Brazilian troops leading the U.N. peacekeeping force in Haiti will stay there for as long as the Caribbean nation requests, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said Monday, March 13.
"We are subject to the guidance of the United Nations (and) we are subject to the sovereign wishes of the Haitian people," Lula said in his weekly radio address, "Breakfast with the President."
"When they say ‘We don’t want you anymore,’ we’ll return to Brazil with the sense of mission accomplished," Lula added.
Brazil has led the U.N. force in Haiti since 2004. Lula met with Haitian President-elect René Préval for four hours Saturday before they both traveled to Chile for the inauguration of President Michelle Bachelet.
Préval asked that Brazilian troops remain in Haiti while he prepares to govern the hemisphere’s poorest nation.
Lula said Préval told him the U.N. troops "should leave only when he organizes the police structure in the country, because there cannot be a vacuum."
Pravda – www.pravda.ru