Haiti: UN pledges to help Government improve security in 2008

The United Nations peacekeeping mission in Haiti will continue to help the Government to improve border security in 2008, the Organization’s top official in the Caribbean nation has pledged.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Special Representative Hedi Annabi told a news conference yesterday in the capital, Port-au-Prince, that UN peacekeepers are already deploying at the four main points of entry into Haiti, will soon patrol the seaports and, at a later stage, also deploy a maritime unit.

The mission, known as MINUSTAH and set up in set up in 2004 to help re-establish peace after an insurgency forced President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to go into exile, will also continue in improving state administration and reforming the judicial sector of the impoverished country.

Mr. Annabi called for an effective partnership between Haitians, MINUSTAH and the international financial community to make concrete progress in all fields.

“It must be recognized that, whatever its good intentions, MINUSTAH has neither the mandate nor the necessary resources to solve the fundamental problems posed by the creation of jobs, provision of food, health and education, and more generally improving the standard of living of the population,” he said. “That solution depends on an increase in investments and re-launching the economy.”