23756: (pub) Chamberlain: Brazil-Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   BRASILIA, Nov 8 (AP) -- Brazilian U.N. peacekeepers will remain in Haiti
until presidential elections are held in that Caribbean nation sometime
next year, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Monday.
   Brazil has kept 1,200 soldiers in Haiti since May as part of a
multilateral U.N. force, whose original mandate of six months is expected
to be extended for another 12 months.
   Silva defended the presence of Brazilian troops in Haiti and made a
veiled criticism of the role played by U.S. troops in areas of conflict.
   "If we were not there (in Haiti), then American troops would (be in
Haiti), doing what Brazilian soldiers would never do, for our mandate is
not to act as a police force but as a peacekeeping force," Silva said at
the ceremony.
   He said the troops would remain in Haiti "until next year, when that
country holds elections for president and a government."
   According to a U.N. resolution in April, the multinational force, which
is under Brazil's command and currently totals some 5,000 troops, should
have 6,600 soldiers and 1,600 police.
   Other nations that have sent troops to Haiti include Chile, Argentina,
Peru El Salvador China and Spain.
   Meanwhile, the chief official in charge of organizing Haiti's elections
resigned Monday amid an internal rift within the agency.
   Roselor Julien, president of the Provisional Electoral Council, told
reporters that she was resigning to remove herself from the center of a
conflict that had been plaguing the body for months.