Richard Ra­moutar

Giv­en the cat­a­stroph­ic sit­u­a­tion cur­rent­ly fac­ing the Hait­ian peo­ple, does the gov­ern­ment pos­sess the com­pas­sion, ca­pac­i­ty and col­lec­tive good­will to ex­er­cise ut­most good faith in con­sid­er­ing al­ter­na­tive mea­sures to al­le­vi­ate the suf­fer­ing of our fel­low hu­man be­ings in their hour of need? The gov­ern­ment has pledged a sum of mon­ey, and per­haps oth­er press­ing con­sid­er­a­tions are be­ing de­bat­ed with­in the Cari­com frame­work for the as­sis­tance in the af­ter­math of the dev­as­tat­ing earth­quake. The na­tion's pri­vate and non-gov­ern­men­tal sec­tors have ral­lied and con­tin­ue to share the hu­man­i­tar­i­an and com­pas­sion­ate con­cerns of our be­lea­guered Hait­ian na­tion­als.

But has the gov­ern­ment con­sid­ered the is­sue of tem­po­rary shel­ter, food and med­ical as­sis­tance for even a few? A ma­jor con­cern ex­pressed by Cari­com lead­ers re­cent­ly at a meet­ing in San­to Domin­go is the thou­sands of chil­dren left or­phaned af­ter the earth­quake. As a lead­ing pro­po­nent of Caribbean in­te­gra­tion, can we lead the way in this en­deav­our as a con­tri­bu­tion of our cul­tur­al, hu­man rights val­ues and in­ter­na­tion­al com­mit­ments? Or are we afraid, as some may ar­gue, that we are open­ing the flood gates? What if Trinidad and To­ba­go was in a sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion? What type of aid would we ex­pect from our neigh­bours?

Ja­maica's re­sponse

Ja­maica has con­sid­ered tem­po­rary haven and will be pro­vid­ing med­ical treat­ment, food, cloth­ing and shel­ter un­til the sit­u­a­tion in Haiti ame­lio­rates. Lo­gis­ti­cal­ly, Ja­maica is close to Haiti and may be in a po­si­tion to fa­cil­i­tate this en­deav­our. Can Trinidad and To­ba­go use its reser­voir of good­will to as­sist with some of the needy or­phaned chil­dren in a mean­ing­ful ca­pac­i­ty? While we do not pos­sess the ab­sorp­tive ca­pac­i­ty to ef­fec­tive­ly man­age by the thou­sands, yet, tak­ing care of a few or­phaned chil­dren is mer­i­to­ri­ous.

How we ex­press our hu­man­i­tar­i­an and com­pas­sion­ate con­sid­er­a­tions in terms of a re­gion­al cri­sis for our fel­low Cari­com neigh­bours is a re­flec­tion of our de­vel­oped think­ing, ca­pac­i­ty and pro­jec­tion of our re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al im­age. We have demon­strat­ed our eco­nom­ic re­source­ful­ness in the past in a va­ri­ety of ways, but there is no greater time to avid­ly demon­strate some cre­ative and in­no­v­a­tive re­spons­es to this hu­man­i­tar­i­an cat­a­stro­phe.

Re­spons­es of Caribbean to Haiti crises

Dur­ing the 1991-1994 Hait­ian refugee crises, ef­forts to se­cure refuge in Cari­com states had fluc­tu­at­ing re­sults. For ex­am­ple, Ja­maica placed its refugees in re­mote camps and of­fered min­i­mal refugee pro­cess­ing op­tions. The Ba­hamas gov­ern­ment demon­strat­ed a rather hos­tile pos­ture to­wards the refugees who land­ed on its shores. They even threat­ened in some cas­es to send them back, min­i­miz­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ties for the pro­cess­ing of these claims.

Oth­er coun­tries in the re­gion re­fused to ac­cept Hait­ian refugees for even tem­po­rary havens. De­spite the US and UN in­ter­ven­tion and in­fu­sion of mil­lions of dol­lars in­vest­ed, noth­ing much had changed in Haiti. Since that time, have re­gion­al mech­a­nisms been de­vel­oped to deal with fu­ture crises em­a­nat­ing from Haiti?

Hu­man­i­tar­i­an and Com­pas­sion­ate Con­sid­er­a­tions/ In­ter­na­tion­al Oblig­a­tions

Be­ing a sig­na­to­ry to the UN Con­ven­tion for Refugee Sta­tus, Trinidad and To­ba­go is yet to pro­duce an de­fin­i­tive im­mi­gra­tion and refugee pol­i­cy with­in a sup­pos­ed­ly New Im­mi­gra­tion Act. There has been much talk about seek­ing ad­vice from Cana­da. How­ev­er, in­for­ma­tion is avail­able in Cana­da's Im­mi­gra­tion and Refugee Pro­tec­tion Act (2001), which in­cor­po­rates both clear­ly de­fined im­mi­gra­tion and refugee pol­i­cy ob­jec­tives, one of which is "to rec­og­nize that the refugee pro­gramme is, in the first in­stance, about sav­ing lives and of­fer­ing pro­tec­tion, and com­plies with in­ter­na­tion­al hu­man rights in­stru­ments to which we are sig­na­to­ry."

With re­spect to Trinidad and To­ba­go, in­ter­na­tion­al treaty com­mit­ments must be im­ple­ment­ed through do­mes­tic leg­is­la­tion in or­der to have full ef­fect and force with­in this coun­try. Would bring­ing some Hait­ian or­phaned chil­dren pose a threat to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty or a dan­ger to the pub­lic? Is it com­pa­ra­ble with the threats em­a­nat­ing from transna­tion­al of­fend­ing el­e­ments as drug traf­fick­ing, gun smug­gling and oth­ers.

What are we afraid of?

Cari­com states should col­lec­tive­ly be pre­pared to, at the min­i­mal lev­el, be able to re­ceive some of these dev­as­tat­ed chil­dren and adults who have lost all in the process. While the coun­try is be­ing re-con­struct­ed, there is no harm in as­sist­ing these needy chil­dren to be at least com­fort­able–even on a tem­po­rary ba­sis. Haiti's re­cov­ery will even­tu­al­ly de­pend up­on its abil­i­ty to com­pete in the in­ter­na­tion­al mar­ket place. Eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery will there­fore mean chal­leng­ing its Cari­com neigh­bours in the quest for a fair share of in­ter­na­tion­al cap­i­tal, tech­nol­o­gy, mar­kets, con­sumer and tourism dol­lars.

Be­hind this re­cov­ery ap­proach lies the need for for­mal re­gion­al dis­cus­sions con­cern­ing trade, eco­nom­ic se­cu­ri­ty, mi­gra­tion and refugee mat­ters. These dis­cus­sions and agree­ments, how­ev­er, will on­ly come about as the re­sult of re­gion­al ini­tia­tives that are yet in their em­bry­on­ic stages.

Now is the time

Haiti needs our as­sis­tance now, and Trinidad and To­ba­go stands at the cor­ri­dor of in­flu­enc­ing oth­er Caribbean na­tions to fol­low in its foot­steps in pro­vid­ing tem­po­rary re­lief to some of these or­phaned chil­dren. Per­haps, it is not sur­pris­ing that Trinidad and To­ba­go may be­come a re­gion­al leader in hu­man rights. Trinidad and To­ba­go's his­to­ry is one pred­i­cat­ed on the suc­cess­ful in­te­gra­tion, adap­ta­tion and the rec­on­cil­i­a­tion of dif­fer­ent cul­tures, lan­guages and re­li­gions from the nine­teenth cen­tu­ry on­wards to the present. There­fore tol­er­ance, re­spect and care for the well-be­ing of our neigh­bours must com­prise the way for­ward.

A re­pub­lic such as ours could not sur­vive with­out de­vel­op­ing a cer­tain com­mit­ment to the prin­ci­ples of equal­i­ty and ac­cep­tance of di­ver­si­ty. There are quite a num­ber of Hait­ian na­tion­als re­sid­ing per­ma­nent­ly in Trinidad and To­ba­go and well in­te­grat­ed in our so­ci­ety. These Hait­ian na­tion­als can play an in­te­gral role in as­sist­ing these or­phaned chil­dren. In plan­ning the re-con­struc­tion and re­cov­ery of Haiti, the In­ter­na­tion­al Or­ga­ni­za­tion for Mi­gra­tion (IOM) can as­sist Cari­com coun­tries and Haiti in de­vel­op­ing and im­ple­ment­ing bi­lat­er­al mi­grant ac­cord in terms of fos­ter­ing labour ex­changes and act­ing as an in­ter­me­di­ary in the re­cruit­ment, con­tract­ing, mon­i­tor­ing and repa­tri­a­tion of the sea­son­al work­ers. This ef­fort will help Haiti in nu­mer­ous ways, as well as aid in the Cari­com in­te­gra­tion.