Uruguay to Withdraw Peacekeepers from Haiti

Uruguay's President Jose Mujica said Tuesday he plans to withdraw his country's peacekeeping troops from Haiti because of the lack of democratic progress there.

Mujica noted delays in convening Senate elections and a general "political impasse in Haitian society."

"They were supposed to have convened elections to the Senate a while ago. We see it going very slowly, we see nothing happening," he said on the Telenoche de Uruguay news program.

"One thing is to try to help the Haitian people build a police force that is in charge of security. That's fine.

"Another thing is being there indefinitely with a regime that we think is at least dubious in terms of a continuity of democratic renewal," he said.

Asked whether he would withdraw the 850-strong Uruguayan contingent in the U.N. peacekeeping force in Haiti, Mujica said, "Yes, I think so."

Mujica did not offer a timetable for a withdrawal, saying it would not be from one day to another and that it would be coordinated with Brazil, which leads the U.N. force.

The U.N. Security Council in October said it was reducing the size of the force, which has been on the ground since 2004, to 5,021 soldiers, from 6,233. Brazil began reducing the size of its contingent in March.