News Information

• NEWS_POSTED_BY: Haiti Place
• NEWS_POSTED_ON: Feb 07, 2015
• Views : 678
• Category : Haiti News
• Description :

  BY JACQUELINE CHARLES, JCHARLES@MIAMIHERALD.COM
  01/25/2015 8:01 PM 01/25/2015 8:44 PM

  U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power (left) and Chile’s U.N. Ambassador and Council President Cristián Barros Melet co-lead their fellow U.N. Security Council members on a visit to Cap-Haitien, Saturday, Jan. 24, 2015. JACQUELINE CHARLES / MIAMI HERALD

• Location : Port-au-Prince, Ouest, Haiti
• Website : http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/article8125068.html

Overview

• PORT-AU-PRINCE - The United Nations Security Council wrapped up a three-day mission Sunday urging Haiti’s warring politicians to work together to stage elections as quickly as possible while remaining mum on whether it will move ahead with plans to reduce the presence of its 7,100-strong peacekeeping mission beginning in March.

  "We are trying to maintain the support to the government of Haiti for the main goal, which is to have elections," said Chile's U.N. Ambassador Cristián Barros Melet, the Security Council president. "But it’s too early to say if it’s necessary to continue with the same configuration or not. We have time to do that. It is a very complex process we are living here in the political area."

  During a visit by Barros and the other representatives of the 15-member council to the Haiti National Police (HNP) training academy earlier in the day, Justice Minister Pierre-Richard Casimir reiterated President Michel Martelly’s request that a planned reduction of the 4,957 military troops be delayed until after elections for president, 20 Senate seats, the entire 99-member chamber of deputies and more than 4,000 local posts are completed this year.

  "It's a question of logistics," Casimir told the Miami Herald. "There are a lot of departments where they will need to transport ballots. If they leave, that will increase the pressure on the HNP."

  The high-level UN delegation arrived Friday amid anti-government protests, and just hours before the country installed a new nine-member provisional electoral board to oversee the balloting. Days earlier, Martelly installed a new prime minister and government on the recommendation of a presidential commission seeking to calm the rising political tensions and anti-government protests. Parliament also dissolved after the terms of a second-tier of the 30-member Senate ended, and the entire lower house because of delayed elections.

  During their visit, members met with Martelly and his government, opposition leaders, civil society and the electoral board. They also took several site visits to better understand the recovery and resettlement of persons affected by the devastating Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake, including laying a wreath in Titanyen where many of the more than 300,000 dead are buried in mass graves.

  On Saturday, members toured the Nerette neighborhood in the capital where the government and the U.N. have rehabbed homes and mitigated disaster risks to encourage camp residents to return to the neighborhood. Later, they flew to Cap-Haitien via helicopter where they toured the only hospital in the northern region for handicapped persons, the Haitian Hospital Appeal in Quartier Morin. They also visited with members of the Haitian Coast Guard, who spoke of the challenges of patrolling the open coast line with only two 40-foot boats, and met with tourism students.

  But it was Haiti’s ongoing political impasse and elections delay that preoccupied council members.

  Read more here >>