Brazil plans to start removing troops from Haiti

[ocpagu]

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — Brazil wants to gradually reduce its peacekeeping force in Haiti, the government said Tuesday.

Defense Minister Celso Amorim told BBC Brasil that keeping the troops in Haiti will not benefit the poor country in the long term. His comments were confirmed by the Defense Ministry's press office, which said there is no timetable to begin the troop withdrawal.

Brazil leads the U.N. peacekeeping mission sent to the Caribbean country in 2004 after a revolt toppled former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The U.N. troops also were key after a devastating earthquake hit the nation in 2010.

The U.N. mission, which was always intended to be temporary, currently has more than 12,000 troops or police in Haiti.

"We have to be responsible in relation to Haiti and in relation to ourselves," Amorim said in the interview with BBC Brasil. "But in the medium and long term, it's not good for Haiti or for those who are there to have the troops stay forever."

Read more:
http://news.yahoo.com/brazil-plans-start-removing-troops-haiti-172243050.html

[ocpagu]

1. A more complete report...

... from BBC, also commenting on the controversy created by Nepalese and Uruguayan peacekeepers.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-14812500

It's interesting to notice that this decision has come right after Celso Amorim was appointed as the new Defense Minister. Celso Amorim was Lula's Minister of External Relations, the one responsible for signing the nuclear deal with Turkey and Iran, as well as the main architect of Brazilian foreign policy shift toward South-South cooperation. Our previous Defense Minister, Nelson Jobim, was fired by telephone by president Dilma Rousseff after making derogatory comments about two female ministers. But his dismissal was already planned before that, since the Wikileaks scandal revealed the US diplomats saw Nelson Jobim as his greatest ally in US government and that the minister had several meetings with US top officials, without warning the government.