Jamaica Prime Minister Andrew Holness announced Tuesday that his nation’s long-awaited participation in the largely U.S.-funded Multinational Security Support mission in Haiti is ready to begin.
Holness said the English-speaking Caribbean nation will deploy 24 security personnel to Haiti “to provide command, planning and logistics support.” The group, made up of 20 members of the Jamaica Defense Force and four police officers, is expected to arrive in Port-au-Prince on Thursday. They will join approximately 400 Kenyan police officers who began deploying to Haiti in late June and have struggled to make progress against the country’s armed gangs, now in control of more than 85% of Port-au-Prince.
“The security forces continue in a state of readiness to support further deployment towards our overall commitment as the mission in Haiti is scaled up,” Holness, who also serves as his island-nation’s minister of defense, said after a cabinet meeting. “Jamaica has close fraternal ties to the people of Haiti and we stand in solidarity with them.”
The arrival of the Jamaicans, even if it’s not all of the approximately 250 military and police officers who have been vetted by the United States and trained with the help of Canada, is being welcomed by the Kenya-led mission.
Kenyan force Commander Godfrey Otunge, in an exclusive interview with the Miami Herald, said because most of the Jamaican security personnel are military, they will be involved in protecting key government installations like the seaport.
The mission, mandated by the U.N. Security Council to help the Haitian police dismantle armed gangs, has been hampered by a lack of staff and resources. A spokesperson for the State Department previously said that the Jamaican personnel will be paid from a U.N. donor trust fund. The fund currently has $84.7 million, with Canada and the U.S. being the largest contributors.
The initial deployment of the Jamaican forces come as the U.S. is seeking a year’s extension on the operation and reshape it into a traditional U.N. peacekeeping mission. The U.S. has circulated a draft resolution to be voted on Sept. 30 by the U.N. Security Council. The Miami Herald obtained a copy of the language asking the U.N. to start planning for a peacekeeping operation. Washington will need both the support of China and Russia, which have been critical of interventions in Haiti, as well as U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres who isn’t a supporter of peacekeeping missions but fully endorsed the Kenya-led operation in Haiti.
The primary function of Jamaica’s advanced team will be to set up a headquarters on the site of the U.S.-built base from which the Kenyans are currently working, and to prepare for the deployment of other security personnel from Jamaica, Belize and The Bahamas.
Jamaica was among the first nations to volunteer security personnel for the armed international force and had both the support of Holness’ Jamaica Labor Party and the opposition People’s National Party. On Tuesday, the prime minister said the country, which is 334 miles from Haiti and has been seeing a flourishing guns-for-drugs trade, has a national security interest in helping stabilize Haiti.
“It is in our interest to support a long-lasting resolution to the problems in Haiti,” Holness said. “Here in Jamaica, we see the growing entrenchment of gangs who organize the production of armed violence with a view to economic gain, spreading terror in communities and weakening the state’s guarantee to citizens’ security. We see this as an evolving existential threat to law and order and the proper functioning of institutions of the state not only in Jamaica but in several countries across the region.
“The threat is at a level in the region where gangs and organized armed violence they produce is a threat to the very state,” he added. “Haiti is the example of what could happen if states and governments do not take the problem seriously and put in place the measures and resources necessary to bring the problem under control.”
