Video Footage of UN firing at Haitian mourners

[bcholmes]

YouTube has the footage of the UN soldiers firing at Fr. Jean-Juste's funeral. As other sources have reported, it's not clear that the UN soldiers hit the person who was killed, but it's hard to imagine what else might have happened -- it doesn't look like the scene was violent or ugly.

One of the things that I used to say to explain the significance of Lovinsky's kidnapping was that, to the Haitians, he was as significant as David Suzuki. Fr. Jean-Juste was even more important to the Haitian people. Other than Aristide, I don't think there's anyone more beloved by the Haitian people. And it pisses me off that MINUSTAH has defiled that funeral. The UN is maintaining that the person who was killed had been hit by a rock, and that they only fired into the air. They shouldn't be fucking shooting at a funeral. Jeezuz.

I got this from a mailing list the other day; it talks about a period in 2005, after the coup:

"[The opposition] stationed a death squad outside the church," Jean-Juste explained. "This was later to become the coup’s terror force, Lanme Timachet . They were trained to get me. Some of them didn't even know me, because at first they went to another priest with a beard. To start the attack, Magalie Comeau Denis and another woman began screaming and accusing me of killing Jacques. Then two leaders from the Group of 184 pointed me out to the death squad and they rushed in my direction. They circled me."

The thugs attacked Jean-Juste as he backed away from them up a staircase toward the rectory. A North American lawyer, Bill Quigley, and a young Haitian woman threw themselves between the attackers and the priest. One of the attackers tried to stab Jean-Juste with a spike, but wounded the woman instead. Another assailant had a gun but apparently became too afraid to use it. The U.N. occupation troops, MINUSTAH belatedly intervened, turning Jean-Juste over to Haitian police, who promptly arrested him because he was accused of Roche’s killing by "public clamor."

"I learned later that it was a 3 million gourdes plot [$77,000 US]," Jean-Juste said. "The thugs got one million up front, but the balance of two million was to come only after delivering my body."

In all, Jean-Juste spent some seven months in jail as what Amnesty International called “a prisoner of conscience.” Under pressure from an international human rights campaign, the de facto authorities “provisionally released” Jean-Juste in January 2006 for health reasons after a surreptitious jailhouse examination and blood-drawing by Dr. Paul Farmer revealed the priest was suffering from advanced leukemia. He was flown to Miami and treated at Jackson Memorial Hospital. The leukemia briefly went into remission.

I've never met Fr. Jean-Juste, although I know a lot of people who were close to him. I've attended his church. I have met Bill Quigley.

I feel very much like I felt in March 2004.