In a city of desperate poverty -- without jobs, without electricity, without security, without drinkable water, without medical facilities, with little food and less hope -- several hundred well-armed soldiers in armored vehicles laid siege, blocking escape routes, and opened fire. Indiscriminate bullets found the bodies of men, women, children, infants and the elderly.

This was not Fallujah. It was not Ramadi, Baghdad or some obscure community in the Anbar province of Iraq. It was Cite Soleil in Haiti where families frequently adorn the bodies of the dead with photographs of deposed President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

In diplomatic and intellectual circles, there is a heated debate over whether Hezbollah is a terrorist organization. In Cite Soleil, that designation belongs to the United Nations for it was their soldiers, the Peace Keepers that carried out this horrendous deed.

In the effort to stop the war in Iraq before it began, many of us applauded the efforts of France and the United Nations for speaking truth to power. In Haiti, in Cite Soleil and countless other communities, that former light is shrouded in darkness.

Why is it so easy for the world to turn its back on Haiti, a slave nation that rose up against its masters, a shining example of the triumph of liberty and democracy?

It was the United States of America that deposed the lawfully elected president of Haiti. It was former president Bill Clinton who blackmailed him, promising American support if only President Aristide would betray his own people. It was America that sealed his fate, punishing the Haitian people by withholding hundreds of millions of dollars of desperately needed aid when Aristide refused to cooperate. It was America that contracted thugs, mercenaries and assassins to overthrow his government.

It is Haiti that cries out above all others that America´s praise for a “global democratic revolution’ is a lie. The opposition of France (a conspirator in this endeavor) to global imperialism is a lie. The United Nations as a voice for the oppressed and powerless is a lie.