The Tribune

By MALCOLM STRACHAN

“IMMEDIATE action is required!”

That was a call from a police union on Thursday, posted to what used to be called Twitter, now called X, in a plea for help amid ongoing gang violence in Haiti.

This comes at a time when the first Bahamian troops are being deployed to Haiti – albeit only six members of the Royal Bahamas Defence Force so far.

The six are an advance team being sent in as part of an international mission led by Kenya, and also involving personnel from Jamaica and Belize.

The goal is to restore stability – and former Prime Minister Perry Christie was in the news last week as he talked of the prospect of elections in Haiti, albeit not for another 16 months.

Mr Christie is part of a three-person team from the CARICOM Eminent Persons Group, alongside former Prime Ministers Dr Kenny Anthony of St Lucia and Bruce Golding of Jamaica.

They have been involved in talks with Haitian stakeholders to find a solution to the instability that has been tearing the country apart for far too long.

Mr Christie said last week: “We have a great deal of familiarity with Haiti, and as the closest country here in the region, aside from the Dominican Republic, we share a lot because we have thousands of Bahamian-Haitians or Haitian-Bahamians in our country.”

Prime Minister Philip Davis joined the official send-off on Friday for the Bahamian advance party – with the overall mission set to include, according to the RBDF, maritime patrols, port security, preventing illegal migration, countering illicit trafficking, intelligence cooperation, regional security and supporting political stability.

A total of 150 personnel will ultimately be sent, in three tours of 50 each.

The port security aspect is particularly of note, given the conflict there has been in Haiti over port access, with gangs having been in control for significant lengths of time over access to ports.

The plea by police on Thursday followed attacks by multiple gangs on several communities in the Port-au-Prince area. Homes were set on fire, as well as a church, while gunfire peppered the area.

The Associated Press reported at least one woman killed as gangs opened fire in Solino, St Michel, Tabarre 27 and other neighbourhoods, with panicked residents calling radio stations to plead for help.

Solino is one community that has been trying to push back against gang control – although it is reported that gangs still control about 80 percent of Port-au-Prince.

“If there’s no measures against the criminals who are taking control in Solino and Nazon, we will lose the entire capital,” Haiti’s police union said on social media. “No government will be in its place if we cannot reduce such insecurity.”

Also on Friday, the UN voted unanimously to expand the arms embargo in Haiti to all types of weapons.

The move allows UN member nations to take “appropriate steps to prevent the illicit trafficking and diversion of arms and related materiel in Haiti”. Saying and doing though are of course two different things – but the UN pointed out the supply chain that is bringing weapons from the US, especially from Florida.

As well as the Bahamian contingent, more troops are on the way from elsewhere. Kenyan President William Ruto said 600 more officers will arrive next month to join the 400 already in the country.

From elsewhere, the numbers are not so high. Nearly two dozen from Jamaica, our own initial six. It is difficult to see how that will be enough to wrest control from the gangs who have overrun Haiti for so long and become so entrenched.

Is this surgery to rectify the problem? Or a sticking plaster to cover the wound? Time will tell.

Even the swearing in of Haiti’s provisional electoral council, scheduled for Friday in downtown Port-au-Prince, had to be moved to a safer area, according to Radio Télé Métronome.

If the leaders are not safe enough to be sworn in, how can the citizens be safe enough for their daily lives?

It is of course imperative that Haiti’s problems are addressed.

For Haiti itself, people need the chance to live without the constant threat of violence, without the wave of rapes that has taken place, without the attacks on medical centres, without the kidnappings, the murders, the attacks on police, all that and more.

For the region, a Haiti run by criminal gangs is a festering sore that will affect neighbouring countries – not only from people fleeing from the violence but from the drugs and guns and crime that will spill beyond its borders. If gangs secure control of Haiti, what is there to stop them from securing a foothold for their crimes in other countries to keep bringing in the money to fund their activities.

Mr Christie’s hopes of an election the year after next mean that Haiti will still be largely leaderless and rudderless, certainly without a democratic mandate for many months to come.

That of course cannot be helped – an election can only happen when an election is safe to happen or has the likelihood of succeeding, but it does nothing to give the current leadership the support it needs to quell gangs and to escape the sense of having been chosen by outsiders rather than Haitians themselves.

So where does that leave us? As Bahamian officers head to Haiti, we can only hope that they will be safe, that they will have the resources they need, and that they will come home with the job done.

The details of what that job entails have become clearer, but there is still the uncertainty of what will be deemed the end goal, and how the forces will be withdrawn.

One thing is for certain – all sides need our prayers.

The state of things in Haiti show that there is no easy solution – and we should not expect miracles in the months ahead.

But if we can reach a point of a safe election, that will be a landmark for Haiti, and a validation of those forces in place to make it happen.