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Posted November 18, 2010

Anti-cholera protest turns violent in Haiti earthquake-nearly eviscerated capital

By Jonathan M. Katz;

Associated Press Writer

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Anti-U.N. violence spread to Haiti's capital Thursday as protesters blocked roads and attacked foreigners' cars over suspicions that peacekeepers introduced a cholera epidemic that has killed more than 1,100 people.

Woman suffering lies on pavement where A woman suffering from cholera lies on the pavement near the General Hospital where people are being treated, November 16, 2010 in Port-au-Prince. (AFP/Hector Retamal)

The unrest followed three days of similar violence in northern Haiti. The protests come a little more than a week before national elections, and the U.N. has characterized them as political. Some demonstrators threw rocks at an office of President Rene Preval's Unity party and tore down campaign posters.

But the protests are fueled by suspicions, shared by some U.S. disease experts, that a contingent of Nepalese soldiers brought cholera with them to Haiti and spread the disease from their rural base into the Artibonite River system, where the initial outbreak was centered.

The disease is new to Haiti and was not expected to strike this year despite rampant bad sanitation and poor access to drinking water.

The 12,000-member U.N. Stabilization Mission in Haiti, or MINUSTAH, which has been the dominant security force in Haiti for six years, denies responsibility for the epidemic.

Standing before the thick black smoke of blazing tires Thursday, protesters yelled "We say no to MINUSTAH and no to cholera" and carried signs reading "MINUSTAH and cholera are twins." The windows of several cars belonging to the U.N. and humanitarian groups were broken.

An anti-cholera protest, drunk dictator Rene Preval protest in Cap-Haitien this week.

Haitian police fired tear gas at the protesters on the central Champ de Mars plaza, and clouds of choking irritants blew into nearby tent shelters of thousands made homeless by the Jan. 12 earthquake.

I survived the quake but the police are going to kill me with gas," Marie Paul Moses said as she fled the white cloud.

Aid workers, including U.N. humanitarian agencies that are structurally separate from the peacekeeping force, called for calm, saying the violence is hampering efforts to treat the tens of thousands of people stricken with cholera.

The disease is spread by contaminated fecal matter. Health experts say it can be easily treated with rehydration or prevented outright by ensuring good sanitation and getting people to drink only purified water.

But after years of instability, and despite decades of development projects, many Haitians have little access to clean water, toilets or health care.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press

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