24117: (pub) Chamberlain: Some see quagmire for Brazil troops in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Angus MacSwan

     SAO PAULO, Brazil, Jan 20 (Reuters) - It all started so optimistically
for Brazil's peacekeeping mission in Haiti.
     Back in June, a grateful population welcomed the troops. Brazil's
soccer superstars showed up to play a special "peace game" and President
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva visited the blighted Caribbean country to spread
his brand of good cheer.
     The mission would show that Brazil was ready to assume a role as a
regional diplomatic power with a more socially aware approach than the
heavy-handed United States.
     It is turning out to be more complicated than that.
     Armed factions in Haiti have grown more violent and clashes between
peacekeepers and Haitians have raised the risk that people will turn
against the foreign troops.
     Haiti's infrastructure is in ruins and promised helpings of
international aid are slow to appear, exacerbating tensions.
     In Brazil, critics say the venture could become Lula's first foreign
policy mistake.
     "Haiti is a quagmire. I think that Brazil should find a way out," said
Ivan Valente, a congressman in Lula's ruling Workers Party who opposed the
deployment.
     The Brazilians arrived to lead the U.N. mission in June, following a
rebellion that forced elected Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide into
exile in February. An interim government has promised elections by the end
of this year.
     The military deployment was Brazil's largest since World War Two. It
was part of a foreign policy drive by Lula that would give the South
American giant an international influence which matched its size -- and
boost its bid for a permanent seat on a revamped U.N. Security Council.
     Brazil stressed Haiti's problems were social and economic and that
while foreign troops could provide security, the country needed rebuilding
for any lasting solution.
     The interim government and some U.S. officials chided the U.N. force
for failing to disarm former soldiers and pro-Aristide gangs who have
fought frequent street battles.
     Brazilian officers complained they were hampered by a slow troop
buildup. About 6,000 soldiers and 1,400 police are now there, still 1,000
short of the authorized U.N. contingent.
     "I refuse to use blind violence without any planning or strategy,
which could create many innocent victims because that could trigger an
unbearable climate throughout the country," force commander General Augusto
Heleno Ribeiro told Haiti's Radio Metropole, responding to the criticism.
     But over the last month the soldiers have raided dangerous slums to
search for weapons, been attacked by angry mobs, and fought gunmen over
police posts and other points around the capital Port-au-Prince.
     A report by the University of Miami's human rights center released on
Wednesday said as the violence grew worse, Haitians were living in a
"nightmarish fear."
     "UN police and soldiers, unable to speak the language of most
Haitians, are overwhelmed by the firestorm," it said.
     Lula's adviser for foreign affairs, Marco Aurelio Garcia, has warned a
new crisis could erupt if the international community fails to deliver $1
billion in promised funds.
     Brazilian opponents of the mission say it gives legitimacy to what
they see as a U.S.-engineered coup against Aristide.
     "The Brazilians can be seen as an occupation force and instead of
being against the real destroyers -- Haiti's elite and U.S. imperialism --
the people could turn against us," Congressman Valente said.
     Money and resources would be better spent on Brazil's own problems of
poverty and crime -- or sending troops into Rio de Janeiro's violent slums,
they say.
     Congressman Antonio Carlos Pannunzio of the Brazilian Social
Democratic Party said the Lula government had underestimated the situation.
     "Lula is obsessed with a permanent seat at the U.N. and he thinks
Brazil leading the peacekeeping force is going to get it for us," Pannunzio
said.
     Still, the Haiti mission has had little impact on Lula's high approval
ratings at home, which have been boosted by a booming domestic economy.
     And analyst Luis Bitencourt of the Woodrow Wilson International Center
in Washington said Brazil had been right to assume a global role and
responsibilities.
     If it has to pull out of Haiti because of U.N. failings, its image as
a nonaggressive power would not be tarnished. If its soccer diplomacy works
and aid arrives, it will look good.
     "Brazil has already acquired considerable political and strategic
capital," Bitencourt said.

     (Additional reporting by Natuza Nery in Brasilia.)