United Nations, Nov 21 (AP) Russia and China on Wednesday opposed a US-led campaign to transform the Kenya-led multinational force in Haiti helping police to tackle escalating gang violence into a UN peacekeeping mission.

The two allies called a UN Security Council meeting as gangs have intensified attacks, shooting at four aircraft which has shut the airport in the capital Port-au-Prince, and attacking its upscale neighbourhood Petionville on Tuesday.

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The UN estimates the gangs control 85 per cent of the capital and have spread into surrounding areas.

The United States proposed a UN peacekeeping mission in early September as one way to secure regular financing for the UN-backed multinational force, which faces a serious funding crisis.

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The US tried to get the 15-member UN Security Council to sign off on a draft resolution last week to start the transformation. But Russia and China refused to discuss the resolution and instead called for Wednesday's council meeting where they made their opposition clear.

China's Deputy UN Ambassador Geng Shuang said the council extended the mandate of the multinational force only a month ago, and discussing its transformation to a peacekeeping operation now “will only interfere” and make it harder to tackle its funding shortfall and get all the police pledged to Haiti.

Peacekeepers should only be deployed when there is peace to keep, and there is no peace in Haiti, Geng stressed. “Deploying a peacekeeping operation at this time is nothing more than putting peacekeepers into the front line of the battles with gangs.”

Russia's Deputy UN Ambassador Dmitry Polyansky, expressing “shock and horror” at what's happening on the streets of Port-au-Prince, accused the US and other countries that initially supported the multinational force of failing to fund it.

“Conditions on the ground in Haiti are not appropriate for UN peacekeepers,” he said. “Their role is to maintain peace and not to fight crime in urban areas or to save a dysfunctional state that has been plunged into domestic conflict.”

Whatever the future international presence in Haiti, Polyansky said Haitians need urgent assistance immediately which means providing the multinational force with the necessary materiel, funding and technical expertise. “Otherwise, quite simply, there will be just nobody left to host any future peacekeepers,” he said.

Haiti's leaders have asked for a UN peacekeeping force, and the permanent council of the Organisation of American States adopted a resolution on November 13 entitled “In Support of Haiti's Request for a United States Peacekeeping Operation.” (AP)

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