Free Republic

In the wake of the devastating earthquake, American eyes are again turned toward Haiti—something that only seems to happen when yet another disaster strikes, and never during the daily chaos and misery that plague the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. I’ve spent a good deal of time in Haiti, reporting first on the repression under the Duvaliers, then on the rise of Jean-Bertrand Aristide's popular movement, and then on the 1991 military coup that brought him down. I was there during the period of the 1994 military intervention that restored Aristede to power. US interest in the country seemed...

Excerpt - PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - U.N. peacekeepers and gang members traded gunfire Tuesday in the volatile Cite Soleil slum of the Haitian capital, leaving at least four people dead, witnesses and a U.N. official said. The deaths were the latest casualties from sporadic clashes between gangs and U.N. troops, who were called to the country following the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The bodies of two young men were displayed by gang members in the slum. U.N. military spokesman Col. El Ouafi Boulbars said the bodies of two other suspected gang members were turned over to police. Gang members...