2005
According to Yves Engler and Anthony Fenton in their book Haiti: Waging War on the Poor Majority, Pina was beaten by an off-duty SWAT officer of the Haitian National Police on June 4, 2005. In subsequent interviews, Pina said he believed this was retribution for his actions during a demonstration on May 18, 2005 where he and several Haitian journalists blocked police from firing on unarmed protesters. A Brazilian military commander, working for the United Nations mission in Haiti known as MINUSTAH, gave orders to have Pina's picture taken during the demonstration while threatening, "You are always making trouble for us. I have taken your picture and I am going to give it to the Haitian police. They will get you."
Pina was arrested in Haiti on September 9, 2005 and held in jail for three days after attempting to videotape a search by Judge Jean Pérs Paul in the church of prisoner of conscience Father Gérard Jean-Juste. Pina later said he had gone to St. Claire's parish because he had received information that the judge intended to plant weapons in Jean-Juste's rectory to justify holding the priest in prison.
After Haiti: Harvest of Hope, Pina released a second video entitled Haiti: The UNtold Story. The film chronicles human rights abuses by the Haitian police and a military assault on July 6, 2005 by United Nations forces where residents accuse them of massacring civilians in the impoverished neighborhood of Cité Soleil. Haiti: The UNtold Story was an earlier version of Pina's latest documentary, Haiti: We must kill the BANDITS, subsequently re-edited for a final release in 2009 at the Bahamas International Film Festival. Haiti: We must kill the BANDITS recycles some material from Pina's earlier documentary, Haiti: Harvest of Hope.
Pina has at times criticized journalists and filmmakers covering Haiti. Michael Deibert, a colleague of Pina's responded to one such criticism, saying, "To me, when someone closes their eyes and their mind to what's going on in front of them...it is simply counterproductive to the struggles of the poor people that government claimed to represent and a betrayal of one's journalistic mission to tell the unvarnished, unpleasant truth."
Pina's film credits and videography include El Salvador: In the Name of Democracy (1985), Berkeley in the Sixties (1990), Amazonia: Voices from the Rainforest (1990), Haiti: Harvest of Hope (1997), Haiti: The UNtold Story (2005) and HAITI: We Must Kill the Bandits (2007).
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