Haiti U.N. leader reportedly kills self
The commander of the U.N. peacekeeping force in Haiti was found dead at an upscale hotel in the country’s capital early Saturday with an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, officials in Port-au-Prince said.
The death of Lt. Gen. Urano Teixeira Da Matta Bacellar, a Brazilian, seemed likely to further complicate the world body’s long-thwarted efforts to bring stability to violence-racked Haiti and organize elections.
Haiti has been without an elected leader since President Jean-Bertrand Aristide fled an armed rebellion in February 2004. Presidential and parliamentary elections were to have been held in November but have been delayed repeatedly by the U.S.-backed interim leadership.
Bacellar, 58, was found in his suite at the Hotel Montana with a gunshot wound to the head and his service revolver nearby, according to Radio Metropole and other news agencies at the scene.
Chilean Gen. Eduardo Aldunate was put in charge of the military mission until Brazil replaces the commander of its 1,200 troops in Haiti, the largest contingent of the now 7,265-strong U.N. military deployment.
The contemplative soldier with snow-white hair and black eyebrows inherited command Aug. 31 and had witnessed a recent deterioration of security in the capital’s teeming, gang-controlled slums.
An official of Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Council, Rosemond Pradel, last week blamed the U.N. mission for the latest postponement of elections, citing its failure to halt escalating slum violence and a rash of kidnappings. Pradel confirmed that the vote scheduled for today was being called off but said no new election date could be set because of persistent security and organizational problems.
Alarmed by the delays, the U.N. Security Council and the Organization of American States convened special sessions Friday during which they instructed Haitian officials to cease infighting and to hold elections no later than Feb. 7.
A U.S. diplomat in Port-au-Prince said the State Department considers the Feb. 7 deadline feasible and does not believe Bacellar’s death will affect the electoral calendar.
But Haitians point to the daily gunfights in gang-controlled neighborhoods such as Cite Soleil and Bel-Air and abductions for ransom as dangers preventing the set-up of polling places in the most populous areas. Almost half of the 3.4 million people who registered to vote still haven’t received their ID cards or been told where they will cast their ballots.
Expressing the international community’s mounting impatience, U.N. mission chief Juan Gabriel Valdes warned Friday that the troops under Bacellar’s command and some of the 1,700-plus U.N. police in Haiti would occupy Cite Soleil to break up the crime and kidnapping rings.
Bacellar, as well as his Brazilian predecessor in the mission’s command, had been on record as opposing any use of U.N. force that could endanger bystanders.