UN council open to Haiti's plea for more police

UN Security Council members said they would look favorably on Haiti's request for more peacekeeping police as they wrapped up a four-day visit yesterday marked by violence in the streets of the capital.

But ambassadors expressed concern about the deep divisions among Haiti's numerous political parties just months before elections planned for November.

The council, charged with ensuring international peace and security, was paying its first official visit to any Latin American or Caribbean country, to assess the UN mission in Haiti. The visit came 14 months after President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, facing an armed rebellion, fled for exile in South Africa.

The council pressed Haiti's interim government to stick to the election timetable and to take a more aggressive stand against the armed gangs terrorising parts of the country.

During the council's visit, a peacekeeper from the Philippines was shot dead in the Cite Soleil neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, the country's most violent and impoverished slum. The killing on Thursday brought to three the number of peacekeepers killed in action in Haiti since their latest mission began in June.

The next day, a joint operation mounted by UN soldiers from Jordan and Haitian police struck back, killing as many as 10 gunmen in Cite Soleil, and UN officials said the operation would continue.

Brazilian UN Ambassador Ronaldo Sardenberg, the leader of the delegation, said the Security Council would pay attention to Haiti's views on its needs when the UN peacekeeping mission - known in UN circles by its acronym MINUSTAH - came up for renewal in May.