I waited, but no “tap-taps”
were coming. I noticed two people going up the street and no one
going down to [inaudible]. I decided to walk down towards [Drouya]..
The streets were deserted. When I reached Drouya, I noticed only
the white man’s armored vehicles to the right and I went
across to the left, away from them. While walking along, I was
startled by a Jordanian soldier. He ordered me to come to him.
I obeyed and advance to him.
Interviewer: Around what time was this?
Haitian Mother: 7 o'clock
Interviewer: in the evening?
Haitian Mother: Yes, in the evening. When I went
to him, knowing that they usually search people, I handed him
my small bag ("ti sak la") I was carrying. He searched
it. The bag contained: one jug of rice, two jars ("mamit")
of black beans, a candle and my loan money ("kob eskont")
to be paid back with interests ("se te yon kob eskont mwen
t' al pran) that I had just collected that Saturday. (Editor's
Note: Reporter later explains to Ezili Danto Witness
Project that: "yon ponya" - are very high, usury rate
loans usually borrowed from local loan sharks by Haiti's market
women to conduct their market businesses. They're called "ponya"
-as in "taking in a dagger" - in Haiti, because you're
stabbing yourself, killing yourself with the interests to pay
off the loan.)
Interviewer: How much money was in your bag?
Haitian Mother: H$2000.00 (approximately US$250.00)
I collected Saturday, a loan for my business. I normally would
have picked up the money on Monday but my children went to school
and were sent back home for non-payment, so I got the loan in
advance on Saturday [inaudible] and would use H$300.00 (approximately
US$30.00) to pay my child's tuition that is overdue. When he finished
looking through my little sack, he forced me into the little guardhouse.
Interviewer: Did he take the money?
Haitian Mother: I left the bag with him? I left
it with him… When he entered the guardhouse with me, he
pushed my head down. He squeezed my head down to sexually abuse
me standing up. As I fought him off. He pushed to drop me to the
floor. When he managed to force me by knocking me totally all
the way to the floor. He sexually abused me - raped me - from
the back, in the anus.
Interviewer: [inaudible] … in the part where you defecate?
Haitian Mother: Yes, and then he ordered: “stay
there, stay there” and he exited the guardhouse. I
figured that he went to get others that would use me. At the same
time, I saw a “tap-tap” coming. So I rushed out and
ran. I ran right in front of the “tap-tap”. Luckily
the driver managed not to run me over. I left my sandals and the
bag on the floor and I ran….....
Interviewer: Where did this happen?
Haitian Mother: Kafou Drouya.
Interviewer: On the National #1 road?
Haitian Mother: Yes!
Interviewer: You said it was about 7 pm. If you
see the policemen who where in the area, can you ID them?
Haitian Mother: I will not recognize them because
it is so dark and there was only one light on. It is very hard
to see what’s going on…[inaudible]
Interviewer: You mean to tell me that a Jordanian policeman raped
you
Saturday night?
Haitian Mother: Yes!
Interviewer: Saturday November 26?
Haitian Mother: November 26…
Interviewer: [inaudible] … What is your
name?
Haitian Mother: My name is Marie-Rose Proceus.
Interviewer: Have you been to the hospital? Have
you seen a doctor?
Haitian Mother: I have not seen a doctor yet.
I have been walking around, walking around, walking around since
this morning. I went to the police station and was told that I
should go to the Jordanian base [inaudible]. I went there. I did
not see the commander. The people I found there could not speak
Kreyol and I was told to come back.
Interviewer: [inaudible]
Haitian Mother: I went to the police station
in Delmas 33. I just came back from the Ministry of Women Affairs.
Interviewer: What did they tell you in the Women’s
Ministry?
Haitian Mother: They gave me a paper…
They gave me a paper…
Interviewer: They told you to go to the Human Rights
Organization, that’s what I noticed they did.
Haitian Mother: Yes. They said that I should
go to the human rights organizations and that the organizations
would send me to the hospital.
Interviewer: They told you that the human rights
organizations would send you to the hospital?
Haitian Mother: Yes!
Ezili Danto Witness Project Haitian Correspondent in Haiti :
There you have the statement made by Marie-Rose Proceus, the victim
of a Jordanian soldier. She went to the Ministry of Women Affairs.
One would expect the Ministry to accompany her in her hour of
need.
Mrs. Adline Chancy* should have accompanied the victim. The old
Haitian adage says that: "One woman's pain is
every woman's pain." Yet, they merely gave
her a referral to the human rights agency! In our opinion it is
not dealing in good faith. Marie-Rose Proceus should normally
have been seen by a doctor, in an effort to get forensic evidence
on the Jordanian soldier's act of sodomy. This woman is suffering.
She indicated her lower stomach is aching as well as intense pain
in her anus. Because it is by invading her anus that this Jordanian
soldier violated her.
We have also interviewed Louis St. Vil, Marie-Rose Proceus’
husband. Let's listen to what he has to say after the Jordanian
soldier raped his wife.
Husband: These men found a way to be in the country.
Now, they go as far as sexual abuse and sodomizing. I say that
damages are due, for this criminal act, and Marie-Rose’s
loan money is lost; money that she needs to pay school tuition,
to pay rent.
This loan money must be restituted but also damages must be paid
for there is a risk of AIDS. If she was to die, I have no mother
for our children, ...no wife...[inaudible]
Interviewer: How many children do you have?
Husband: [inaudible]...We have five children...
three boys and two girls in school, primary school...[inaudible,
details about family]
Interviewer: Where do you live?
Husband:…National 1 Route...
Interviewer: Have you encouraged your wife to
go to the hospital?
Husband: Basically that is what I am doing. This
happened on Saturday. On Sunday we did not have the opportunity
to seek medical help. However, first thing this Monday morning
we went to the police station. We have been making the rounds
and just came from the Women's Affairs Ministry and they gave
us a referral for the human rights organization and that will
be our next stop. We will hand the case over to them and we hope
they will take care of it.
Ezili Danto Witness Project Correspondent in Haiti:
There you have it, Louis St. Vil’s statement; the victim's
Marie-Rose Proceus, his wife. Louis St. Vil, is the husband. As
of this moment we do not have any reactions from the UN military
high command to report. We would like to hear Juan Gabriel Valdez’s
reaction on this Jordanian soldier’s behavior. We’ll
recall that in Gonaïves, UN soldiers raped two young ladies
in a banana field.
Though there were strong reactions at the time and that the case
was forwarded to a judge, the judicial process never led to a
resolution.
We also know that among the first cases is that of the girl coming
from her 7th grade state exams. The UN soldiers raped her and
she was covered with blood as a result of their “gang
bang” session. The case got a lot of attention
(strong reactions) hush-hush deals led to a cover-up where even
some journalists got paid to “forever remain silent”.
Renold George was one of the rare politicians to denounce this
"betrayal of justice". The parents were also corrupted
by the money distributed all
around and they ultimately dropped the case.
The proverbial jury is still out in the case of Marie-Rose Proceus
who has been victimized and is suffering because of the savage
penetration of this Jordanian soldier.
END OF REPORT 
* Mrs. Adline Chancy heads the Ministry of Women Affairs
More To Come from
the Ezili Danto Witness Project: Follow
up interviews commissioned by the Ezili Danto Witness Project
for Statements from the Jordanian Commander in Haiti, the UN human
rights officials, the doctor's report, the human rights organizations
who were referred this case by the Women's Ministry and comment
requested from the Women's Ministry. In progress....for the next
installment of the Ezili Danto Witness Project report on the injustices
brought to Haiti when, in a second round at colonization, Bush,
Paul Martin and Chirac oustered Haiti's democratically elected
government, saddle Haiti with a Miami Administrator and call its
interference in
Haiti's autonomy;
its greed, deceit and oppression - "progress," "democracy"
and "development"....)
***********************
UN Peacekeepers in Haiti Cleared
of Rape
(Jamaicaobserver)
February 25, 2005 - (AP) Three Pakistani peacekeepers working
as UN peacekeepers in Haiti have been cleared of allegations that
they raped a woman on a banana plantation, a top UN official said
on Wednesday.
An investigation by the UN and Haitian police concluded that the
men paid for consensual sex, said Jean Lafaille, commander of
the UN police unit in the central city of Gonaives, where the
23 year-old woman was allegedly raped.
"We've concluded that there was no crime, though internal
rules about prostitution were broken," said Lafaille. UN
regulations forbid solicitation.
It was unclear what other penalties the men could face, said Damian
Onses-Cardona, spokesman for the 7,400-member peacekeeping force.
Calls to UN headquarters in New York were not immediately returned.
Lafaille said the investigation began when locals told UN peacekeepers
they had seen two of the men engaging in sexual acts with the
woman in a banana field on February 18. The third man was present
but didn't engage in the sexual act, Lafaille said.
When interviewed by police and UN inspectors, the woman acknowledged
she had been paid for the sex, Lafaille said. Attempts to reach
the woman were unsuccessful.
The investigation comes as the United Nations investigates sexual
abuse allegations in a handful of countries around the world.
The most notable case is Congo, where 150 allegations of sexual
abuse include rape, paedophilia, and solicitation.
The United Nations has 64,000 troops serving in 16 peacekeeping
missions around the world.
From:
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news
/html/20050224T200000-0500_75738_OBS_UN_PEACEKEEPERS
_IN_HAITI_CLEARED_OF_RAPE.asp
***********************
UN investigating allegation of
rape in Haiti by three UN Pakistani peacekeepers
February 23, 2005 - (Reuters) The United Nations is investigating
allegations that three Pakistani policemen raped a woman in Haiti
while deployed on a U.N. stabilization mission, a spokesman said
on Wednesday.
The probe comes shortly after the United Nations reported widespread
abuse of women by U.N. peacekeeping soldiers in Congo, which led
the international body this month to ban its peacekeepers from
having sex with Congolese.
The U.N. mission in Haiti, known as MINUSTAH, began ``a very urgent
inquiry'' last week, spokesman Damian Onses-Cardona said.
A preliminary investigation indicated the incident involved consensual
sex for pay, the mission said in a statement.
``The young lady acknowledged her consent and negotiated through
a third person about the sum to pay in exchange,'' the statement
said.
The 23-year-old woman, who lives near the northern city of Gonaives,
told local radio journalists the peacekeepers used another woman
to lure her to a banana plantation with a promise of new clothing,
and took turns raping her there on Friday.
``The foreigners grabbed and pulled my pants, had me lie on the
ground and then raped me,'' she told the radio stations.
Two of the accused were removed from their posts and could face
legal and disciplinary measures if the rape allegations are confirmed
during the investigation, which continues, the U.N. mission said.
The third was present but did not participate, Onses-Cardona said.
``What I can say is that there will be zero tolerance against
those at fault,'' he said.
``The MINUSTAH and the United Nations take this case very seriously.''
U.N. regulations for soldiers usually forbid sex with anyone under
18 years of age and forbid forced prostitution.
The United Nations sent peacekeepers to Haiti to help stabilize
the nation after President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted during
a bloody rebellion a year ago. The Brazilian-led force is currently
comprised of 6,000 troops from 20 nations and 1,400 civilian police
from 34 nations.
From:
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-haiti-un.html
***********************
washingtonpost.com
U.N. Faces More Accusations
of Sexual Misconduct
Officials Acknowledge 'Swamp' of Problems and Pledge Fixes Amid
New Allegations in Africa, Haiti By Colum Lynch,
Washington Post Staff Writer. Sunday, March 13, 2005; Page A22
UNITED NATIONS -- The United Nations is facing new allegations
of sexual misconduct by U.N. personnel in Burundi, Haiti, Liberia
and elsewhere, which is complicating the organization's efforts
to contain a sexual abuse scandal that has tarnished its Nobel
Prize-winning peacekeepers in Congo.
The allegations indicate that a series of measures the United
Nations has taken in recent years have failed to eliminate a culture
of sexual permissiveness that has plagued its far-flung peacekeeping
operations over the last 12 years. But senior U.N. officials say
they have signaled their seriousness by imposing new reforms and
forcing senior U.N. military commanders and officials to step
down if they do not curb such practices.
"The blue helmet has become black and blue through self-inflicted
wounds," Jane Holl Lute, a senior U.N. peacekeeping official
who heads a U.N. task force on sexual exploitation, told a congressional
committee investigating allegations that U.N. personnel participated
in rape, prostitution and pedophilia in Congo. "We will not
sit still until the luster of that blue helmet is restored."
The reports of sexual abuse have come from U.N. officials, internal
U.N. documents, and local and international human rights organizations
that have tracked the issue. Some U.N. officials and outside observers
say there have been cases of abuse in almost every U.N. mission,
including operations in Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone and Kosovo.
"This is a problem in every mission around the world,"
said Sarah Martin, an expert on the subject at Refugees International
who recently conducted investigations into misconduct by U.N.
peacekeepers in Haiti and Liberia. "If you don't have a strict
code of discipline, accountability and transparency in the process,
then you're going to continue to have a problem."
Peacekeepers in several Liberian communities routinely engage
in sex with girls, according to an internal U.N. letter obtained
by The Washington Post. In the town of Gbarnga, peacekeepers were
seen patronizing a club called Little Lagos, "where girls
as young as 12 years of age are engaged in prostitution, forced
into sex acts and sometimes photographed by U.N. peacekeepers
in exchange for $10 or food or other commodities," according
to the letter, which a representative of the U.N. Children's Fund
(UNICEF) wrote Feb. 8 to the mission's second-ranking official.
The letter also stated that community leaders in the town of Robertsport
have accused Namibian peacekeepers there of "using administrative
building premises and the surrounding bush to undertake sex acts
with girls between the age of 12-17."
The letter said the U.N. peacekeeping mission had failed to address
some misconduct reports. In response, the U.N. special representative
in Liberia, Jacques Klein, ordered an investigation, according
to an internal U.N. memo dated Feb. 18. U.N.
Deputy Secretary General Louise Frechette, meanwhile, traveled
this month to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast to urge the
missions' leadership to crack down on sexual misconduct.
The United Nations also opened an investigation earlier this month
into allegations of sexual abuse of minors by U.N. troops in the
Central African country of Burundi. "Over the past few weeks
I have learned to my deep regret that, despite firm instructions
to the contrary, some staff members continue to indulge in unacceptable
and potentially illegal behavior," Carolyn McKaskie, the
senior U.N. representative, wrote in a March 10 internal memo
to members of the U.N. mission.
Lute said the U.N. peacekeeping department has ordered an internal
review of its policies for combating sexual exploitation among
the nearly 80,000 peacekeepers in all 17 U.N. peacekeeping missions
around the world. They are also pressing countries that contribute
peacekeepers to prosecute those accused of crimes in special courts-martial
in the countries where they are accused.
"We have violated our duty for care, and we need to fix that
problem," Lute said in a recent interview. "We're shining
a light here, and it's not a pretty picture. But when you're in
the swamp, the only way out of the swamp is through the swamp."
Pamela Shifman, a UNICEF expert on sexual exploitation of children,
said abuses are pervasive among U.N. peacekeepers deployed in
countries that have been afflicted by grinding poverty and years
of conflict. But, she said, "It is not inevitable. That's
a really important message -- that we can address impunity. We
can address accountability."
Martin, of Refugees International, said the degree of military
discipline varies from mission to mission. In Liberia, she said,
uniformed U.N. peacekeepers and U.N. civilians openly frequent
brothels in marked U.N. vehicles. She also noted that some contingents,
including the Namibians, are encamped in local villages, placing
them in direct contact with locals.
In Haiti, she said, soldiers from Chile, Brazil, Sri Lanka and
Peru "lived in walled compounds with gates, and they are
not able to go out at night; they are under strict curfew."
Still, two Pakistani police were removed from Haiti last month
after a local woman accused them of raping her at a banana farm
outside Gonaives, U.N. officials said. A U.N. investigation dismissed
the rape charge but expelled the Pakistanis for hiring a prostitute.
In September a Brazilian peacekeeper was accused of raping a minor
in Port-au-Prince, Martin said. The United Nations concluded there
was insufficient evidence to prosecute the peacekeeper, she said.
Sexual abuse scandals have shadowed the United Nations since the
early 1990s, when U.N. peacekeepers in Cambodia were charged with
sexually abusing girls. At the time, the U.N.'s top official in
Cambodia, Yasushi Akashi, played down the gravity of the allegations,
saying, "Boys will be boys."
Human rights investigators and journalists documented widespread
abuses in 2001 in Kosovo and Bosnia, where U.N. police operated
brothels and trafficked women from Eastern Europe to engage in
prostitution.
A U.N. spokesman in Kosovo, Neeraj Singh, said a series of reforms
had curtailed such abuses. But Singh confirmed that a Pakistani
staff member in the office of the High Commissioner for Refugees,
Rashid Doon Khan, was arrested in Kosovo on Jan. 28 by an international
prosecutor in Kosovo pending a pretrial investigation that "relates
to sexual and narcotics-related charges involving minors."
Singh declined to provide further details. An attorney for Khan,
Tome Gashi, declined to comment on the charges.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
***********************
U.N. Says Scores Of Peacekeepers Ousted for Abuse
Associated Press| Friday, December 1, 2006; A23
UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 30 -- Nearly 180 soldiers, civilians and
police officers in U.N. peacekeeping missions have been targeted
for disciplinary action for sexual abuse since the beginning of
2004, the chief U.N. spokesman said Thursday.
Despite the U.N.'s "zero tolerance," said Stephane Dujarric,
"acts of sexual exploitation and abuse by U.N. peacekeeping
personnel continue to occur."
Since January 2004, the United Nations has investigated 319 peacekeeping
personnel in all U.N. missions, Dujarric said.
"These resulted in the summary dismissal of 18 civilians
and the repatriation on disciplinary grounds of 17 police and
144 military personnel," he said.
The U.N. peacekeeping department's conduct and discipline team
reported that since it was established in 2005, its list of peacekeepers
repatriated on disciplinary grounds for sexual exploitation and
abuse includes 12 peacekeepers from Nepal, 7 from Uruguay, 4 from
Nigeria, 4 from Senegal, 2 from Benin, 2 from Ethiopia, 2 from
Togo and 1 each from France, Ghana, India, Niger and South Africa.
Dujarric was responding to a BBC report that said children had
been subjected to rape and prostitution by U.N. peacekeepers in
Haiti and Liberia. The BBC said girls told of regular encounters
with soldiers who demanded sex in return for food or money.
The specific case mentioned in Haiti took place in November 2004,
Dujarric said, adding that the allegations were not upheld by
two U.N. investigations. The incident in Liberia reportedly took
place on Nov. 15, but Dujarric said the U.N. mission in Liberia
had received no report in the last two months of any cases involving
minors.
The U.N. peacekeeping department instituted the zero tolerance
policy last year following an investigation that found that peacekeepers
in Congo had sex with women and girls, usually in exchange for
food or small sums of money.
**************************
Those
who don't know their history are doomed to repeat it:
See, the first US occupation and administration of Haiti
and how, then too, President Wilson of the US called the US. marines
exploits on behalf of New York bankers and multinationals, an
exercize in "civilizing" and "developing"
the "corrupt,," "failed" and "inept"
blacks of Haiti....Charlemagne
Pèralte Speaks!
-
Inquiry into Occupation and Administration of Haiti," The
U.S. Senate Investigates the Haitian Occupation
interview Haitians about marine conduct in the guerrilla war against
Haitian resistance.
- ******************
See Also:
Conclusions
and Recommendations by the Commitee of Six Disinterested Americans
The
People Were Very Peaceable": The U.S. Senate Investigates
the Haitian Occupation
The
Truth about Haiti: An NAACP Investigation
**************************
************************************************************
- HLLN's
position of the sham elections
Standing on Truth, Living without Fear: HLLN's position on foreign-sponsored
elections under coup d'etat, dictatorship and occupation | Haitian
Perspectives by Marguerite Laurent, October 31, 2005
- HLLN's
responds regarding position taken on sham elections,Windowsonhaiti
There are no free rides
http://www.haitiforever.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=12214#12214
-
“We’re Not Participating In Selections!” Says
Haitians in Haiti
(May 27, 2005) Ezili
Danto Witness Project
- NY
Fanmi Lavalas denounces Marc Bazin and his renegade Fanmi Lavalas
acolytes
-
Condemn Sham Elections in Haiti
“Be true to the highest within your soul and then allow
yourself to be governed by no customs or conventionalities or
arbitrary man-made rules that are not founded on principle.”
Ralph Waldo Trine
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