A Brazilian mission of experts in foreign and judicial affairs
and criminal investigations left Brasilia Sunday noon for Haitian
capital Port-au-Prince to investigate the death of Brazilian Lt.
Gen. Urano Teixeira da Matta Bacellar, official sources said on
Sunday.?
The group in an air force airplane includes a commissary and two
experts of the Federal Police, a doctor, a representative of
Brazilian Intelligence Agency, a general of the Brazilian Army and
an official of the Ministry of the Public Military.
The group will join Gonzalo Mello Mourao, head of the North and
Carib of the American Department in Foreign Affiras Ministry of
Brazil, who arrived in Haiti on Saturday.
The airplane will reach the Haiti's capital on 19:40 local time,
where the officers will pick up the general's body and carry him to
Brazil.
Bacellar, commander of the UN peacekeeping forces in Haiti, was
found dead on the balcony of his hotel room on Saturday
morning.
The Brazilian government demanded the United Nations launch a
full investigation immediately into the cause of the general's
death.
A spokesman for UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said Annan was
"shocked and saddened" to learn of the incident and that an
investigation was under way.
Da Matta Bacellar, 57, had served in Brazil's armed forces for
almost four decades. He became commander of the UN mission last
September, replacing Brazilian Lt. Gen. Augusto Heleno Ribeiro who
had led the force since its deployment to Haiti in June 2004.
His death came as Haiti is struggling to prepare for its first
presidential election on February 7 since an armed revolt ousted
then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in February 2004.
(Xinhua News Agency January 9, 2006)
