Canadians unite to the Brazilian Army in Cuiabá in order to accomplish a peacekeeping mission
One platoon with 39 Canadian military personnel disembarked at the airoport of Várzea Grande, in the metropolitan region of Cuiabá this Saturday afternoon (13) in order to gather the joint military operation with the Brazilian Army in Haiti. This cooperation on behalf of the United Nations (UN) is the first opportunity in history in which Brazilian and Canadian troops work together.
The Canadian military personnel will be lodged at the 44th Motorized Infantry Battalion in Cuiabá for the initial period of three weeks as their preparation before embarkation to Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the world which still struggles to keep order and political balance since President Jean Bertrand-Aristide was deposited in 2004.
The military forces assigned by the UN for this task are called the United Nations Mission for the Stabilization in Haiti (acronym in French: MINUSTAH). Besides Canadians and Brazilians (856 from the Army, 244 from the Navy and 34 from the Air Force), the contingent preparing to embark is constituted by 31 Paraguayans and one Bolivian. From the 856 military personnel from the Brazilian Army, 224 come originally from the State of Mato Grosso (144 from the capital city, Cuiabá) and 499 are from the State of Mato Grosso do Sul.
As part of their preparation, the military personnel will train shooting non-lethal weapons, simulations of natural disasters (Haiti went through one of its worst earthquakes in 2010), first aid and paramedical assistance; they will also learn some Créole, one of the official languages in Haiti together with French.
The military personnel must eventually embark to Haiti in the second half of May. More than 20 thousand Brazilian soldiers have already participated in the peacekeeping mission in that country.
