El futuro de la MINUSTAH.

No Rush for the Exits in Haiti for Brazil, Minustah

By Roque Planas | 15 Sep 2011

                          

Una leyenda antiONU en creole.

The multilateral South American organization UNASUR announced Friday that its members planned to begin pulling troops from the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Haiti, known by its acronym Minustah. "There's consensus for a gradual withdrawal of troops, consistent with Haiti's needs," Brazilian Defense Minister Celso Amorim told the press after the body met in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Amorim's words carry weight. South America contributes the most peacekeepers to Minustah's 12,000-strong mission, and Brazil leads its forces. But while the announcement may seem to mark the beginning of Minustah's withdrawal, the mission is far from over.

In fact, the Minustah mission is not yet even in the process of winding down, according to Edmond Mulet, head of U.N. peacekeeping operations. Instead, the 15 percent reduction of peacekeeping troops that Amorim has called for without specifying a timetable will bring Brazil's troop commitment back to levels comparable to the period before the January 2010 earthquake.

"We have to put this in context," Mulet said in a telephone interview. He noted that, following the earthquake, Minustah authorized an additional 4,000 troops and police in order to provide stability and participate in emergency humanitarian efforts. "I think it was very lucky for Haiti and the international community that we already had a peacekeeping mission on the ground at the time of the earthquake," Mulet said.
But Minustah had already planned to send those additional troops home, with a target date of May 2012, according to Mulet. "We have been working on this drawdown plan for several months now," Mulet said. "We are now implementing the downsizing that was mandated a year ago."
Minustah's forces currently consist of roughly 12,250 people, including 8,700 troops and 3,500 police. In addition, the mission employs nearly 2,000 civilians. The U.N. Security Council renews the mission's mandate annually in October.
Minustah first arrived in Haiti in 2004, following the overthrow of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, with the mission of guaranteeing the stability necessary to re-establish political order. At the time, Mulet said, the biggest challenge the peacekeeping mission faced was threats from gangs. "Most of the neighborhoods in Port-au-Prince were in the hands of gangsters, and they were terrorizing the population," he said.
Peacekeeping forces managed to round up a significant number of gang members, but when the earthquake of January 2010 devastated Haiti, Mulet said, most of the criminals escaped.
Notwithstanding the setback, the gangs have not been able to reassert the control they once held over Port-au-Prince's neighborhoods. Haiti's political stability has been more or less re-established now, according to Amorim. When Haitian President Michel Martelly was inaugurated in May, it marked the first time in Haitian history that two presidents had peacefully taken office in successive elections.
Though Minustah's efforts have played a role in stabilizing Haiti, some Haitians view the peacekeepers as interventionist, and the mission has recently suffered sharp blows to its public image. Peacekeeping troops from the Nepalese army accidentally caused a cholera epidemic by improperly removing sewage, according to a study by French epidemiologist Renaud Piarroux (.pdf) that was commissioned by the French and Haitian governments. Both Minustah and the Nepalese army question whether the peacekeepers caused the outbreak that has led to the deaths of over 6,000 people, but segments of the Haitian public hold Minustah responsible and have showed their anger over the cholera outbreak in a series of protests.
Last week, video images depicting what appeared to be four Uruguayan peacekeeping troops sexually assaulting an 18-year-old Haitian man from the southern town of Port Salut sparked another bout of ill will toward Minustah. The U.N. and the Haitian government are investigating the allegations, but the Uruguayan government has already formally apologized and recalled its commander and at least five officers from Haiti.
Despite the gravity of the incident and the media storm that accompanied it, Mulet thinks Uruguay's rapid response will allow Minustah to put the episode behind it. "I think that people in Haiti recognize that you cannot hold the entire mission responsible," he said.
While Amorim and others are moving to reduce Minustah's size, Martelly said during a visit to Chile last month he wants to see the mission change its focus, from one based on guaranteeing security to one oriented toward economic development. Martelly's perspective is understandable. Haiti, the Western Hemisphere's poorest country, faced daunting development challenges before the earthquake. It now faces the herculean task of clearing the rubble, building homes for 1 million displaced people and coping with a loss of more than 200,000 lives.
Mulet discarded the possibility of changing Minustah's role, however. "We are not a development agency," Mulet said. "We are there to create the conditions for others to do their job."
Whatever role Minustah takes, a diminished Brazilian presence may have implications for the South American giant's international profile. Brazil has long sought a role in international affairs consistent with its geographic size and economic importance. One of the Brazilian government's key foreign policy goals is to secure a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council. Leading the mission in Minustah was precisely the kind of role Brazil needed to play to burnish its credentials.
But for now, Amorim's statements notwithstanding, neither Brazil nor any other country seems to be rushing out of Haiti. The long-term plan is to downsize Minustah and turn security over to Haiti, Mulet said. But he added, "This has to be revised constantly, and always in consultation with the Haitian government." Until those plans are executed, Minustah's withdrawal has yet to begin.

Roque Planas is the co-founder and director of the Latin America News Dispatch.