URUGUAY: South American bloc discusses a gradual troop withdrawal from Haiti

Record ID: 349069

  • Title: URUGUAY: South American bloc discusses a gradual troop withdrawal from Haiti
  • Date: 9th September 2011
  • Summary: MONTEVIDEO, URUGUAY (SEPTEMBER 08, 2011) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF AIR FORCE CLUB (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) URUGUAYAN FOREIGN AFFAIRS MINISTER, LUIS ALMAGRO, SAYING: "The content of this meeting is primarily to see how to adapt the U.N. mandate to the needs of Haiti and that will obviously depend on how Haiti will gradually start taking over the capabilities of Minustah." MEE
  • Embargoed: 24th September 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Uruguay, Uruguay
  • Country: Uruguay
  • Topics: International Relations,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVAE7M8SRT8JA84RA0BBZMGI6EO1
  • Story Text: Uruguay discussed the gradual withdrawal of its troops from Haiti in a meeting of ministers from the South American bloc, Unasur, on Thursday (September 8).
    There are plans for it to be part of a general troop downsizing to be proposed by the Unasur bloc to the U.N. Security Council.
    It comes after allegations that Uruguayan UN peacekeepers raped a Haitian man, but Brazil's foreign minister Antonio Patriota denied there was any link between the two issues.
    Uruguay's foreign minister Luis Almagro said it was "impossible to think" that the U.N. mandate was ever to be permanent.
    "The content of this meeting is primarily to see how to adapt the U.N. mandate to the needs of Haiti and that will obviously depend on how Haiti will gradually start taking over the capabilities of Minustah," Almagro said.
    "The idea is that Uruguay will have to gradually withdraw its troops in function of these needs that we have been talking about. It is impossible to think that Uruguay will stay permanently in Haiti."
    Brazil leads the 12,200-strong U.N. mission in Haiti, know as Minustah, and was the first to signal a possible drawdown.
    Established by the U.N. Security Council in 2004, Minustah has been helping Haiti's short-staffed and ill-equipped police to maintain security in the country, especially during elections plagued by fraud and unrest.
    Almagro said the troop withdrawals would only be carried out in areas where security is already being handled by Haiti's own forces.
    "There are areas and there are places where these troops are no longer so necessary because Haiti is now capable of ensuring security. There are other areas that the troops are still necessary so this needs to be analyzed on a region-to-region basis," Almagro said.
    Public outrage in Haiti has surged over a video shot by a cellphone camera and circulating on the Internet that shows laughing Uruguayan marines pinning the young Haitian face down on a mattress and apparently assaulting him sexually.
    Uruguayan President Jose Mujica apologized for the incident in a letter to his Haitian counterpart Michel Martelly.
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