Gegenwärtig wird in der UN die Verlängerung des MINUSTAH-Mandates, das im Oktober ausläuft, diskutiert. Neben dem UN-Generalsekretär tun sich insbesondere der neue UN-Sondergesandte Bill Clinton und der französische Außenminister Kouchner als Befürworter der Mandatsverlängerung hervor. Im Vorfeld dieser Debatte werden absurde Berichte über eine Verbesserung der Lage und realistische Chancen für eine dauerhafte Stabilisierung lanciert (z.B. hier von der UN). Neben der Forderung nach einer Verlängerung und “Neukonfiguration” des Mandates wird wie immer auch um mehr finanzielle Hilfe geworben. Die Sicherheit hätte sich verbessert, die soziale und ökonomische Lage hingegen kaum.
Tatsächlich hat Haiti wieder blutige Sommermonate erlebt, bei denen mehrfach UN-Soldaten gegen Demonstranten vorgegangen sind. Im April wurden mindestens 5 Personen bei Protesten gegen hohe Preise und niedrige Löhne erschossen. Ende Mai begannen Studentenproteste gegen den schlechten Zustand der Universität und die Streichung von Kursen, die ebenfalls eskalierten. Ebenfalls Ende Mai starb Gerard Jean-Juste, eine Identifikationsfigur der Lavalas-Bewegung, der 2006 durch Inhaftierung von einer Kandidatur bei den Wahlen ausgeschlossen wurde. Bei seiner Beerdigung wurde einer der Trauernden erschossen. Die UN leugneten “kategorisch”, dass UN-Kräfte hieran schuld seien, obwohl zahlreiche Augenzeugen dies behaupten, es offensichtlich zumindest Warnschüsse gegeben habe und ein Obduktionsbericht dies nahelegt (die UN hatten vor dem durchsickern dieses Berichts behauptet, der Tote sei durch einen Stein oder einen stumpfen Gegenstand verletzt worden). Auch im Vorfeld der Senatswahlen kam es zu Zusammenstößen, an denen die UN aber nur periphär beteiligt waren.
Vor dem Hintergrund dieser Ereignisse und der regelmäßigen Menschenrechtsverletzungen durch die MINUSTAH forderte die International Association of Democratic Lawyers, dass das Mandat der MINUSTAH nicht verlängert und alle Opfer der MINUSTAH entschädigt werden sollten. Eine gute und recht ausgewogene Zusammenfassung dieser Ereignisse findet sich hier.
Die Offensive von 2006
Zum Hintergrund der angeblich verbesserten Sicherheitslage sei hier auf einige Dokumente des United States Institute for Peace hingewiesen, das eine eigene, ganz widerliche Haiti Working Group unterhält.
Dieser Bericht des United States Institute for Peace (USIP) über die Versuche von UN und HNP von 2006, die Slums von Cité Soleil wieder unter Kontrolle zu bekommen, ist zwar bereits recht alt, aber eindrucksvoll. deshalb möchte ich ihn hier ausführlich dokumentieren, auch damit er erhalten bleibt, falls das PDF eines Tages nicht mehr verfügbar ist. Eine Zusammenfassung des Berichts als HTML gibt es auch hier. Unten folgt der Hinweis auf eine und eine kurze Zusammenfassung der Präsentation zweier USIP-Mitarbeiter über die Lessons Learned des bisherigen Einsatzes vom November 2006.
The UN Offensive
As early as August 2006, in response to intergang fighting that caused the deaths of twenty-two people, Sri Lankan UN military forces had occupied twenty static points in Martissant, a slum in southern Port-au-Prince with a long history of violence and gang rivalry. Over the succeeding months, MINUSTAH expanded its patrols, improved relations
with the community, and established a central strongpoint at the junction of three main gang territories. Following President Préval’s call for action in November 2006, MINUSTAH Police Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams launched a series of joint arrest operations with their HNP counterparts. UN military forces provided the outer security
cordon. The principal target was a gang leader known as “Roudy,” since MINUSTAH’s Joint Mission Analysis Center (JMAC) had the best information on him. These operations, which resulted in nearly a hundred arrests, provided valuable experience and served as a trial run for subsequent incursions into Cité Soleil.
In mid-December, the Haitian secretary of state for public security gave directions to arrest a notorious Cité Soleil‐based gang leader known as “Belony.” JMAC focused its sources on this target, resulting in two operations to arrest him when he was outside Cité Soleil—one of which came within minutes of success. After these attempts failed, the director general of the HNP decided to go into Cité Soleil to get Belony. Since the UN Police and the HNP did not have the capacity for such an aggressive operation, they sought military support. After intervention by the SRSG, the force commander was persuaded to mount the operation.
The initial incursion into Cité Soleil, mounted on December 22, was a police-led operation, but the threat had escalated well beyond the level previously encountered in Cité Militaire and Martissant. Belony’s compound was heavily fortified, and members of his gang were well armed; concrete walls and tank traps blocked all access routes. The United Nations expected to meet stiff resistance. The plan involved the police in the lead using a Chinese FPU, the Jordanian SWAT contingent, and the SWAT unit from the Haitian National Police. The Brazilian battalion was in a supporting role. The objective was to arrest Belony and rescue kidnap victims that the United Nations believed were being held at his headquarters in the Bois Neuf section of Cité Soleil.
In the early morning hours of December 22, the Chinese FPU’s armored personnel carriers (APCs) turned into the narrow lanes leading to Belony’s compound and immediately were engaged by hostile fire. Unfortunately, military combat engineers had failed to remove tank traps, so the APCs were unable to reach the gang’s compound. The convoy made it to about sixty meters from its objective before being forced to retreat.
On December 28, MINUSTAH military and police forces, acting in support of the HNP, conducted a second assault, which destroyed part of the gang’s compound. Dismounted Bolivian Special Forces soldiers fired four rocket-propelled grenades into the building where Belony was believed to be, but he escaped.
With the arrival of a new force commander in January 2007, MINUSTAH military forces mounted a concerted assault on the gangs on January 24. During the night, UN military forces led by the Brazilian battalion occupied a partially completed two-story concrete structure with faded blue walls, known locally as the “Blue House.” The building provided a commanding view into the compound of Evans, the most powerful gang leader in Cité Soleil. At sunrise, gang members saw UN soldiers on the rooftop of the Blue House and began an armed assault against the structure, sparking a firefight that lasted into the afternoon.
At that point, the International Committee of the Red Cross arranged a truce to evacuate the wounded. Evans exploited this by mobilizing neighborhood civilians to take to the streets with white flags to stage a “demonstration” against the United Nations.
Faced with the choice of firing on unarmed civilians or suspending the operation, the UN military commander requested police assistance. Although MINUSTAH Police had not participated in planning the operation, the police commissioner had taken the precaution of placing an FPU on standby when he learned that the assault was underway. Within fifteen minutes, the FPU arrived, outfitted with nonlethal riot control capabilities, and safely cleared the streets of demonstrators. The UN military resumed the operation, eventually capturing the gang’s headquarters. Evans fled but was arrested in March in the southern coastal town of Les Cayes.
Following this operation, UN military and police units working with the Haitian National Police moved neighborhood by neighborhood throughout Cité Soleil, arresting gang leaders or forcing them to flee. Once the United Nations established that it was prepared to use superior force, resistance from the gangs quickly diminished. Gang members deserted their leaders and sought to blend into the population. Haitian gangs proved to be collections of individuals who formed around brutal and charismatic leaders, unlike the hierarchical, tightly organized turf-based institutions found in the United States. By March 2007, the United Nations had regained control of Cité Soleil. Once the gangs had
been flushed from their sanctuaries, with support from police-led operations by UN Police and the HNP, some eight hundred gang members were eventually arrested, and all but one gang leader was either apprehended or killed.
The UN campaign against the gangs was not without costs for the residents of Cité Soleil. In a survey conducted by Group Croissance on behalf of the United States Institute of Peace in early 2008, 52 percent of respondents reported that family members, friends, or neighbors, including women and children, were killed or wounded during the fighting with the gangs. (These reports were anecdotal and could not be confirmed by official statistics or death certificates.)1 In the tightly crowded living areas in Cité Soleil, houses made of plywood, cardboard, and corrugated metal offered little protection from the military assault rifles and machine guns used by both sides. The gangs had little interest in imposing fire discipline, while the United Nations was attacking entrenched and heavily defended positions using the heavy machine guns on its APCs and the automatic weapons issued to its troops. Some of the respondents specified that casualties were inflicted by MINUSTAH, but most were uncertain about the source of the fire. All gave horrific descriptions of the fighting. Civilians were trapped in their homes or caught in cross fires,
some buildings were crushed by UN vehicles or set aflame leaving residents homeless. UN troops used teargas in areas where civilians had no protection. Many said the damage to their homes and shops had not been repaired and that they were made homeless. Despite the casualties, material losses, and delays in making repairs 97 percent of respondents believed that the UN crackdown on the gangs was justified.
The impact of the campaign against the gangs has been profound. Cité Soleil, which previously had been viewed by international organizations primarily through the narrow viewing slots of APCs, is now accessible to civilian assistance providers in soft-sided vehicles. The local population is able to move about freely, albeit with the continued presence of MINUSTAH military and police patrols, which are accompanied by a member of the HNP whenever possible. The community is no longer terrorized and intimidated. A survey conducted for the U.S. State Department’s Haiti Stabilization Initiative (HSI) in November 2007 found that 98 percent of Cité Soleil residents felt safer than they had six months earlier, and 85 percent reported that they could conduct their daily activities without fear of intimidation or extortion.2 Harassing shots at UN strongpoints have virtually ceased. Kidnappings have dropped below 20 percent of their previous levels. Residents are reporting crimes to the police, and other violent crime has been substantially reduced. Perhaps most indicative of the change in orientation of the population, the inhabitants of Cité Soleil even volunteered information to police that led to the arrest of gang leaders and confiscation of arms caches in the aftermath of the February 2007 campaign.
Als Quelle für die fast schon hundertzehnprozentige Zustimmung der Bevölkerung wird angegeben:
“CHF International, “Study on the United Nations Crackdown on Gangs in Haiti: Citizens Perspectives,”
March 2008″
Leider konnte ich dieses Dokument nicht finden.
Empfehlungen für ein (noch) robusteres Mandat
Unter Empfehlungen spricht sich das United State Institute for Peace im Anschluss insbesondere dafür aus, die “Intelligence” beim Peacekeeping auszubauen (in diesem Fall das JMAC) und die Soldaten mit (noch) robusteren Einsatzregeln auszustatten und nationale Einschränkungen der jeweiligen Kontingente beim Einsatz von Waffengewalt zu unterbinden. Das (Kriegs-)Völkerrecht wird dabei explizit relativiert und für eine “Weiterentwicklung” der Peacekeeping-Doktrin geworben:
The recently promulgated UN capstone doctrine for peacekeeping recognizes that when “‘the lingering forces of war and violence threaten a fragile peace or continue to prey upon a vulnerable population’ the mission may have to use force preemptively to implement its mandate and to protect civilians.” Although the doctrine regards peacekeeping and peace enforcement as distinct activities, equating the latter to war, it does recognize the need for mandate enforcement when missions are threatened by violent obstruction from illegal armed groups. In the discussion of impartiality, the capstone doctrine advises that “Just as a good referee is impartial but will penalize infractions, so a peacekeeping operation should not condone actions by the parties that violate the undertakings of the peace process or the international norms and principles that a UN peacekeeping operation upholds.”
Beyond the recognition that mandate enforcement is an essential component of peacekeeping, however, there are no guidelines or precepts to suggest how this most daunting of peacekeeping tasks should be conducted. After examining doctrine produced by Britain, France, India, and the United States, William Durch finds that there is a growing convergence around the notion of blending counterinsurgency principles with the core peacekeeping concepts as a basis for mandate enforcement.12 DPKO should work to complement its existing capstone doctrine by establishing doctrine for field operations that specifies when and how to defend and enforce its mandates. As a fundamental imperative, mission leadership should be guided by the principle that it will actively support the efforts of
those who support the mandate, and actively oppose those who seek to obstruct it—especially those who engage in violence.
Die erwähnte Präsentation von William Durch findet sich hier.
Ebenfalls auf der Homepage des United State Institute for Peace findet sich außerdem eine Präsentation. Leider konnte ich nicht herausfinden, wer die Urheber sind, aber sicherlich handelt es sich um Militärs. Folgende Lessons Learned werden genannt:
- INFRASTRUCTURE IMPROVEMENTS ALONG WITH THE MILITARY OPERATIONS
- TRAINING TROOPS ACCORDING TO THE RULES OF ENGAGEMENT OF CHAPTER VII
- MAKING USE OF NON-LETHAL WEAPONS
- TEACHING THE TROOPS THE LANGUAGE OF THE COUNTRY WHERE THEY WILL BE DEPLOYED
- OCCUPYING PERMANENTLY STRONG POINTS INSIDE THE CRITICAL AREAS
- EMPLOYING SPECIAL FORCES UNITS
- BEING PROACTIVE IN HUMANITARIAN AND CIVILIAN ACTIONS
- OFFICERS AND NCO`s BEING AWARE OF THE HISTORY AND CULTURE OF THE COUNTRY
- IMPROVING FIRST AID TRAINING
Auch wenn das alles recht banal und verdächtig nach der US-Aufstandsbekämpfungs klingt, lohnt sich ein Blick in die Präsentation. Dort sieht man, wie die Blauhelme Straßen und Polizeiposten bauen, und auf Luftaufnahmen auch, wie das so aussieht, wenn mitten im Slum ein Militärlager errichtet wurde. Vorsicht: Auf den letzten fünf Folien sind ziemlich ekelhafte Verletzungen zu sehen, die man nicht unbeding gesehen haben muss.