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...Saturday with the death of its Brazilian commander, 58-year-old Lieutenant General Urano Teixeira da Matta Bacellar. The shooting - an unconfirmed suicide according to Haitian news radio reports - occurred early Saturday on the patio of his apartment in the luxurious mountainside Montana Hotel, where many connected with the UN mission have taken up part-time residence...
...general's death comes on the heels of a call by the UN for the Haitian interim government to hold elections by February 7, 2006, the 20th anniversary of the fall of the 29-year Duvalier dictatorship. The poll has already been postponed four times, and many in Haiti fear that even the projected new date is too soon to resolve logistical needs that have yet to be addressed by the Provisional Electoral Council, the Organization of American States and the United Nations. But with each passing day unchecked violence in the capital is growing at a rate equal...
...Haitians are angry that the UN force has done little to stop the wave of kidnappings and other criminal violence that have cast a shadow over the election, but MINUSTAH officials insist that their mission does not extend to fighting crime. Last week, a general strike was called for January 9 to pressure the UN to take action to halt the violence. Despite an increased presence of troops on the streets, few residents of the capital, Port-au-Prince, feel safer. The seaside slum of Cite Soleil, where most victims are taken, is off limits to almost everyone other than...
...High-ranking federal police officials, as well as some presidential candidates, have charged privately that certain member countries of the UN Mission have been complicit in the kidnapping network, either by taking payments from cash-flush gangs to look the other way or supplying them with weapons. UN Mission spokesman David Wimhurst vehemently denies the accusations: "If the government is serious, it should come forward and offer proof. Otherwise, it's just another nasty rumor attacking MINUSTAH...
...without outside help, even though many see international assistance as ineffective at best; insiders call MINUSTAH the trash mission, pointing to rejects from other missions installed as department heads, and only underdeveloped countries, such as Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Uruguay, as participants. ?Our track record is lamentable,? admits a UN official. And as crime encroaches on once safe areas such as Pétionville and Péguyville, southeast of the capital, frustrated Haitians are becoming increasingly more hostile toward MINUSTAH. So far the Mission has lost eight people, the most recent on Christmas Eve when gunmen shot and killed...