Rwanda offers to help CARICOM with Haiti

Rwanda has signalled its intention to join forces with the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) in lending expert assistance to Haiti in ongoing efforts to find solutions to the problems in a country ravaged by mob rule, and a decades-long political and governance crisis.

The promises were given by the East African country’s president, Paul Kagame.

Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerritt, who chaired the closing press conference of the 45th CARICOM Heads of Government meeting yesterday, said the ongoing crisis in the country was given much thought by regional leaders who came together in Trinidad this week. Rwanda has offered bodies on the ground to Haiti, the region’s and hemisphere’s poorest country.

The East African country, which has an arrangement with the United Kingdom to take migrants entering Britain illegally under a special agreement, has also offered to engage the African Union in deliberations to assist Haiti, Skerritt disclosed.

Kagame gave the commitment to the leaders.

“We also discussed Haiti and how we can join forces with Rwanda, who has expressed their interest, their commitment to providing tangible support on the ground in Haiti towards a resolution of the crisis currently confronting our brothers and sisters in Haiti,” the Dominican prime minister said in opening remarks.

“We look forward to collaborating with Rwanda who has offered to also engage the African Union on Haiti so that we can get a broadbased coalition of support on the African continent where Haiti is concerned,” he stated.

Other hot button issues raised included the more than half century of United States sanctions on neighbours, Cuba; and current sanctions on Venezuela, which has forced other countries not to have bi-lateral agreements with the oil-rich South American nation with which islands in the region enjoyed preferential treatment under the Petro-Caribe oil agreement.

US URGED TO REMOVE SANCTIONS

Skerritt said the leaders were strident in their position on the removal of an embargo which has damaged Cuba's economy for decades, following its defeat of American mercenaries who tried to overthrow Fidel Castro in 1961 after his overthrow of the US-backed Fulgencio Batista in 1959.

“Of course we raised the issue of the embargo against Cuba and reiterated our call to the United States to have this blockade against Cuba lifted. And also we urged the United States to remove the sanctions against Venezuela because there are far reaching implications,” he stated. “We were very strident in respect to these issues.”

There was apparently no commitment from the US delegation to the meeting, led by its Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and other congressional leaders.

The Caribbean leaders also raised the issue of the guns and ammunition flow from the US to the region with the American delegation.

“We had some very, very extensive engagements with the United States on issues relating to Haiti; climate financing, the impact of climate change on our region; security and the influx of guns and ammunition to the region coming from the United States into Caribbean countries creating havoc with respect to crime and violence and urging the United States to take more concrete actions with regards to stemming the flow of guns and ammunition into our country…,” Skerritt said.

According to him, some actions have been taken in that regard in creating a special office to deal with the prosecution and investigation of reports of such. He said the region was of the view that there was much more that the country could do to stem the flow of guns to the region.

Issues around correspondent banking and the blacklisting of Caribbean countries as tax havens were also raised with the US, he said, as they impact an entity's ability to trade. Some countries, he said, were seeing a departure of banks for fear of de-risking.

“Some banks have in fact lost their correspondent banking and are unable to transact with the rest of the world…,” Skerritt said.

Interractions were also held with the South Korean prime minister, who he described as an outstanding friend of the region for years. South Korea, he said, gave a commitment to increase five-fold its contribution to the secretariat of CARICOM, and to provide training for the region’s young people.

Other issues raised included climate change and climate financing and a new architecture for international financial institutions and how they treat countries like those in the Caribbean. Free travel and trade in the region were also discussed.

erica.virtue@gleanerjm.com