Brazil to send 1,200 troops to Haiti

[seemslikeadream]

Thursday, May 20, 2004 Posted: 11:07 AM EDT (1507 GMT)


Brazilian soldiers receive training in Brasilia, Brazil, before their Haiti deployment.

BRASILIA, Brazil (Reuters) -- Brazil's Senate agreed late Wednesday to send 1,200 troops to Haiti to lead a U.N peacekeeping mission as Brazil seeks to build a role as a regional crisis mediator.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who has championed the interests of the world's poorest nations since taking office, offered Brazil's biggest ever U.N. peacekeeping force to head the mission.

The Senate vote was the last hurdle for deployment. It was approved with 38 votes for and 10 votes against.

Lula, who objected to the U.S.-led war on Iraq last year, conditioned Brazilian leadership of the mission on international support to build a democracy in Haiti after two U.S.

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http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/americas/05/20/brazil.haiti.reut/


Haitian Police kill peaceful demonstrators
by Anthony Fenton Thursday May 20, 2004 at 12:18 PM
[e-mail]

Chile is part of an illegal occupation that has overseen the slaughter of as many as 3000 Haitians since February 29th. Emerging evidence shows that the destabilization and coup d'etat began in 2000, planned and executed by the US, UN, Canada, France, EU, and the Dominican. Empires and vassals. The same forces that helped overthrow Allende have repeated history in Haiti!!!

by the Haiti Information Project

May 18, 2004
Port-au-Prince, Haiti

Special Forces units (CIMO) of the Haitian National Police (PNH) killed Lavalas demonstra-tors today in Port-au-Prince as a larger U.S. Marine "peacekeeping" force of about 50 soldiers stood by.

About 6,000 Lavalas demonstrators in one of many separate marches tried to converge near the Champ De Mars for a larger demonstration. The march had been planned for some time and the organizations that planned the march received written approval by the PNH to hold this demonstration on Haitian Flag Day.

It is hard to estimate the actual size of the demonstration but figures of 30,000 to 60,000 different demonstrators in various parts of the city seem credible.

A contingent of about 50 U.S. Marines patroled every hour at the start of one march in Bel-Air trying to intimidate the population there. One of the marines officers in command tried to threaten an American journalist who was filming the action. Whenever, any of the groups of marchers tried to reach Champ de Mars a CIMO unit would "appear out of nowhere" and commence shooting into the crowds of demonstrators.

Reports of similar killing is coming in from different areas of the city. At 10PM in Haiti, there were nine verified dead by the U.S. trained killers. The Marine's seem to be coordinating this carnage, and are standing by with heavy artillery in case the population tries to stop the killers.

Recently the U.S. Marines have been directly involved in the current violent political repression of Lavalas activists. Last week the Marines used explosives to gain access to Annette Auguste's home before they arrested her and her family on the pretense that she was arming Lavalas militants to attack the Marines during Haitian Solidarity Week. No weapons were witnessed or found in possession of any of the protesters today.

Even though the demonstrators were rather angry no rocks were thrown or violence was witnessed to provoke the shooting.

One demonstrator who was shot 30 yards in front of the journalist lay dying of a gunshot wound to the head. The only item in his possession was a Walkman disk player. The CIMO unit that shot the non-violent Lavalasien drove up in a red truck license plate: 1-0060.

Later reports indicate that the U.S. Marines have begun reprisals for the large show of solidarity, once darkness descended on Port-au-Prince

More details on this tragic event later.
http://chile.indymedia.org/news/2004/05/18974.php
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