Haiti Asks U.N. to Extend Term of Peacekeepers

President Rene Preval said Wednesday that he has asked the United Nations to extend its peacekeeping mission through July to give Haiti’s new police force more training.

The mission’s current mandate ends Nov. 30.

About 1,200 U.N. peacekeeping troops are in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area. An additional 300 U.N. civilian police officers also are assigned to Haiti.

In an October report, U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali said an extension would help Haiti’s rookie police force gain experience and ensure a stable political climate.

Hastily trained by the U.N. officers, Haiti’s police have been widely criticized for lacking discipline.

On Tuesday, police withdrew from the Haitian island of Gonave following demonstrations sparked by a fatal police shooting.

Protesters burned down a police station and the courthouse in Anse-a-Galets on Gonave Island. The mob also trapped 12 Haitian and U.N. police officers in a police dormitory before the officers were rescued by reinforcements.

The United Nations took over peacekeeping duties from a U.S.-led multinational force in March 1995. That force had intervened in Haiti in September 1994 to restore former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power, ending three years of military rule in which as many as 4,000 civilians were killed.

Preval, who took over from Aristide in February, made his announcement before leaving for an international food summit in Rome.