Brother, I'm Dying - Edwidge Danticat [70]
He then took another taxi to the Villa Saint Louis. At the entrance, he asked some soldiers in camouflage where he might file a complaint. The soldiers shrugged, not speaking any Creole or French.
“Português,” they said, motioning for him to go farther inside.
In contrast to Bel Air and the anti-gang unit, the hotel seemed extremely luxurious with its swimming pool and sundeck, crowded with umbrella-topped tables. Before the raids began, he’d heard some of his parishioners joke that the MINUSTAH were actually TURISTA, tourists on an adventurous exploration. He wondered what these parishioners would say now if they could see this hotel.
Milling around the bar and lounge area were a large number of CIVPOL officers. As bewildering as life had suddenly become, there were now all these acronyms to remember. CIMO. SIAG. MINUSTAH. CIVPOL.
Unlike the MINUSTAH “peacekeepers” or soldiers, the CIVPOL officers all wore the uniforms of their own countries’ police force with blue UN helmets and matching bulletproof vests. My uncle quickly recognized the scarlet tunic and breeches of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police French-speaking officers, who seemed to outnumber the other groups chatting in several different languages around him.
Approaching one, he asked in French if he could file a complaint.
The officer had trouble understanding his machine, so he had to repeat himself several times. The officer, a man whose face seemed as red as his tunic, perhaps from sunburn, took him aside to a quiet corner near a staircase, and as his eyes wandered toward some other officers having lunch around the pool, my uncle tried to tell him what had happened.
Had he filed a report at the anti-gang unit? the officer asked.
He answered yes and handed the SIAG report to the officer.
The officer took the report to him and told him to wait. He was going to make a copy.
The hum of multilingual chatter momentarily distracted my uncle as he waited. Soon the officer was back. He’d made a copy of the report, he said.
“Merci,” my uncle said, not even certain himself why he was saying thank you.
Would some action be taken? my uncle asked. Would the UN soldiers who’d shot from his roof be disciplined? Would the people who’d been wounded be helped? Would the Red Cross go in and take them to the hospital? Would the families of the dead be compensated? Or at least assisted with funeral expenses?
It was likely that Haitian police officers had shot from his roof, the officer said. MINUSTAH and CIVPOL were simply there to assist the Haitian police. If his neighbors were wounded and killed by Haitian police, there was nothing the UN could do.
Had my uncle contacted any Haitian human rights organizations? he asked. The Haiti branch of the New York–based National Coalition for Haitian Rights, la Comité des Avocats pour le Respect des Libertés Individuelles or the Lawyers Committee for the Respect of Individual Rights?
He didn’t know where these groups were located, my uncle said. Besides, he was leaving the country the next day. He realized how arrogant that must have sounded, how privileged, how lucky. There were so many others who were indefinitely trapped in the crossfire between the police and the UN and the gangs. He planned to come back, he said, which is why he wanted to have all these reports filed, so he could have his place back, live again where he had spent most of his life.
Good luck, the officer said.
Later, after leaving Léogâne and before going to Tante Zi’s, Maxo would travel the same path as his father, neither one knowing that the other had gone to the anti-gang unit to file a report that he’d then carried to the UN. Maxo had gone to another building near the Villa Saint Louis Hotel, a place that also housed some UN offices. There he ran into more Brazilian officers and more corporals with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. These men (there