Haiti has long journey to stability - Brazil
By Eduardo Simoes
SAO PAULO, Oct 3 (Reuters) - Countries in the U.N. peacekeeping force in Haiti are eager to stay until the job of bringing security to the impoverished country is done, Brazil's ambassador to Haiti said.
The mandate of the U.N. mission dispatched to Haiti in 2004 and led by Brazil is up for renewal on Oct. 15.
Haiti's path to stability will take more time, Ambassador Paulo Cordeiro de Andrade Pinto said in telephone interview from Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince on Tuesday night.
Andrade Pinto, who met with officials from countries in the U.N. force last week, said they showed enthusiasm for continuing the mission.
However, the renewal resolution should also change the mission's priorities to focus less on security and more on helping development, he said.
"This peacekeeping effort must be well-formed and stay in Haiti as long as it is necessary," he said, adding that he believed most Haitians want the nearly 9,000-strong force to stay.
Haiti has been relatively stable in recent months following more than two years of political and gang violence before and after the fall of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the former president ousted in a bloody rebellion in February 2004.
The U.N. force and Haitian police have managed this year to rein in rampant kidnapping that threatened to undermine the government of one-time Aristide protege, President Rene Preval, who was elected last year.
"If compared to when I arrived here, security has improved significantly," said the ambassador, who has been in Haiti since 2005.
He acknowledged that the crime rate is still high.
"It is a country that used to solve its differences with bullets and knives. How can we change a century of culture in one day?"
The U.N. force, drawn from countries including Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Canada, France and the United States, has suffered 31 deaths among troops, police and civilian staff.
