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Brazil says aims to draw down Haiti mission

Tue, 6 Sep 2011 15:42 GMT

Source: reuters // Reuters

A U.N. soldier from Brazil stands guard next to presidential posters in Port-au-Prince October 30, 2010. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz

* Defense Ministry is gauging drawdown -source

* Peacekeeping force members to meet this week in Uruguay

* Brazil leads the 12,200-strong U.N. mission in Haiti

By Guillermo Parra-Bernal

SAO PAULO, Sept 6 (Reuters) - Brazil plans to start withdrawing troops from the United Nations peacekeeping mission it leads in Haiti as the Caribbean country slowly recovers from political turmoil and last year's massive earthquake.

A drawdown of troops would be coordinated with the United Nations and is natural following an increase in troops to help with recovery efforts after the January 2010 earthquake, Defense Minister Celso Amorim said.

"The security situation improved a lot and there have been two democratic elections since we were there. We want to do it (the troop reduction) in coordination with the United Nations and without any unilateral action," Amorim said in Buenos Aires on Monday.

A government source told Reuters on Tuesday that the Defense Ministry had begun analyzing how eventually to exit the seven-year-old mission. He did not speak on the record because the studies are at a preliminary stage.

Brazil's leadership of the 12,200-strong U.N. mission, known as Minustah, has been a test of its ambition to play a bigger role in regional security as its seeks to further its goal of a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council.

The mechanism for Brazil's drawdown will ultimately be discussed by Amorim and Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota, and signed off by President Dilma Rousseff, the source said. Brazil has 2,166 troops in Haiti, the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation.

U.N. peacekeeping spokesman Kieran Dwyer told Reuters that an assessment of the Haiti situation requested by the Security Council had recommended a partial withdrawal of Minustah troops in the first half of next year. He said it was not yet clear whether troops would be reduced to below pre-earthquake levels.

Brazilian newspapers quoted the Brazilian general in command of Minustah, Luiz Eduardo Ramos Pereira, as saying the drawdown of Brazilian troops would be in line with a plan by the United Nations to reduce the overall mission's size.

DRAWDOWN PLAN

The Estado de S. Paulo newspaper quoted him as saying that under the plan being considered by the United Nations, 1,600 troops would be sent home, probably by November, including up to 280 Brazilians.

He said a sizable force of Brazilians would have to stay in Haiti for "some time" because they are responsible for the capital Port-au-Prince, where security remains poor.

Minustah was established by the U.N. Security Council in 2004 and has been helping Haiti's short-staffed and ill-equipped police to maintain security in the country, especially during elections plagued by fraud and unrest.

Much of Haiti's civil and police infrastructure was shattered by the quake that killed more than 300,000 people, mostly in Port-au-Prince. The country also struggled with a cholera epidemic this year that killed more than 6,000 people and which many blamed on the Nepalese U.N. contingent.

This month, Minustah faced public outcry over allegations that Uruguayan U.N. troops raped an 18-year-old local man.

Amorim will visit Uruguay on Thursday to discuss the state of the mission with other Minustah members, a Defense Ministry spokesman said on Tuesday. (Additional reporting by Guido Nejamkis in Buenos Aires and Stuart Grudgings in Rio de Janeiro; editing by Mohammad Zargham)