Peacekeeping by Mischa Berlinski

New West Indian Guide / Nieuwe West-Indische Gids

marked another dark day in the history of the Caribbean island of Haiti. One of the poorest and least developed countries in the world, it was struck by a massive earthquake -the worst in the past 200 years -which devastated its capital of Port-au-Prince. As a result, hundreds of thousands of people were displaced, injured and killed. In his book Haiti after the Earthquake, Dr. Paul Farmer vividly describes the earthquake's impact on the country through his experiences working there as a medical doctor and as a United Nations Deputy Special Envoy for Haiti, when he sought to aid the country's transition from disaster relief to reconstruction. Farmer has worked extensively in Haiti for the past thirty years and is also a professor at Harvard Medical School, chief of the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham, and co-founder of Partners in Health. The first eight chapters of his book intensely illustrate the suffering and resilience Farmer encountered in Haiti, as well as contains important information on the country's record of poverty and political instability. Farmer's main argument is that the disastrous effects were not caused by the earthquake alone, but also by an unfortunate blend of several other factors. One of the most important contributing factors is the long history of colonialism which affected Haiti both politically and economically. In 1825, France extorted Haiti for 150 million francs to compensate for the loss of the empire's property (both land and slaves); Haiti managed to pay the debt, with interest, a century later. A military occupation by the United States followed in 1915 and lasted until 1934, with the purpose of

Peace Review, 2019

NUPI Policy Brief No. 4, 2012

The United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) stands out from other UN peacekeeping missions, which have focused on responding to situations of violent conflict. In Haiti there is no violent conflict as such: the problems are lack of political confluence, lack of respect for agreements, and an inability to compromise. In contrast to the loud national-level narrative extremely critical of MINUSTAH, at local levels the UN mission has often been the only available link to the national government and international organizations present in remote areas. While the UN and its Civil Affairs (CA) section are doing an important job in Haiti, it is important to leverage the presence of the UN throughout Haiti to realize substantial and tangible peacebuilding and development dividends that can benefit local populations, and to engage more strongly with non-state actors and NGOs. A key challenge is to give local populations the possibility to participate in local and national politics. The research team also noted that politics was seen as business as usual, and ‘the mission was seen to be protecting a power set and not facilitating a national dialogue’. In part, this was due to lack of responsiveness on the part of the mission and other international actors as to the role they might be able to play in enabling non-state actors outside the capital to have a voice. That should be a focus area for the UN and other actors when they start on the transition process of phasing out the mission.

Critical Engagement and Reflection on the Human Condition--past and present--in Haiti and on the Haitian Experience in the Diaspora; Linking the voices and ideas of Haitian thinkers in Haiti and the Haitian Diaspora. "Haiti: Then and Now" promotes a politics of relationality, and an ethics of collaboration and reciprocity. the Assault on Democracy in Haiti. New York:

Disasters, 2010

Th e Western world's current preoccupation with so-called ungoverned spaces can be traced back to the colonial epoch, if not before. Debates over unstable states and cities and how to contain and regulate them are once again assuming growing importance in certain policy and academic circles.  Th ere are many reasons for this, including growing anxiety over rapid and unregulated urbanization and its implications for the erosion of governance and the onset of war. Concepts such as "fragility" and "stabilization" refl ect a renewed commitment by most wealthy countries to reassert the primacy and reach of the state. Th ey also signal how certain governments are attempting to reconcile complex integrated interventions to guarantee order while ensuring that the humanitarian space is maintained in areas of disorder.

New West Indian Guide / Nieuwe West-Indische Gids, 2015

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported (cc-by-nc 3.0) License.

New West Indian Guide, 2015

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported (cc-by-nc 3.0) License.