Brasília - At the request of the UN, Brazil has taken a leading role in the Haiti transition process. Since May a total of 1,200 Brazilian soldiers (970 from the Army and another 230 marines) are on duty in the country and a Brazilian general is the head of the multinational transition force which is supposed to eventually number 6,700.

The main objective of the Brazilian mission is to establish peace and prepare Haiti for national elections by December 2005. Establishing the peace means seeing that laws are obeyed, local militant groups are disarmed, civilians can go about their lives peacefully and that human rights are respected.

The Brazilian mission in Haiti is going to cost around US$50 million (R$150 million).

A LOOK AT HAITI

Haiti is the Western Hemisphere's poorest country. Approximately 80% of the population of 7.6 million people live below the poverty line. Half of the country's population is illiterate. Basic healthcare services are practically nonexistent, and this in a country where it is estimated that 280,000 Haitian adults (6% of the population) have AIDS.

In Haiti people can expect to live an average of 51.7 years (in Brazil life expectancy is 71). Haitian women, on the average, have 4.7 children (in Brazil that number has dropped to 1.9). The Haitian infant mortality rate is 76 deaths per 1,000 births (in Brazil it is half that). And while Haiti reels from an intractable unemployment rate of 70%, the city of São Paulo struggles with one of slightly over 15%.

One of the root causes of the problems in Haiti is that there is an economic black hole between the vast majority of the population who are Negroes and a very small minority of less than five percent whose ancestors were French. The latter group owns 50% of the country's wealth.

Agência Brasil
Reporter: Monique Colares
Translator: Allen Bennett
11/19/2004