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Haiti And The Caribbean A Regional Plea For A Sister-Country Taking Haiti’s Case To The United Nations

Posted by CaribShout on November 9, 2009 at 11:37pm
By Tony Best It was a plea articulated at the United Nations for a sister Caribbean country which is in urgent need of international assistance. And it came from some of the region’s most prosperous to the smallest in the Americas. While many of them are facing their own economic and social problems that can be traced to the fall-out from the global financial and economic crises, it didn’t deter them from calling on the international community to do more, much more to help Haiti. An example of the Caribbean’s appeal was that the statement by Trinidad and Tobago, the country with the region’s largest and perhaps most diversified economy. It is encouraging Latin American and Caribbean nations to create a special development fund for Haiti that would, if launched, spur economic and social development in the French-speaking republic. Patrick Manning, Trinidad and Tobago’s leader, sees the Haitian situation as a challenge not simply for Haitians and others in the Caribbean but for the Western Hemisphere as a whole. “The situation in Haiti is one of grave concern,” was the way Manning reported to the UN recently. “We are encouraged by the diverse United Nations-related initiatives aimed at promoting peace and security in that country. But greater attention is required by the international community. Arising out of the Fifth Summit of the Americas, Trinidad and Tobago has advanced a proposal for the creation of a hemispheric development Fund, to which all Western Hemisphere countries are expected to contribute. Haiti is first and foremost a Western Hemisphere challenge and we see the fund as essential to the re-establishment of proper standards of living in that country.” The Bahamas, the home away-from-home for thousands of Haitian refugees fleeing poverty in their birthplace, not only wants the UN to extend the mandate of its Stabilization Mission in Haiti, MINUSTAH, but is looking to former U.S. President Bill Clinton in his capacity as the UN’s Special Envoy to Haiti to help to push the country’s situation to “the forefront of the attention of the international community.” What the Bahamas’ Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, T. Brent Symonette, really wants to see, though, is that Haiti receives the kind of global assistance that’s necessary to increase the pace of development and enable it to move away from a “history of conflict to a future of peaceful and sustainable development.” Dominica couldn’t agree more. “Haiti needs development assistance in order to consolidate the stability that MINUSTAH’s presence has fostered, and to ensure the success of the peace-building, process,” said Dr. Nicholas Liverpool, Dominica’s President. Like the Bahamas, the Eastern Caribbean country hailed Clinton’s appointment, hoping that it would “advance the cause of rebuilding Haiti.” Liverpool, a former law professor at the University of the West Indies in Barbados, articulated Dominica’s concern “about the current economic situation in our sister island of Haiti” while at the same time pledging to link arms with its Caricom neighbors so as “to advance the quality of life of the Haitian people.” Key to the international Haitian effort was the UN’s continued engagement in Haiti through MINUSTAH, which Dominica sees as “important” because it was “ensuring stability in that country.” As in the case of its neighbors, Jamaica said it was “committed to the long-term stability, socio-economic growth and development of our sister country Haiti.” Kenneth Baugh, Jamaica’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs shares the region’s, indeed the international conclusion that the presence of the UN in Haiti was crucial because it was “helping to foster the environment necessary to ensure a sustainable future for the Haitian people.” Basically, Barbados used a different set of words to say the same thing. It called MINUSTAH a “vital tool for capacity building in Haiti in the key areas of governance, the strengthening of the rule of law, and human rights.” The island’s Foreign Minister, Senator Maxine McLean, said that an extension of the Mission’s mandate by the UN Security Council would enable the global community “to provide support to the people of Haiti in their quest for sustainable peace and development.”
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