Incoming Haiti president Michel Martelly vowed Thursday to create a "modern army," saying the violence-prone Caribbean nation could not rely on UN peacekeepers forever for its security.
After decades of political interference and dozens of coups, Haiti disbanded its military in 1995 and has become reliant since 2004 on a UN stabilization mission, MINUSTAH, which was authorized to disarm and demobilize remaining militias.
"The presence of MINUSTAH on Haitian soil means that there is a force needed down there to maintain peace, unless someone suggests that MINUSTAH remains forever," Martelly told journalists in Washington.
The new security force would focus on the quake-hit nation's reconstruction and wouldn't need "warships or fighter jets" as Haiti is not going to war with other nations, the president-elect said.
"It needs to be a modern army, have an engineering core, and will be ready to intervene" in times of chaos and catastrophe, like after earthquakes or hurricanes, Martelly explained.
Pressed to give a time-frame, he demurred: "I became president-elect last night. Give me a few days to answer these questions."
Patrolling around in their dozens on the back of trucks, the heavily-armed UN blue-helmets are despised by the urban poor, who view them as an occupying force serving only to keep an entrenched elite in power.
MINUSTAH's popularity in Haiti nose-dived last November when peacekeepers from Nepal were accused of bringing cholera into the country and targeted in deadly riots. The cholera epidemic has now killed almost 5,000 people.
The UN Security Council renewed MINUSTAH's mandate for another year in October, but mission chief Edmond Mulet told reporters the following month that he would be looking around now at drawing up possible pull-out plans.
"If we have good elections now and if there is a democratic transfer of power… and the installation of a new national assembly next year, then we will analyze the security situation in the country in April and May 2011."
That process could see a return to "a plan that we established at the end of 2009 for the reduction and eventual departure of the mission," he said.
MINUSTAH had been on track to finish its work in 2009 but was forced to extend its term following the January 2010 earthquake, which killed more than 225,000 people, including almost 100 UN staff.
MINUSTAH, which has a particularly heavy presence in the teeming capital Port-au-Prince, numbers some 9,000 troops and 4,400 police — an increase of 2,000 and 1,500 respectively after the quake.
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