27259: Nugent (news) Edouard: Chile Min Says Haiti Hate Campaign May Have Led to Gen's Death

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

Submitted by Victoria Nugent Edouard (news article)
  vhnugent@yahoo.com

    Chile Min:Haiti Hate Campaign May Have Led To Gen's Death

DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
January 10, 2006 4:45 p.m.


  --
  SANTIAGO (AP)--Chile's foreign minister on Tuesday said a "tremendous
campaign
of hate" may have contributed to the suicide of the Brazilian general heading
U.N. peacekeeping efforts in Haiti.
  A senior U.N. official confirmed to The Associated Press that Lt. Gen. Urano
Teixeira da Matta Bacellar, who was found dead Saturday in his hotel room in
Haiti's capital of Port-au-Prince, shot himself in the head. But Brazilian and
U.N. officials were still investigating.
  "It is so tremendous the hatred campaign launched through the radio by a
group
against the United Nations, against Juan Gabriel Valdes, that this may have
been one of the elements that could explain the suicide" of Bacellar, Foreign
Minister Ignacio Walker said.
  Two Chilean nationals hold key positions in Haiti: Valdes is the U.N. special
envoy to Haiti and Army Gen. Eduardo Aldunate Herman was named interim
commander of the 7,000 peacekeeping troops following Bacellar's death.
  Walker said Valdes is a target of the campaign, which he attributed to small
minority groups, but did not identify. "There is a Haitian bourgeoisie, united
to business groups, that apparently opposes the election process," he said.
  He added that those groups have in the past opposed democratic processes.
  Chile has some 600 men in the peacekeeping force who will remain there until
June 30, according to a Senate deadline.
  Valdes said he discussed the situation in Haiti in telephone conversations
over the weekend with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Jose Miguel
Insulza, the Secretary General of the Organization of American States. He
didn't elaborate.
  Elections in Haiti have been postponed four times and are now set for Feb. 7.






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