‘Haiti is enduring conditions of nightmarish violence’
UNITED NATIONS (CMC) — The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk Tuesday said the people of the French-speaking Caribbean Community (Caricom) country of Haiti are enduring “conditions of nightmarish violence”.
In his global update to the UN Human Rights Council, Türk said heavily armed gangs control services and access in large sections of the capital and the country, “perpetrating frequent killings, abductions, random sniper attacks and a horrifying level of sexual violence.
“The situation calls for a combination of responses: turbo-charging the political process towards free and transparent elections; fully implementing the arms embargo; effective sanctions against those who sponsor and direct armed gangs; and international support to build up the capacity of Haiti’s police and judicial systems to fight pervasive impunity and corruption,” he told the council.
Türk, who had visited Haiti earlier this year, said there was also a need for the deployment of “a time-bound specialised support force, with human rights safeguards.
“We must keep Haiti in our focus, including in support to my office’s work on the ground,” he told the council.
Türk said contempt for human beings reaches agonising levels when war breaks out and violence becomes a daily occurrence.
“One quarter of humanity is living today in places affected by conflict, and it is civilians who suffer the most. Peace is precious and it is fragile and we must nurture it — first and foremost — by respecting the Charter of the United Nations and international law, including international human rights law.”
Over the last weekend Caricom governments reiterated their resolve to continue efforts to encourage dialogue among Haitian stakeholders, and to support efforts at finding solutions to the multidimensional crisis facing Haiti.
A statement issued by the Guyana-based Caricom Secretariat noted that regional leaders with responsibility for Haiti met on Sunday, under the chairmanship of Bahamas Prime Minister Philip Davis who is also the Caricom chairman, to receive the report from Jamaica’s Prime Minister Andrew Holness who led a Caricom Special Mission to Haiti on February 27.
