The trou­bles of two Cari­com mem­ber states to the north, Ja­maica and Haiti, make for great chal­lenges to the in­te­gra­tion move­ment’s abil­i­ty to en­gage in the func­tion­al co­op­er­a­tion el­e­ment of the Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas.

In the in­stance of Haiti, it’s the most trag­ic, long-last­ing and seem­ing­ly in­sol­u­ble prob­lem ex­pe­ri­enced by any mem­ber of the re­gion­al group­ing of Caribbean na­tions. The re­al­i­ty of the strug­gles of the peo­ple oc­cu­py­ing one-third of the is­land of His­pan­io­la goes back to the 18th cen­tu­ry un­der the rule of France.

That the en­slaved of Haiti re­volt­ed against slav­ery and its dev­as­tat­ing im­pact on­ly re­sult­ed in a venge­ful re­sponse from the French colo­nial pow­er, the ef­fects of which have con­tin­ued over the last cou­ple cen­turies with a se­vere im­pact on the Hait­ian peo­ple.

“I ef­fec­tive­ly call on all states to make ef­fec­tive con­tri­bu­tions to the Gang Sup­pres­sion Force cre­at­ed by the Unit­ed Na­tions Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil,” said Lau­rent Saint Cyr, Pres­i­dent of Haiti’s Tran­si­tion­al Pres­i­den­tial Coun­cil. The re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the Coun­cil is to cre­ate an in­ter­na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty force to counter and elim­i­nate as far as pos­si­ble the gangs which have been mak­ing life hell for the ma­jor­i­ty of Haitians. The re­port from Port-au-Prince is that the crim­i­nal gangs have tak­en over most, if not all, of the cap­i­tal city.

“Mak­ing the GSF op­er­a­tional as soon as pos­si­ble … is an im­per­a­tive of in­ter­na­tion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty,” said Saint-Cyr to the Sec­ond World Sum­mit for So­cial De­vel­op­ment be­ing held in Do­ha. This new force takes over from the Kenyan-led Se­cu­ri­ty Mis­sion, which brave­ly at­tempt­ed to re­strain the gangs.

The fact is that res­cu­ing Haiti from cen­turies of op­pres­sion of the era of slav­ery and the valiant at­tempt of Hait­ian lib­er­at­ing gen­er­al Tou­s­saint L’Ou­ver­ture cost the Hait­ian peo­ple 90 mil­lion gold francs, which was the re­duced fig­ure from the orig­i­nal sum of 150 mil­lion de­mand­ed in com­pen­sa­tion by France for los­ing its sug­ar king­dom. Haitians took 122 years to pay the debt. Al­so ter­ri­bly un­kind to the Hait­ian peo­ple have been na­ture’s nat­ur­al forces in the forms of hur­ri­canes and earth­quakes.

The need now from Haiti’s Cari­com part­ners is for sol­diers on the ground to counter the gangs. It’s a tru­ly self-giv­ing act that is re­quired of mem­ber states to a part­ner in need. That Kenya, thou­sands of miles away, gave self­less­ly is an ex­am­ple to be em­u­lat­ed.

In the in­stance of Ja­maica, the cost of loss by Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa is es­ti­mat­ed by Prime Min­is­ter An­drew Hol­ness at US$7 bil­lion. On the restora­tion side of the ledger, that cost will climb with the nat­ur­al in­crease in the cost of ma­te­ri­als, labour, the loss of in­come in the tourism in­dus­try, and the dev­as­tat­ing im­pact on hu­man life and ex­is­tence, which can­not be eas­i­ly ex­pressed in a dol­lar fig­ure.

Nev­er­the­less, with good­will and con­sid­er­a­tion of the broth­er­hood of peo­ple of the re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion move­ment and with the ex­pect­ed as­sis­tance to come from the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty, the in­fra­struc­ture in Ja­maica will be re­stored, pos­si­bly at a high­er qual­i­ty, giv­en bet­ter re­build­ing ma­te­ri­als.

Be­ing in this path of nat­ur­al dis­as­ters has taught us that, be­yond rab­ble nois­es by politi­cians, the peo­ple of the re­gion un­der­stand the need for co­op­er­a­tion, as no one knows which coun­try will be the next one in need.