Haiti: Replacing the Peacekeepers With Peacekeepers

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June 22,2007: UN peacekeepers continue to target the largest gangs, and their leaders. On average, one or more major gangsters gets arrested, or killed, each week, so far this year. Crime is still high, but it's less organized. The success of the 8,800 peacekeepers has led Haitian leaders to consider replacing the foreign peacekeepers, with Haitian peacekeepers. That's right, instead of restoring the disbanded army, Haiti would create a paramilitary force that would back up the police, but not be an army. The problem is that, in the past, anything that appeared to be an army, became a source of power for a future dictator. Thus the problem is in creating a peacemaker force that does not become another tool for some future tyrant to take power with.

Meanwhile, the police force continues to expand, but is losing its war against the growing drug trade. The drug gangs, unlike the declining political and street gangs, prefer to disable the police with cash, rather than violence. As a result, corruption is becoming more of a problem.

 

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