ABSTRACT
The White House immediately issued a statement attacking the report's credibility on the basis of a "questionable methodology", while those who considered themselves to be part of the international pro-democracy forces discredited UNICEF by suggesting the organization had allowed itself to be manipulated by the Haitian military. Presenting a public face of denial was just one of many trade-offs the people had to make between respecting UNICEF’s mandate to protect children’s rights, and respecting the political imperatives imposed by sanctions. The security menace which provoked the order to evacuate, whereby UN families were separated for a full year, and remaining UN staff in Haiti were confined to a hotel for four months, was never adequately explained to any of the heads of UN agencies operating in Haiti. Writing Sanctions in Haiti greatly helped the author process the trauma, and even more so when the manuscript was found to be of publishable quality.
