As New Massacres Loom:
Questions Surround UN General's Death

Suicide, accident or murder? What explains the bullet that passed through the head of Brazilian General Urana Teixera da Malta Bacillar at the deluxe Montana Hotel in Port-au-Prince, Haiti on Jan. 7?

In coming days, that is what teams of investigators from Brazil and the United Nations will try to figure out... or cover up.

Bacillar, 57, commanded the 9,006 uniformed troops and policemen from over 30 countries that make up the occupation force of the misnomered U.N. Mission to Stabilize Haiti (MINUSTAH). He was found dead on the balcony of his hotel suite on Saturday morning.

But how did he die?

Brazilian army officials initially called Bacellar's death a "firearm accident." While possible, it seems unlikely that the decorated army veteran, parachutist and instructor would be careless enough with a pistol to accidentally shoot himself in the head.

Now many news reports say that Bacellar's death was an "apparent suicide." But this verdict is still unofficial. Brazilian authorities say that the death has not yet been fully investigated. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is sending a team of experts to Port-au-Prince to probe the death. Brazil's Foreign Minister Paulo Celso Amorim also asked UN General-Secretary Kofi Annan to investigate the case.

The suicide hypothesis stems from statements by Brazilian Ambassador Paulo Cordeiro de Andrade Pinto who told the Associated Press that he saw a gun next to the body. Some press reports also say that Bacillar was shot in the mouth.

But many observers doubt the suicide theory. Bacillar was a very religious man, with a wife and two children in Brazil. He had just returned to Haiti four days earlier from a Christmas visit home. One would expect him to leave behind a suicide message of some sort.

According to the sources of Brazilian journalist Ana Maria Brambilla, Bacillar "did not display any signs of depression during his last days." He was accustomed, after "39 years of service, to pressure far worse than he had seen in his four months in Haiti," his military colleagues told The Independent.

Furthermore, his body was reportedly found with a book on his lap, according to the Dominican daily El Nacional, as if he had been reading and relaxing in his underwear on his balcony.

According to the South African newspaper Beeld, "the latest reports in the Dominican media questioned the feasibility of suicide as no bullet casing was found near the body... He would have been an easy target for a sniper."

Although officials said that the room's door did not appear to be forced, it is also possible that a killer could have entered with a key or by invitation and planted the pistol that was found near Bacellar's body.

Some question whether some sectors could have wanted to kill Bacillar for his reluctance to crackdown on Cité Soleil, the rebellious shanty town that U.N. troops have been unable to pacify. In recent weeks, the Haitian bourgeoisie had been heavily pressuring the MINUSTAH commander to carry out aggressive actions there.

"Late last week, Bacillar had tense meetings with UN and coup regime officials and the right-wing business elite," said the Haiti Action Committee in a Jan. 10 statement. "They reportedly put 'intense pressure' on the general 'demanding that he intervene brutally in Cité Soleil,' according to AHP. This coincided with a pressure campaign by Chamber of Commerce head Reginald Boulos and sweatshop kingpin Andy Apaid, leader of Group 184 [the business group that helped mastermind the February 29, 2004 coup that ousted President Aristide]. Last week Boulos and Apaid made strident calls in the media for a new UN crackdown on Cité Soleil..."

In response to this pressure, on Jan. 6, MINUSTAH's civilian chief, Chilean Juan Gabriel Valdès, said that U.N. troops would "occupy" the Cité Soleil, which is already militarily surrounded, and warned that civilians could be harmed.

"We are going to intervene in the coming days. I think there'll be collateral damage but we have to impose our force, there is no other way," Valdès said.

According to Reuters, some UN officials said that Bacillar "had opposed Valdes' plan."

"The general had insisted that his job was to defend the Haitian constitution, but not to fight crime," The Independent of Jan. 10 reported.

Brazilian General Augusto Heleno Pereira, from whom Bacillar had inherited the MINUSTAH command last August, also made statements indicating his reluctance to carry out repressive operations in Cité Soleil and other shanty towns, despite intense pressure from Washington and Haiti's bourgeoisie. But on July 6, 2005, Pereira did lead a UN raid on the shanty town, which resulted in untold dozens of civilian casualties, including women and children.

The Independent, citing a UN "summary of an internal inquiry" it had received, revealed that "the UN has for the first time admitted that a number of innocent civilians may have become 'collateral victims' and killed during a controversial raid by peacekeeping forces in Haiti."

In a November report, the Interamerican Commission for Human Rights said that the killings on July 6 and in other massacres were no accident. "In many cases, the victims are not 'collateral damage' of operations," the report said. "They are killed intentionally by the police or by the MINUSTAH." The UN mission responded that its military actions have been carried out "according to the rules."

Groups like the Haiti Action Committee (HAC) fear that another massacre like that of July 6 may be imminent, especially given Bacellar's successor. "General Eduardo Aldunate Herman, a Chilean army officer who served the brutal dictatorship of General Pinochet as an officer in the CNI, the Chilean political police," HAC's Jan. 10 statement continues. "Aldunate Herman has been accused of participating in the 1973 overthrow of Chile's elected government, and of involvement in the 1976 killing of a Spanish diplomat. He is a graduate of the US Army's School of the Americas."

"If we take UN chief Juan Valdes at his word, this could be another massacre in the making," the note concludes.

Large segments of Brazilian society, in particular the Landless Peasants Movement, fiercely oppose Brazil's role in militarily occupying Haiti and supporting the illegal Haitian coup regime. Some have seized on Bacellar's death. "The moment has come to withdraw Brazilian troops," Maria Jose Maninha, a congresswoman who has led Brazilian parliamentary missions to Haiti told Reuters.

But Brazilian Vice-President and Defense minister Jose Alencar said on Jan. 9 that Brazil would continue to lead the MINUSTAH. "We cannot in any way even question the mission. We cannot retreat in any way," he told the official Brazilian government news agency Radiobras. "We are working so that the command remains with Brazil. I don't have any doubt that the command should remain with Brazil."

According to many analysts, Lula sought to obtain a permanent seat for Brazil on the UN Security Council by leading the Haiti mission. The gamble seems to have failed, however.

"Japan's decision, last week, to no longer support the project of Security Council reform presented by Brazil, India and Germany render the aspirations of Lula's government more illusive than ever," commented the French daily Le Figaro Jan. 9.

On Jan. 10, Brasilia announced that Gen. Jose Elito Carvalho de Siquiera would succeed Bacillar, whose body was flown back to Brazil the same day.

Despite Bacellar's death, Boulos' Haitian Chamber of Commerce and Industry kept up pressure on the UN by calling a general strike - in reality, a lock-out - for Jan. 9 to demand that the MINUSTAH attack Cité Soleil to stop Haiti's crime wave that he contends originates there. Automatic gunfire terrorized Port-au-Prince residents throughout the night before the strike, a common tactic of the elite. Commerce and schools were affected mainly in the capital, while activities continued pretty much as normal throughout the rest of the country in other cities like Cap Haïtien, Cayes, Mirebalais and Hinche.

"This is a rich person's strike," one small street merchant told the AP.

"Boulos called a strike but it is meaningless here," another merchant in Jacmel told Radio Solidarité. "I've already been on strike for two years," a reference to the time since President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was kidnapped and exiled by U.S. soldiers on Feb. 29, 2004. "Boulos and his kind called a strike but the people are not heeding their call."

Meanwhile, Haiti's electoral council announced Jan. 9 that the first-round of national elections is now scheduled for Feb. 7, the deadline which the UN and Organization of American States had requested during meetings on Jan. 6. Run-offs would be held Mar. 19, with an inauguration only 10 days later, on Mar. 29. Local and municipal elections would be held Apr. 30. Meanwhile, MINUSTAH's last eight-month mandate expires in mid-February. It is the fourth time an election date has been set.

Illegal Prime Minister Gérard Latortue has said he will step down on Feb. 7 and will just handle the government's day-to-day affairs until a new government is installed.