23683: (pub) Chamberlain: Central America peacekeepers going to Haiti in 2005 (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras, Nov 2 (Reuters) - Four Central American nations
will send up to 500 soldiers total to help United Nations' peacekeeping
forces in Haiti next year in a bid to stem political unrest and a wave of
killings.
     The U.N. mission is charged with restoring order in the impoverished
Caribbean nation after its president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was ousted in
February.
     The mission has been hampered from the start by a shortage of
international troops and police that had been promised.
     "We of Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras are prepared to
cooperate in this regional effort," Honduras Defense Minister Federico
Breve told Reuters.
     "The idea is to form a unit at the battalion level of some 400 or 500
people, which would mean between 100 and 120 men per country," he said,
adding that soldiers would likely depart early in the new year.
     Breve said Honduras and El Salvador had already sent officials to
Haiti to assess food, water and housing needs.
     He said Guatemala has sent a contingent of 70 soldiers to Haiti but is
prepared to send more as part of the joint Central American force.
     "We are treating this as a Central American initiative and my
counterpart ministers of defense in Central America are in agreement," said
Breve.
     The Central American soldiers going to Haiti will join nearly 4,000
other peacekeepers in Haiti.
     Haiti is now run by an interim government charged with organizing
elections.
     But many Aristide supporters are still furious over his departure and
the country is awash with arms. Nearly 200 people in Haiti have been killed
in a wave of violence in the past two months, according to one human rights
group.