ARTICLE - MARTELLY - WANTS UN MANDATE CHANGED

MICHEL MARTELLY WISHES A CHANGE OF MANDATE OF THE MINUSTAH
(Haiti Libre) -

Back from his visit to Chile, the President Martelly, gave a positive assessment of his various meetings. He reiterated Sunday during a presse conference, his desire to transform the UN Mission for Stabilization in Haiti (Minustah) into a Mission of Development, while returning to the need of developing a Haitian defense force. The Head of State said that Chile was willing to assist him in the creation of this force and welcomed the existing cooperation between the two countries around the training of Haitian police officers.

"...the President of Chile, Piñera has strongly supported, the desire that we have expressed to transform the mandate of the Minustah into an active mission in the development of the country [...] the Chilean body which is on the ground is less in the infantry and there are more development experts. They also have the equipment on the ground. Unfortunately in the past, we always have in mind that the Minustah is there when there are problems of peacekeeping, or relating to the maintaining of order...they have equipment that can allow us to do development projects... with the will of President Piñera we will see for the first time, how to transform a part of the [Chilean] mission into a mission of development."

During his visit to the Academy of the Carabinieri, the President Martelly met the General in Chief to discuss training, but also the creation of a Haitian defense force.

". The General in Chief presented us the Chilean security plan and we are back with this plan and the Chilean Minister of Defense will arrive in eight days in Haiti to make a presentation of their defense force. They agreed to accompany us in the creation of our own defense force. For a long time we have talked about it. It is imperative to take action. [...] Chile also offered to take on more police officers in training [40 now, instead of the 60 planned] [...] in the next promotion, we will talk with the Director General of the Police to see how we can, through these exchanges train more police officers with this Chilean offer..."

For his part, Daniel Supplice, Adviser of the President Martelly on international issues, which led a delegation to Argentina, declared at this press conference :

"...we met with the officials from the Ministry [Argentine] of defense and public safety [...] they wanted to know three things, the position of the Martelly Government on the issue of Minustah, and we said that the Minustah is important; that it is not here to stay for life; and that when we will have our force, to bring security, the Minustah will leave gradually.

The second thing they wanted to know, is if President Martelly is interested in a change in the mandate of the Minustah. We said that President Martelly is very clear on this issue. He said several times that the Minustah can not remain a mission of peacekeeping in Haiti because in Haiti there is not a special situation that requires a military presence [...] the enemy of the country is the underdevelopment, hunger and misery, and so it would be interesting to transform the force of the Minustah into a force of development to make roads, canals, bridges and that would be most helpful to us.

The third point they raised, as we had said that we wanted a national defense force; is to explain what we had in mind. We said that it's very simple. There are two aspects in question. An aspect of national defense and an aspect of public safety. Public safety is the responsibility of the National Police of Haiti. National security is the responsibility of national security forces. The name is a detail, but it is necessary that this force is a paramilitary body [...] They agreed, and it is clear that it is necessary that there be two forces, and indeed the Constitution provides this case..."