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Security Council makes first fact-finding visit to Haiti

Security Council makes first fact-finding visit to Haiti

Amb. Sardenberg briefs journalists
Undertaking a fact-finding mission while preparing to vote on extending the mandate of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Haiti, Security Council representatives will leave tomorrow on their first visit to a Latin American or Caribbean nation, where they will support efforts to create a secure and stable environment, the delegation's leader said today.

The six-month mandate of the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) expires at the end of May and for the first time the Council was showing political interest in the region, Brazilian Ambassador Ronaldo Mota Sardenberg told a news conference at UN Headquarters in New York.

During the four-day trip, the 15-member delegation aimed to support MINUSTAH as it assisted the Transitional Government in disarming all illegal armed groups in preparation for a national dialogue, free, fair and open democratic elections and the accession to power of an elected government in February next year, he said.

The Council was also concerned about human rights compliance, he added.

Military and political strategies would not work in the long term without strategies for economic development, the reduction of poverty and the repair of the damaged environment, he said.

In this regard, the disbursement of pledged aid had started and Haiti, with an unheard of 85 per cent unemployment and massive rural-to-urban migration, was getting bilateral help for its national bureaucracy in implementing quick impact projects (QIPs), Mr. Sardenberg said.

Asked if Latin America saw Haiti as a regional issue, Mr. Sardenberg noted that Haiti was the first territory in Latin America and the Caribbean to gain its independence and that carried political significance.

It was the first time that Latin American countries had worked together in a United Nations mission and, despite some domestic opposition in some cases, were prepared to put their resources where their mouths were, he said.

The Special Representative of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in Haiti, Juan-Gabriel Valdés, has also noted the pioneering participation in MINUSTAH of troops from several Ibero-American countries.

Haitian President Alexandre Petion responded to an 1815 appeal from South American "Liberator" Simon Bolivar with supplies and men for the independence struggle that freed five Latin America countries.