Global Policy Forum

By Irwin Arieff

The Security Council on Tuesday voted itself four more weeks to reach final agreement on a plan for beefing up the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Haiti and reconfiguring its mandate ahead of planned elections. A resolution adopted unanimously by the 15-nation council extended the mission's mandate until June 24, "with the intention to renew for further periods." Without council action, the mandate would have expired on Wednesday.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said this month the mission needed another 750 troops and 275 police to help prepare for the elections later this year in the impoverished Caribbean nation, bringing the U.N. troop ceiling to 7,500 from the current 6,700 and the police ceiling to 1,897 from 1,622. In a report to the Security Council, he also called for the mission mandate to be extended for a full year, rather than the typical six months, to ensure adequate security is in place throughout the campaign.

But as the deadline neared, the United States said it did not yet have the necessary clearance from Congress for raising the force ceilings and China objected to a full-year mandate, preferring six months, council diplomats said. "China has a very special problem, but I think it can be worked out," one council diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "We hope it will not be counterproductive on this particular issue, for the sake of the Haitian people." While China has contributed a contingent of riot police to the Haiti mission, it does not have diplomatic relations with Haiti, which recognizes the self-governing island of Taiwan. Beijing, which puts the Taiwan issue at the core of its foreign policy, says the police officers were dispatched at the request of the United Nations and politics was not involved.

The United Nations sent peacekeepers to Haiti to help prop up an interim government appointed after Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the country's last elected president, fled into exile in South Africa in February 2004 under foreign pressure and in the face of a violent rebellion. To restore an elected government, local elections are to be held on Oct. 9 and legislative and presidential elections are scheduled for Nov. 13, with a run-off set for Dec. 18.

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