Barbados, which had initially committed to the UN to send a contingent of the Barbados Defense Force (BDF) to Haiti as part of the Multinational Mission to Support the Haitian National Police (PNH) under the auspices of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), has just suspended its decision to send troops to Haiti, announced Kerrie Symmonds, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Barbados.
Expressing concern that the environment in Haiti had become more dangerous, Symmonds said, “We are mindful of this [increasing danger], and you don’t want to send people in harm’s way and the truth is that, it has to be a properly strategically planned activity. And we cannot safely say right now, that there has been the level of strategic planning at the global level that we would have wanted.”
Symmonds was adamant that Barbados will now only offer technical assistance. Our troops aren’t going anywhere at this point. We have indicated to everybody that Barbados would want to lend technical assistance wherever possible; and we are not at this point thinking in terms of any boots on the ground in Haiti. When I say technical assistance, there may be people with specialist skills whether medical, training, whatever…”
W had expected confidently that the Biden White House would continue to be supportive. The election intervened, and America has pretty much stalled; and with that, the rest of the world has gone on pause [on Haiti].
Symmonds stressed that the situation in Haiti cannot be put on pause and must be brought back to the forefront. Now that the Democrats have lost, they have gone silent and there has been no progress, and we have to see what will happen with the Trump administration [..] if it is that we have to wait until January 20 when a new administration is in place in the United States, so be it our foreign policy will be the same. We are going to reach out to them, and we are going to ask them to understand that Haiti cannot continue in the way it is going. And that the commitments which the United States had given before should stand, because we are talking about human beings and the welfare of human beings in the Caribbean.”
