A Haitian day in a CF soldier’s life
Major Bruce Sand
Assistant to the Military Chief of Staff MINUSTAH
February 11, 2008
Logan Abassi
MINUSTAH
Children hurry through one of the many impoverished streets of Haiti’s Cite Soleil, which lacks electricity and running water and whose roads are “paved” with refuse.
I have been the military assistant to the Military Chief of Staff, Colonel Normand Lalonde, at the headquarters of the Mission des Nations Unies pour la Stabilisation de Haiti (United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti), or MINUSTAH, since Oct. 2, 2007.
Two more Canadian staff officers bring the total strength of Task Force Port-au-Prince to four: not the CF’s smallest operation, but close.
The aim of the mission is to support the constitutional process in Haiti, and help maintain a secure and stable environment.
Haiti is politically, socially and economically unstable, and desperately poor. With some 27,750 square kilometres of territory, about four-fifths the size of Vancouver Island, it has a population of 8.8 million. Nearly three million of those people are packed into Port-au-Prince, the capital, which has about the same land area as Victoria (population 79,000). Every square metre of land in the city is occupied or used in some way. Traffic is unbelievable, and Port-au-Prince probably has the worst drivers anywhere.
All four of us work in the Military Headquarters, one of many integral but autonomous components of MINUSTAH, under the leadership of Hédi Annabi of Tunisia, the Special Representative to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, and head of mission. Despite its French name, MINUSTAH officially operates in English, but 95 per cent of its staff is non-native English-speakers, so the potential for confusion and misunderstanding abounds.
Much of our time is spent coordinating the lives, logistics and operations of 7,200 soldiers from 17 nations with the activities of the UN Police (which includes 90 Canadians) and many UN civilian branches and agencies. Toss in non-governmental organizations, the Government of Haiti, input from UN headquarters in New York and the troop-contributing nations, plus a dash of international news media (some friendly, some not) and you have a complex machine that will break at the most inopportune time if it is not cared for constantly.
The four of us live at Canada House, where we do our own cooking and cleaning. Daily from Monday to Saturday we’re up at 0515 and out the door by 0630, and we do the usual routine staff work (and plenty of it) of any military HQ from about 0700 until about 1830. On the way home, through traffic jams that even Montrealers and Torontonians would gulp at, we stop to buy groceries for the next day or two. It’s 2030 or 2100 by the time we finish dinner, and by 2200 we are in bed. Sunday we spend at home if nothing requiring our attention pops up.
Do we make a difference? Yes, but slowly, it’s a very big job. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Between the gangsters, diseases and social disorganization, Haiti is one of the world’s most dangerous places to live and work.
This nation has never been wealthy, but it has great pride in its history and independence. Since the Duvalier years, Haiti has struggled with political unrest, economic weakness and social turmoil. MINUSTAH is the world’s effort to coach Haiti back onto the path of national stability and help it head toward peace and prosperity. MINUSTAH will not be an overnight success, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. Despite its issues, this country has tremendous potential for success.
I know it’s a cliché, but I am privileged to be a tiny part of the success of this UN mission. I hope some day to see Haiti become the peaceful and prosperous nation it has every right to be.
Major Bruce Sand is a member of the Base Construction Engineering section at CFB Esquimalt in Victoria, British Columbia.
