Listen to an interview with Patrick Elie, a long-time human rights activist based in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Here, he comments on the latest UN massacre of December 22, 2006, and gives an overview of the current Haitian political landscape.

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In the early morning of Friday, December 22nd, 2006, starting at approximately 3 a.m., 400 Brazilian-led UN occupation troops in armored vehicles carried out a massive assault on the people of Cite Soleil, Port-au-Prince, laying siege yet again to the impoverished community. Initial reports have put the body count as high as 40, mostly civilians, or in the UN's terms, "collateral damage".

I spoke on the phone with Patrick Elie at his home in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Elie comments on this most recent massacre in the slum of Cite Soleil, but also on what he calls a "new coup d'etat". In Elie's words, even though the popular president Rene Preval came to power this year, the outside forces (ie. Canada, France, and the USA) that sponsored the violent overthrow of Jean-Bertrand Aristide nearly 3 years ago are preventing the Haitian people's agenda from being put into place. As a result, key popular demands have still not been met: Aristide remains in exile in South Africa, political prisoners remain behind bars, and the UN continues to lay seige to Haiti's poorest communities. Elie says that if Preval doesn't start to build a security force FOR the people and not AGAINST the people, 2007 will be a rough year for Haiti.

For more information on the latest events in Cite Soleil, and for other news and updates from Haiti, see:

http://haitiaction.net/News/HAC/12_25_6.html
www.haitisolidarity.net
www.canadahaitiaction.ca
www.ckut.ca