The international community and countries such as the United States should remain engaged in Haiti long after United Nations peacekeepers leave, Secretary General Kofi Annan said in an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.
Annan described the Haitian situation as "even more daunting today than 10 years ago" when, with a UN Security council blessing, a multinational force entered the country and restored Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the elected president, to power.
The UN authorised its member states to intervene again this year after Aristide left the country on February 28 after Haiti's "police force had disintegrated" and the country collapsed into violence amid calls for Aristide to step down.
"Haiti clearly is unable to sort itself out, and the effect of leaving it alone would be continued or worsening chaos," said Annan. He noted that "omissions or failures in previous international efforts" played a part in current problems.
While the Security Council gave the UN just three months to work on security problems in Haiti, Annan said Haiti will need international help for rebuilding the country after UN peacekeepers or "blue helmets" leave.
"We in the UN must work closely with our colleagues in Caricom (Caribbean community) and the Organisation of American States, adopting an integrated and common approach." said Annan.
Annan also suggested that these organisations should "remain engaged in Haiti, as regional partners, long after the blue helmets have left."
He also seemed to attribute responsibility to the United States by pointing out that it is Haiti's neighbour and the "sole remaining superpower".
"Haiti must not again be isolated in its own neighbourhood as it was in the past," he said.
As to the rebuilding of Haiti, Annan warned that "armed individuals can only be kept out of trouble if, as well as being disarmed, they are given real opportunities and jobs in the civilian economy."
"Without economic growth, militias all too easily re-form, and the cycle of poverty, violence and instability starts again," he said. Annan suggested it could take a more than a decade to get legal services and health care up and running.
"A long-term effort - 10 years or more - is needed to help rebuild the police and judiciary, as well as basic social services such as health care and education," Annan said.
The globalised world cannot afford countries such as Haiti, or Afghanistan to be left in a political vacuum, he said.
"The spectacle of human misery is harder to ignore than it used to be, but the crucial difference from the past is that chaos can no longer be contained by frontiers." he said.
"It tends to spread, whether in the form of refugee flows, terrorism, or illicit trafficking in drugs, weapons and even human beings."
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