Apparently, this is the "soldiers will be soldiers" excuse

[bcholmes]

President José Mujica referred today to the rape of a youth by Uruguayan navy personnel in Haiti and described response to the event as “a hard road to travel” (“un viaje de arena gruesa”) for Uruguay.

The president said in a press conference that “this kind of thing has been happening as long as the world has existed” and added that “among soldiers there is always a fringe of rowdy gangs, it is inevitable.” Mujica recognizes that the incident has to be analyzed from the Uruguayan point of view but also from the point of view of “the weaker ones,” the Haitians.

“The commitment was to form a force inside Haiti of Haitians who would take charge of the situation... I believe we have to achieve that objective,” the president stated. Mujica said the topic will be analyzed tomorrow in the meeting of defense and foreign relations ministers from countries with troops in Haiti.

“We are not in Haiti until retirement,” but in order to “lend a hand so a body of Haitians can be formed to take charge of internal security,” the president declared.

— "Mujica quiere mantener las tropas en Haití pese al escándalo", translated from Spanish

See. If only Haiti would reform its army, MINUSTAH can leave!

Former representative Chifflet: “The Haiti case reaffirms my resignation”

Former Partido Socialista Representative Guillermo Chifflet, who in 2007 resigned his position because of differences with the administration of Tabaré Vásquez over the deployment of Uruguayan troops to UN peace missions, told Espectador that his decision to do so was correct and that “events like those that have just happened in Haiti confirm it.”

“The current events, I believe, reaffirm my position from that time. I did what I thought was in accord with the principles I have held from the beginning. That whole process, which the FA had denounced for years, has culminated in acts typical of an army that occupies a country,” Chifflet stated.

The former Socialist Party representative recalled that the Uruguayan troops “went there in obedience to orders from the North American empire” and that, therefore, “they did not honor the country with that position or with the ensuing incidents.”

“The first punishment is being delivered by world public opinion, which confirms suspicions about what these armies are and what purpose they serve,” Chifflet declared.

Asked about information the FA had concerning peace missions in countries like the Congo and Haiti in the years when it was the opposition, Chifflet recalled, “In those years we did not receive a lot of official information but we did investigate and we knew well that they were going to carry out missions for the empire and this was dishonorable for the country and contemptible for the armed forces.”

“We all have an idea of what the attitude of these armies is in these places, the risks a country is exposed to, when orders from the empire are to be obeyed,” Chifflet declared, adding that with incidents like those that were filmed “the country’s traditions, which should be respected, were not being extolled.”

— Chifflet: "el caso Haití reafirma mi renuncia a la banca", translated from Spanish