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Haiti - Security : The mandate of MINUSTAH, renewed for one year 15/10/2014 10:31:43
The Security Council voiced its great concern over long delayed elections and strongly urged Haitian political actors to work cooperatively and without further delays to hold the legislative, partial senatorial, municipal and local elections. The Council called on MINUSTAH to provide and coordinate, as appropriate, international assistance to the Haitian Government for free, fair, inclusive and transparent electoral processes. In keeping with the Secretary-General’s recommendation with respect to the numbers of uniformed personnel, the Security Council decided that MINUSTAH would continue to reduce its military component, from the current 5.021 to a maximum of 2,370 troops, while maintaining the current police strength of up to 2,601 officers. The Council called on the Secretary-General to ensure that a force level close to the current level would remain in country until his next report to the Council [in March 2015], affirming that adjustments to the force configuration should be based on the situation on the ground. Reiterating the critical role of the Haitian National Police to Haiti’s security and stability and underlining the need to further support the rule of law including Haitian judicial and corrections systems, the Council requested MINUSTAH to continue strengthening the institutional and operational capacities of the Haitian National Police as one of its most critical tasks. The Council further encouraged Haitian authorities to continue to implement justice reform, through, among others, ongoing support to the Superior Council of the Judiciary, to ensure the independence and effectiveness of judicial institutions and to continue addressing prolonged pre-trial detention and prison overcrowding. With these smaller numbers, the military component will help Haitian institutions only if the Haiti National Police was not able to restore order with the help of the police component of MINUSTAH explains Secretary General. Despite these assurances, members of the Council, but also of countries troop contributors to MINUSTAH, have protested against the reduction "drastic" of the workforce. Thus, the representative of Chile, Cristian Barros, said that such a move could undermine the ability of prevention of Mission in case of crisis. Sharing the same view, his counterpart from Argentina, who chairs the Security Council for the month of October, said that his delegation had not been co-author of the text because, said Maria Cristina Perceval, it does not sufficiently reflect the views of troop contributors countries, including his own, in the negotiations with the Group of Friends of Haiti. For the representative of Argentina, the situation in Haiti has not improved enough to justify such a substantial reduction of military personnel of MINUSTAH. This is especially true when one notes that the Haitian National Police still has neither the means nor the independence necessary to ensure the security in the country, she said. "Any decision to increase or decrease troops should be made based on the ground situation, and not other considerations," insisted, meanwhile, Mr. Barros, followed in this regard by his counterparts from Guatemala and Ecuador. The representative of Guatemala, Fernando Carrera Castro, the resolution adopted today also jeopardizes the continued implementation of the conditional consolidation plan of the MINUSTAH for the period 2013-2016, which bases the activities of the Mission on a set of tasks agreed with the Government of Haiti. For his part, the representative of Ecuador, Xavier Lasso, said that "uncertainties about the upcoming electoral process," had not been sufficiently taken into account, according to him as part of the decision to downsize MINUSTAH for reasons obviously "budgetary". HL/ HaitiLibre
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