Staff writer Denise Mota
On the 1st of February, president Dilma Rousseff will visit Haiti. The arrival of the Brazilian leader at Port-au-Prince happens in a moment in which the country, according to World Bank analysis, is recovering from its 2010 earthquake much quicker than other nations affected by similar natural disasters.
Rousseff is also going to meet an Haiti that has been populated by UN peacekeepers –members of the Minustah, as the mission is called—, a task in which Brazil leads. The president is aware, obviously, of the many criticisms arising, from renowned specialists, about the large number of foreign troops in the country, since 2004.
In the opinion of diplomatic Ricardo Seitenfus, Brazilian professional who has worked as representative of OAS (Organization of American States) in Haiti, now working for the institution in Nicaragua, the extension of the mission tends, among other problems, to deepen a context of tension and inequality which can cause abuses and excesses of all kinds by its personnel.
Ricardo Seitenfus
Without losing sight of this panorama, chancellor Antonio Patriota and Justice minister José Eduardo Cardozo published in “Folha de S.Paulo” (daily newspaper which is one of the most important of Brazil) an article in which they comment on the Brazilian position concerning social and economic recovery of Haiti and changes in process in Brazil in order to organize the flux of Haitian citizens to the South American country, something that has been happening in a systematic and clandestine way.
In the text, baptized “Brazil and Haiti: Partnership for the Development”, they write: “Brazil is cooperating with authorities from neighbor countries in order to improve borders control and checking, with the aim of fighting intermediaries nets. In this context, we are glad to know about Peruvian decision of visa request from Haitian citizens coming into its territory”.
At the end, Patriota and Cardozo say that “Brazil is optimistic about the future of our brother Caribbean country, to which we are united by fraternity links and the belief in a common and prosperous destiny to Latin America and the Caribbean”.
The whole original text, in Portuguese, can be read in:
http://www.vermelho.org.br/prosapoesiaearte/noticia.php?id_noticia=173304&id_secao=1
Read Portuguese version of this article here
