25945: (news) Chamberlain: Philippines hunts deserters from Haiti mission (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     MANILA, Aug 10 (Reuters) - The American dream may have been too much
of a magnet for two Filipino peacekeepers who failed to return to duty in
Haiti after a rest break in the United States.
     "It is dreadful to note that two of our peacekeepers have turned into
illegal economic migrants," Colonel Daniel Lucero, the former commander of
the Philippine contingent in Haiti, told reporters in Manila on Wednesday.
     The United States is home to about 3 million Filipinos who left their
country in search of a better life.
     Lucero said the Philippine army had "taken steps to arrest the two
deserters", who disappeared during two weeks of leave in Florida in April.
     Earlier that month, a Filipino sergeant was killed in an attack on a
United Nations peacekeeping checkpoint in the impoverished Cite Soleil
neighbourhood, one of Haiti's most dangerous areas.
     The Philippines sent a 135-member peacekeeping team to Haiti in
December 2004 to help U.N. forces curb political unrest ahead of elections
later this year.
     Last month, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said she would send
another 200 Philippine troops to Haiti to join nearly 4,000 Brazilian-led
peacekeepers after the president of the Caribbean island, Jean-Bertrand
Aristide, was ousted last year.
     Lucero said the army would seek to have the passports of the two
missing soldiers cancelled and ask U.S. authorities to find and deport them
to face a military trial.
     "They have given an awful name to our mission in Haiti," he said.