Introduction

This was the first collaboration with Siobhán Wills, professor of law at the Transitional Justice Institute, Ulster University. Siobhán had discussed with me the value of audiovisual recordings to conduct research ethically using participatory practices and as a means of influencing decision-making in human rights fora. She has written reports and academic texts (and continues to) on international human rights law and international humanitarian law and was looking for ways to conduct field research ethically. Her research had taken her to Haiti to investigate the high number of casualties directly caused by the United Nations (UN) peacekeeping mission there. We agreed that recording survivors’ testimonies on film might offer a means of producing field research that is more accessible to the research participants than text-based interviews alone and would also enhance the value of the research, particularly for communicating the issues within the UN.

In the ensuing film, residents of Bois Neuf, a community in Port-au-Prince, describe the impact of the militarised raids by the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), which operated during the period 2004–2017. UN raids to arrest gang leaders led on many occasions to scores of civilian deaths and many more injuries, as well as the destruction of homes and jobs. The film also includes the views of legal, medical and human rights activists on the role of the UN in such circumstances. When we spoke with survivors, they told us that, although it had been ten years since the UN raids took place, we were the first people outside of the community to ask them about their experiences.

Background

Haiti was the site of a successful slave revolt that led in 1804 to the establishment of the first Black republic in the world. Napoleon threatened to reinvade the country (then called Saint-Domingue); the deal that prevented this included the new state paying reparations to France for loss of ‘property’, that is, slaves. The total demanded was 100 million francs (about $21 billion by today's value) which was finally ended in 1947. This partly explains why such a rich agricultural society was reduced to poverty over the years, although initially it was regarded as ‘the richest colony in history’.