Demonstrators block the street with wood and scraps of metal while hurling rocks at the UN military soldiers from CIMO during an anti-UN protest in Port-au-Prince Sept 14, 2011. Demonstrators, who blamed Minustah for bringing cholera into their country and raping their people, called for them to leave Haiti. [Photo/Agencies]

Gradual troop drawdown

The United Nations said on Wednesday Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had sent a senior team to Haiti to tell the government "how seriously the United Nations and the secretary-general himself take the allegations of misconduct and sexual abuse".

The team, led by top peacekeeping official Anthony Banbury, military adviser General Babacar Gaye, would meet MINUSTAH "to support all necessary measures ... to enforce the UN's zero-tolerance policy on misconduct by its personnel", spokesman Martin Nesirky said.

Nesirky also said the world body appreciated the swift response by Uruguay, which contributes troops to the UN peacekeeping contingent in the Caribbean nation along with Brazil, Chile, Nepal and several other nations.

The Chilean head of MINUSTAH has said he will ask the UN Security Council to allow a gradual reduction of peacekeeping forces in Haiti.

Some critics condemn the UN mission as an occupying foreign military force in Haiti, but many credit the peacekeepers with helping to reduce crime and violence.

MINUSTAH was established by the Security Council in 2004 and has been helping Haiti's short-staffed and ill-equipped police maintain security, especially during elections plagued by fraud and unrest.

Haitian President Michel Martelly, who won an election in March, says Haiti still needs the peacekeepers but has called for a redefinition of their future role and for the creation of a Haitian security force to eventually replace them.