LOCAL CANADIAN OFFICERS HAITI-BOUND TO HELP ISLAND COPS.
By Aedan Helmer.
OTTAWA SUN MEDIA:

OTTAWA, CANADA - Four police officers among other Canadian Units will be going to Haiti this month to help establish and maintain security in the troubled Caribbean island nation. The four constables -- Chantal Arsenault, Richard Dobrzanski, Martin Dompierre and Linda Monette -- will join officers from seven other Canadian police forces for the nine-month tour. The officers will aid local law enforcement in every aspect of policing, from major crime investigations to maintaining public order.

A total of 80 police officers from across Canada are undergoing training, coaching and mentoring, and will go to Haiti in the next two weeks. The local cops are expected to begin their tour July 22. "It was very important for our officers to expose them to an international mission," said Police Chief Vern White. Ottawa police have played similar roles in United Nations missions to Haiti, Ivory Coast and Sudan since the mid-1990s. Officers have also acted in a training and mentoring capacity in European Union and Canadian military initiatives in Bosnia, Jordan and Afghanistan. White pledged local police will be "more involved in the future than ever before." Roger Pead, RCMP acting director of international peace operations, said it's important to have officers with strong skills involved in "law enforcement capacity building" to aid UN peacekeeping missions. "In general, we send police officers into these theatres once we have security in place. The objective is police reform, but it's hard to have reform if you don't have security," said Pead. "Hopefully, these officers can instill a sense of security."

Pead added, it is crucial to have officers in Haiti who are fluently bilingual, a country that lists French and Haitian Creole as its official languages. Nearly half of Ottawa's frontline police officers are fluently bilingual. White said the mission is of particular importance with the growing Haitian population in the city.He said a recent mission to Nunavut was important both for local law enforcement and for the officers returning to the capital with an understanding of northern culture. Ottawa has one of the country's fastest-growing Inuit populations. "Our officers imparting knowledge on local forces (in Haiti) brings a level of credibility," said White. "And they will learn a lot being in very uncomfortable positions." The police presence in Haiti aims to ensure compliance with international criminal justice and human rights standards.

Pead said similar missions in Bosnia were "a great success story for us. That's why it's been so easy to recruit police officers for this," said Pead. "What's so exciting about this is we're talking about a family of Canadian police officers, and the Ottawa police have joined in."

http://ottsun.canoe.ca/News/OttawaAndRegion/2008/07/08/6094076-sun.html

POSITIVE NEWS YOU WILL NEVER SEE THIS SITE POST ABOUT HAITI.

I have to admit to having a hard time reading this as positive news. Maybe I'm just a cynic. Travel to exotic locales, gain experience at the sake of locals...Mr. White and the Canadians charitably carrying out the white man's burden in 2008.

"I have to admit to having a hard time reading this as positive news. Maybe I'm just a cynic. Travel to exotic locales, gain experience at the sake of locals...Mr. White and the Canadians charitably carrying out the white man's burden in 2008."

I understand totally where you're coming from but someone has to train the haitian security forces, or retrain as it were. At least this is a civil initiative and not some armed forces teaching would-be haitian peace officers how to keep a population pacified through brute force. The key words, namely respect for the population's civil rights, were in the wording of their mission statement and as such I prefer to view this from a positive angle.

Yeah! Cibaeño , lets hope the teaching isn’t done from a beautiful beach full of fine Haitiana’s

Dont worry Frank, Im pretty sure the Sri Lankans beat them to it.