UNITED NATIONS, Feb 16 (IPS) – U.N. peacekeepers should stay in Haiti for another six months to help maintain the country’s fragile democracy, U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali recommends.

In a report to the U.N. Security Council made public Friday, Boutros-Ghali said that the nearly 60,000 peacekeepers of the U.N. Mission in Haiti (UNMIH) have helped bolster the country since the return of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

He advised the Council to extend the peacekeepers’ mandate by another six months past its current expiration date at the end of February. Boutros-Ghali intends UNMIH to maintain a reduced force of slightly more than 2,000 troops through this August.

The Security Council, which is expected to vote next Friday on the matter, is widely expected to approve the extension.

Although UNMIH was slated to withdraw after Aristide turned over power to his elected successor, Haiti’s new president, Rene Preval, this week urged the United Nations to stay on.

Preval, who assumed power last week after winning December elections, told Boutros-Ghali in a letter that U.N. troops can still play a role in training the country’s new police force and maintaining security.

In a country troubled by a resurgence in violence by armed gangs — such as the shadowy ‘Red Army’ blamed for several killings in the Cite Soleil slums outside Port-au-Prince — that task may still be a challenge.

Boutros-Ghali warned that although nearly all the 5,000 officers in the new national police force have completed their training, they lack the experience to deal with Haiti’s law and order problems maturely.

‘’The most serious concern is the absence of competent senior officers and overall leadership,’’ Boutros-Ghali wrote. ‘’The impact of inadequate experience and leadership can be seen from a number of instances when the Haitian National Police personnel have used unwarranted or disproportionate force, often resulting in incidents that could have been avoided.’’

Last November, a policeman shot and killed a child in Cite Soleil, sparking days of rioting and the burning of a police station. U.N. officials blamed the killing, and subsequent instances of police shootings, on lack of leadership.

‘’They are perhaps too quick to pull their guns,’’ said Lakhdar Brahimi, the special U.N. envoy to Haiti.

In order to assist the Haitian government, Boutros-Ghali recommends that 1,600 peacekeeping troops, 300 combat support personnel, 300 civilian police, and more than 300 civilian staff remain in Haiti after Feb 29.

The bulk of the force — including some 30,000 U.S. troops— are already departing, and will be gone by mid-March. U.S. President Bill Clinton, facing an election year, is eager to have all the U.S. troops home in an operation which, fortunately for him, has only encountered one U.S. fatality.

Canadian troops are expected to take up the slack as Washington withdraws its logistical and technical capabilities. But a U.S. support team of 300 soldiers will remain to assist UNMIH, Boutros- Ghali noted.

Pakistan, Djibouti and Bangladesh are among the other nations preparing to draw down their forces. But, following negotiations this week with Pakistani Foreign Minister Sardar Aseff Ahmed Ali, Boutros-Ghali ensured that more than 500 Pakistani troops will remain to bolster the force.

Because Haiti is seen as a success for the United Nations— and for Clinton, who ordered the U.S. military to restore the elected Aristide to power in 1994 — most diplomats here are eager to ensure that the Port-au-Prince government gets all the support it wants.

Yet nations maintaining troops in Haiti have been increasingly concerned with the rising violence there. Worse, a U.N. financial crisis has cut back U.N. support for peacekeeping, and could leave holes in the staffing and equipping of UNMIH.

U.N. spokeswoman Sylvana Foa announced this week that, beyond playing a part in the cutback of UNMIH troops, the U.N. financial woes prompted the cutting in half of the human rights office in Haiti, from 64 to 32 officers.

‘’I shall be alert to further opportunities to economise during the proposed extension of the mandate so that UNMIH can complete its tasks at the lowest possible cost to the member states,’’ Boutros-Ghali promised the Council.

Another setback for Haiti may be the lack of interest at the United Nations for a proposal by a Haitian ‘’truth commission’’ to set up a U.N. war crimes tribunal to investigate charges of human rights abuses during the 1991-94 military regime.

Human rights groups claim that as many as 4,000 Haitians were killed under the military junta led by Gen. Raoul Cedras, which temporarily ousted Aristide in 1991.

But a senior U.S. diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS that Washington is not interested in, and has not considered, a war crimes tribunal. ‘’We feel a truth commission would be the better way to go, since that approach has worked in similar circumstances,’’ he said. (END/IPS/FAH/YJC/96)

Origin: Washington/HAITI/ ----

[c] 1995, InterPress Third World News Agency (IPS) All rights reserved

May not be reproduced, reprinted or posted to any system or service outside of the APC networks, without specific permission from IPS. This limitation includes distribution via Usenet News, bulletin board systems, mailing lists, print media and broadcast. For information about cross- posting, send a message to <ips-info@igc.apc.org>. For information about print or broadcast reproduction please contact the IPS coordinator at <ipsrom@gn.apc.org>.