The United Nations forces including the Brazilians [and Canada's RCMP] have been actively working with the Haitian police as the Haitian police have been committing massacre after massacre against Lavalas supporters in the poor neighbourhoods of the capital... It’s really clear that the United Nations is giving credibility and a veneer of legitimacy to what is basically – I can describe it no other terms – a campaign of extermination physically through violence of the majority political party, which is Jean Bertrand Aristide’s Lavalas party.

UN backs extermination of Lavalas in Haiti

Flashpoints Radio Interviews Kevin Pina
December 6, 2004
by Dennis Bernstein and Kevin Pina

Bernstein: I’m looking at a very troubling photograph and it represents the level and intensity of violence taking place on the ground in Haiti. First of all, describe this photograph, tell us if we know who this is, and what does it signify?

Pina: This is a resident of Cite Soleil. There’s evidence of gunshots, obviously this person was shot several times, the body appears to have then been doused with gasoline and set afire, and then it appears as if someone had taken a brick and thrown it at the body afterwards as well, opening up the chest.

Bernstein: This is not just a killing, this is a message. Talk a little about the message this is sending and the context of the message.

Pina: It’s really clear, this is murder with the intent to terrorize; this takes a lot of work to do this to somebody, and this is what’s going on in Cite Soleil today. We reported here on November 26th that while the Associated Press and Reuters had been reporting that this is inter-gang warfare, we reported it here first based upon witness testimony in Cite Soleil that Andy Apaid of the Group of 184 which is the opposition to Aristide and Rudolph Boulos who is one of the founders of the Haiti Democracy Project in Washington that was the PR arm of the opposition to Aristide, they have been funding gangs in Cite Soleil in order to attack and kill Lavalas members, and this [photograph] is evidence of one of those killings and they are not just killings, this is horrendous torture and maiming of bodies that’s meant to terrorize the community.

Bernstein: Let’s spend a minute on the atmospheric pressure in Haiti on the ground. If you are a pro-democracy activist, what is life like?

Pina: If you were at all involved in something as benign as the literacy project, teaching people to read and write, today you are in fear of your life, today you are in hiding, today you are separated from your family. In many instances you may have had to leave the country for the Dominican Republic. You don’t know what’s happening to the rest of your family members. Or, you’re going to be in jail, you’re going to be arbitrarily arrested, possibly picked up in a dragnet, someone may have said that you worked with the literacy program, and then the police would have arrested you for it, and you’d be spending your nights in a cell packed with other Lavalas political prisoners, with the floor filled with urine and defecation, very little food; family members are afraid to bring you food, bring you things to help you because they’re afraid they might be arrested if they bring you what you need. Or, you’re dead; it’s as simple as that.

Bernstein: I want to talk about the collaboration between the Brazilian [and Canadian-] led peacekeepers and the killer national police/military, re-instituted by the puppet government in Haiti. The Brazilian general came out and said that the French and the Canadians [and the U.S.] want the peacekeepers to be “tougher.