VZCZCXRO9249
PP RUEHQU
DE RUEHPU #0389 0581739
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 271739Z FEB 07
FM AMEMBASSY PORT AU PRINCE
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 5451
INFO RUEHZH/HAITI COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEHBR/AMEMBASSY BRASILIA PRIORITY 1433
RUEHSA/AMEMBASSY PRETORIA PRIORITY 1256
RUEHQU/AMCONSUL QUEBEC PRIORITY 0730
RUMIAAA/HQ USSOUTHCOM J2 MIAMI FL PRIORITY
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK PRIORITY 1144

UNCLAS PORT AU PRINCE 000389 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR WHA/EX AND WHA/CAR 
S/CRS 
SOUTHCOM ALSO FOR POLAD 
STATE PASS AID FOR LAC/CAR 
INR/IAA (BEN-YEHUDA) 
WHA/EX PLEASE PASS USOAS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PREL KPKO HA
SUBJECT: MINUSTAH DEVELOPMENT WORK PROGRESSES 
 
REF: A. PORT AU PRINCE 2367 
     ¶B. PORT AU PRINCE 342 
 
¶1. (U) This message is sensitive but unclassified -- please 
protect accordingly. 
 
¶2. (SBU) Jean-Philippe Laberge, MINUSTAH's civil affairs 
coordinator for the West Department, spoke to Poloff about 
MINUSTAH's plans to engage local government, specifically the 
new mayor, in their efforts to rehabilitate Cite Soleil. 
Cite Soleil was not a municipality until 2002 and has no 
infrastructure to support local government.  MINUSTAH intends 
to work with the newly elected cartel to help organize the 
area.  (Note:  The projected winner of the mayoral race is 
political unknown Wilson Louis of the "Pel e Pikwa" cartel. 
End Note.)  Plans include getting people on the payroll of 
the municipality to clean the area and finding a proper 
building for them to use as an office.  At the moment the 
area has no municipal building and the current mayor works 
out of what they call "the annex", which is a small room at 
the base of a radio tower.  The office of civil affairs also 
plans to work with the new mayor to flesh out new ways to 
collect revenue.  This is especially important because when 
the municipality lines were drawn, the industrial area around 
Cite Soleil was not included, which means that the 
municipality loses out on taxes collected from those 
businesses.  Laberge's ideas included formalizing the Cite 
Soleil market place and taking control of other commerce now 
used by gangs to extort money from the citizens. 
 
------------------------------------ 
Progress in Martissant, Finally 
------------------------------------ 
 
¶3. (SBU)  Laberge also reported on MINUSTAH's progress in 
Martissant.  They finally secured a school building to serve 
as their base of operations after a six-month delay (ref A), 
and have been conducting joint patrols in the neighborhood 
since January 26.  The patrols bring together Chinese formed 
police units (FPUs), UNPOL, and the Haitian National Police 
(HNP) twice each day. Additional HNP and UDMO (crowd-control) 
units patrol 24 hours a day.  In a mix of targeted operations 
and random sweeps, by February 6, 20 gang members had been 
arrested as well as recovery of some of their weapons.  Prior 
to the instigation of patrols on January 26, Martissant 
averaged three deaths per day.  In the subsequent ten days, 
only four people died total as a result of violence.  The 
office of civil affairs is now working to bring international 
investment to Martissant, including asking the World Bank to 
fund a road to connect Martissant with the rest of 
Port-au-Prince. 
 
¶4. (SBU) Comment:  The civil affairs section's enthusiasm for 
moving quickly into Cite Soleil is encouraging, as is 
Laberge's sentiment that coordination among the different 
branches of MINUSTAH has improved drastically in recent 
months.  Post will look for opportunities to coordinate 
development efforts with MINUSTAH, especially regarding the 
Haiti Stabilization Initiative (ref B). 
TIGHE