As Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment con­vene high-lev­el talks on Haiti’s on­go­ing so­cio-po­lit­i­cal cri­sis in Ja­maica to­day, the As­so­ci­a­tion of Caribbean Peo­ple (ACP) has voiced op­po­si­tion to any for­eign mil­i­tary in­ter­ven­tion there.

The ob­jec­tion fol­lows re­ports that Bar­ba­dos’ army un­der­went pre-mis­sion train­ing to pre­pare troops for a UN Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil-au­tho­rised multi­na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty force aimed at restor­ing peace in Haiti, which has been plagued by vi­o­lence.

Last Sep­tem­ber, Bar­ba­dos Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs and For­eign Trade Ker­rie Sym­monds an­nounced that Bar­ba­dos would pro­vide se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel despatched in co­or­di­na­tion with the Re­gion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Sys­tem.

In a state­ment re­leased yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, the ACP called on Cari­com to stop recog­nis­ing Ariel Hen­ry as Haiti’s Prime Min­is­ter. The ACP stat­ed that con­tin­ued recog­ni­tion of Hen­ry on­ly serves to le­git­imise his call for mil­i­tary in­ter­ven­tion by the UN.

ACP mem­ber David Ab­du­lah says the Re­gion­al Ex­ec­u­tive Com­mit­tee met vir­tu­al­ly on March 6 and dis­cussed the Hait­ian cri­sis. Mem­bers from Haiti, Cu­ba, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Puer­to Ri­co, Mar­tinique, Bar­ba­dos and T&T par­tic­i­pat­ed and re­ceived a de­tailed re­port of the cri­sis from the Hait­ian Chap­ter, which in­di­cat­ed a de­te­ri­o­rat­ing sit­u­a­tion. There­fore, the ACP made sev­er­al de­c­la­ra­tions.

“There must be no for­eign mil­i­tary in­ter­ven­tion: no US troops or troops from any oth­er coun­try in the core group, no troops from Kenya, no troops from Cari­com or any oth­er state. We, there­fore, strong­ly con­demn state­ments com­ing from some Cari­com mem­ber states that their troops are in a state of readi­ness to go to Haiti.”

Ab­du­lah said Hen­ry’s call for in­ter­ven­tion was sole­ly to al­low him and the Hait­ian po­lit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic elites to main­tain con­trol of pow­er and serve the in­ter­ests of the US and oth­er im­pe­r­i­al pow­ers. He said Hen­ry’s ac­tions at the last Cari­com meet­ing and at­ten­dance at the CELAC meet­ing in St Vin­cent last week were all fore­run­ners to him go­ing to Kenya to get troops in­to Haiti. He al­leged Hen­ry and his pre­de­ces­sors in of­fice from the PH­TK par­ty were of en­gag­ing in cor­rupt and fa­cil­i­tat­ing the vi­o­lence and the dis­in­te­gra­tion of Hait­ian in­sti­tu­tions.

“Cari­com’s fail­ure in re­gard to Hen­ry and its sup­port for a Kenyan-led mil­i­tary in­ter­ven­tion is a ma­jor stain on its record.”

Not­ing the Cari­com meet­ing to­day, Ab­du­lah said hav­ing Hen­ry at the Ja­maica meet­ing as an im­por­tant stake­hold­er will frus­trate a so­lu­tion to the cri­sis. Fur­ther­more, he said Car­ciom must not al­low the core group to de­ter­mine what hap­pens in Haiti, as on­ly a Hait­ian-de­ter­mined tran­si­tion­al gov­ern­ment can re­solve the cri­sis.

“The UN and the core group must al­so cease to recog­nise Hen­ry and stop ne­go­ti­at­ing with him for a trans­fer of pow­er. He is il­le­git­i­mate. There­fore, any in­volve­ment by him in es­tab­lish­ing a tran­si­tion,” Ab­du­lah said.