| UN troops replace US troops in Haiti Original Source Link: (May no longer be active) http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/americas/8814532.htmhttp://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/americas/8814532.htm
Posted on Wed, Jun. 02, 2004 U.N. peacekeepers take over from U.S.
With a ceremonial flag-raising, a new United Nations force took over peacekeeping duties in Haiti from U.S. Marines and troops from other countries. BY MICHAEL DEIBERT Special to The Herald
HAITI
PORT-AU-PRINCE -- A United Nations-mandated multinational force assumed peacekeeping duties in Haiti on Tuesday, replacing a U.S.-led coalition that arrived after an armed rebellion and massive street protests in February ousted former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
The force, called the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), will replace the current 3,600-member military contingent with a team of 6,700 troops and 1,622 civilian police drawn from myriad countries, including Rwanda, Paraguay and Croatia.
CEREMONY
At a ceremony Tuesday at a police academy in the suburban Port-au-Prince neighborhood of Frres, contingents of Nepalese, Brazilian and Chilean blue caps stood at attention as a Haitian police band struck up the country's national anthem.
Government officials, diplomats and military leaders, including Haiti's interim President Boniface Alexandre, U.S. Ambassador Thomas Foley and force commander Lt. Gen. Augusto Ribeiro Pereira, watched the raising of the U.N. flag from under a covered bandstand.
MINUSTAH's mandate will include supporting and reforming the Haitian National Police, heavily politicized during Aristide's term in office, and providing support for the holding of municipal, parliamentary and presidential elections, likely to be held sometime next year.
`ENHANCE PEACE'
''We really do hope that the U.N. mission will enhance peace and stability in this country and that they will cover the territory as the police are strengthening,'' Haitian Justice Minister Bernard Gousse said.
Initial U.S. troops have been forced to stay beyond their planned departure date to provide humanitarian relief after devastating floods in Haiti and the Dominican Republic killed nearly 2,000 people.
The floods' toll -- coupled with recent violent political unrest on the island -- prompted two human rights groups to urge U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft to grant Temporary Protected Status to Haitians already living in the United States, sparing them deportation.
''The flood waters have destroyed entire villages, and clearly there is no infrastructure in Haiti to deal with this,'' said Cheryl Little, executive director of the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, which along with the New York-based Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children, made an appeal to Ashcroft.
Herald Staff writer Tere Figueras contributed to this report.
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