UN provoke mourners, gun down the unarmed, blames the killing on the crowd of mourners at Father Jean Juste's Haiti funeral
"They suffered and died
Every bloody month
Of the bloody year...
In a New World
Cursed by the West Storm
And raped by the powers
Of greed, wickedness, and death.
Alone, I faced the wrath
Of this world's powers
...Their mighty venom
Could not cripple me...
Alone, with my hurting hands
I broke the first link
Of the mighty chain
Of human curse
Called slavery.
Alone on the traitorous hill
Of the New World
I carried the cross of a race
Into this century...
Refusing to get crucified.
I've been chained
I've been robbed
I've been raped and stabbed
And I have fought back
Fearlessly, continuously.
Alone I have paid and paid.
I have paid the senseless price
I have paid the endless price
...Every bloody month
Of every bloody year
I have fought constantly
With a burning spear
Stuck in my chest.
...From my wounded heart.
... I choose to stand
...alone ...to face the Devil
...Nobody stood by my side..." (Excerpt for Haiti the Rebel By Michel Sanon)
At the June 18, 2008 funeral of Father Jean Juste in Port-au-Prince, witnesses on the scene say that UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH)'s soldiers fired on the funeral procession and gunned down a Haitian mourner outside the cathedral where Father Jean Juste's funeral was held.
The mourner's death was initially attributed to a gunshot wound. But then the UN said it was Haitians who killed the mourner. Still, undeterred by U.N. guns, lies and the world's indifference to their calls for justice and democracy, Haitians continue to run to the darkness with only their historic candle and upright Ancestral wick to draw fuel to their flame, using their bodies, breath and soul to light the world. Liberty or death! is still the call of these pioneers of the human rights struggle in this Western Hemisphere.
On the day of the shooting, the Associated Press reported that "The shooting happened as about 2,000 people were carrying Jean-Juste's flag-draped coffin to the presidential palace to protest President Rene Preval's policies and his failure to bring Aristide back from South African exile...There has been no evidence produced that would definitively prove who shot the man. None of the protesters were seen holding guns and the shooting took place on a busy thoroughfare intersected by multiple cross-streets and alleys...The protesters are incensed by the presence of foreign troops on Haitian soil. U.N. peacekeeping spokeswoman Sophie Boutaud de la Combe said the shooting was under investigation and that an autopsy would be quickly carried out." (Marchers accuse UN of shooting at Haiti funeral).
Also, in the same article, the Associated press, wrote, under a photo taken by Ramon Espinosa the following:
"People look the body of Rev. Gerard Jean-Juste during a memorial mass in Port-au-Prince, Thursday, June 18, 2009. A man was shot in the head Thursday as unrest swelled at a funeral procession for a Haitian priest who had fought for the rights of emigrants and was closely allied with exiled former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. "
(AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa) An early report from Press TV quotes Sophie Boutaud de la Combe, spokeswoman for the U.N. forces in Haiti: "It seems that one person was killed close to the cathedral. The first reports we have show that the soldiers fired in the air." Searching for some sort of excuse, she added: "The blue helmets were apparently attacked by stone-throwing demonstrators from different parts of the town center."
Later she told Reuters: "We can confirm that our troops shot about five times in the air. But only a ballistic test could finally determine whether the victim was killed by bullets fired by U.N. troops or not." She told the Associated Press "that the shooting was under investigation and that an autopsy would be quickly carried out."
Still later on that very same day, AFP reported in a story headlined "UN 'categorically' denies shooting death in Haiti" that the young man died not from a gunshot wound but due to a "head injury inflicted by a stone or a blunt object." A look at the photo of the young man lying in a pool of blood from his head would put the lie to that statement.
"The commander of MINUSTAH, Brazilian General Floriano Peixoto, said before the preliminary investigation that he did not think his soldiers fired any deadly bullet." He further contended that: "All the soldiers involved said that they did not fire on the people."The truth is I do not believe... that the soldiers fired on the people with live ammunition," he told AFP soon after the incident...
Peixoto added that his soldiers were highly trained and accustomed to handling protests, and that soldiers on security patrols carry weapons that fire non-lethal ammunition.
"I'm convinced that this did not happen," he insisted.
Reuters quotes a man named Jean Mathieu who said he was nearby: "I saw several U.N. troops firing gunshots and immediately after I saw the man laid on the ground. I did not see anybody else shooting. I am sure the U.N. soldiers are the ones who shot the demonstrator."
According to Reuters, "Some (mourners interviewed after the funeral) accused the government of former Interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue (who took office - without benefit of an election - following the coup) of causing Jean-Juste's death by imprisoning him in 2005 on charges that later proved false. Jean-Juste became ill with leukemia while in prison. ...
