By: Staff Writer
October 20, 2023
The Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Dr Keith Rowley, said at the concluding press conference of the Canada/CARICOM Summit that the most recent United Nations resolution to send international troops into Haiti will aid in the transitional arrangements in order to get the Haitian people the intervention and assistance they need.
Dr Rowley, standing beside his Guyanese counterpart, Dr Irfaan Ali and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, also said: “I think we’re all familiar with the crisis that’s existing in Haiti. But where we are at the moment is that we in the Caribbean, in CARICOM, we don’t have the resources that are required. And that is why Canada’s presence is so important. And our commitment to ensuring that the people of Haiti are given an opportunity to get out of the current predicament is an international priority.”
In 2019, a protracted crisis in Haiti escalated with a fuel crisis sparking protests, violence, and food shortages. It also blocked access for humanitarian organizations. More than half of the country’s 11 million citizens who live under the poverty line were hit especially hard by these factors.
Unfortunately, conditions have not improved over the last two years with COVID-19, additional lockdowns, political instability that resulted in the assassination of President Jovenel Moise, and (most recently) the August 2021 earthquake.
Haiti is now a failed state with its current unelected Prime Minister Ariel Henry, holding on to smouldering cinder block of a government only held together by the fact that no other viable group of leaders wants the job or they simply do not have the resources.
Dr Rowley also said: “here’s a danger, as we accept what is what exists in Haiti today, that as we attempt to provide help for the Haitian people, that that help is not viewed as supporting a minority governmental arrangement.
“One has to remember that as we speak, if my memory serves me right, there isn’t a single elected official in Haiti and as we look at the crisis, and we advocate for an intervention of assistance, that that assistance be seen coming from honest brokers, and not in fact propping up what exists in perpetuity, that in itself poses a danger.”
Mr Trudeau, backing his CARICOM counterpart, said that Canada has “sanctioned” 28 individuals from Haiti who they feel are contributing to the instability in the country. “We have been putting pressure on the UN and the United States and our European colleagues to meet us where we are with sanctions because we know that there are elites and oligarchies and even political figures in Haiti who are contributing directly to the instability, financing gangs and supporting this ongoing security and humanitarian crisis.
“We are working closely with CARICOM to ensure a process that will build the kind of political consensus necessary to go hand in hand with either intervention or support for the police or more humanitarian aid. We know that in this crisis, the Haitian people need to be a core part of it and they will.”