20121: (Chamberlain) Haiti rebuilding effort will last 10 years-Annan (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     OTTAWA, March 9 (Reuters) - The international effort to rebuild
Haiti's police, judiciary and other major institutions will take at least
10 years, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Tuesday.
     "I am convinced that we can make progress but it will take time. It's
not one year or even 10 years -- it will take a lot longer, 10 years or
more, and we have to be patient," he told a news conference in the Canadian
capital, Ottawa.
     The U.N. Security Council last week authorized the dispatch of a
5,000-strong international force to maintain order after former President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide fled into exile.
     Once the force's three-month mandate expires, it will be replaced with
a U.N. peacekeeping mission.
     "Over and above the security requirements, we are going to need to
help Haitians rebuild their nation.... We need to help them rebuild their
institutions -- (the) judiciary, police," Annan said after meeting Prime
Minister Paul Martin.
     Annan said the international community should learn from the mistakes
it made a decade ago when it poured aid into Haiti after U.S. troops
restored Aristide in the wake of a coup. The country is still desperately
poor.
     "I think measures should be taken to avoid the errors of the past. We
need to work very closely with the Haitians to ensure that the country
advances and that the money they are given is used properly," he said.