The Caribbean Bands Together for Haiti
CARICOM The Caribbean Community, or CARICOM, moved into high gear following Haiti’s earthquake to support a member state through the deployment of search-and-rescue missions, military assistance and medical personnel. The Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency, a regional response mechanism for natural disasters, based in Jamaica, coordinated the effort. More than 300 personnel from 11 CARICOM member states and associate members composed the contingent in Haiti, in a united response to the urgent needs of the earthquake victims. Belize offered clothing, food, and military manpower; Barbados sent military personnel; Grenada and Guyana sent monetary donations; Saint Lucia and Trinidad and Tobago sent aid in the form of services; the British Virgin Islands sent a search-and-rescue team; Bermuda placed aircraft at the Community’s disposal; and Jamaica deployed security personnel, searchand- rescue teams, doctors and relief supplies within 48 hours of the earthquake. In an interview with Jamaica’s The Sunday Gleaner newspaper, Jamaica Defence Force commander in Haiti, Maj. Jaimie Stuart Ogilvie, said his troops were making “sure that we have the right persons here for the long haul to continue the relief as long as we can.” Jamaica’s contingent also included medical teams delivering supplies to some of the hardest-hit areas. “We have been able to impact positively on people’s lives,” Dr. Derrick McDowell, head of the medical delegation, told The Sunday Gleaner. “No life has been lost in our care. Whatever we have been doing is being well done and is being done carefully. Were it not for us, more lives would have been lost,” he added. Continuing aid to Haiti includes emergency response coordination, medical assistance, and engineering assessments with relief efforts extended to locations outside the capital. As reconstruction gets under way, CARICOM is shifting its focus to longer-term contributions to assist the health sector and technical assistance for relief distribution systems. During a Mexico-CARICOM summit in February 2010, Roosevelt Skerrit, prime minister of Dominica and CARICOM leader until July 2010, reiterated the community’s commitment to rebuilding Haiti. “First on our agenda is Haiti. We want to ensure reconstruction goes beyond immediate efforts. We have an opportunity to bring about the renaissance of Haiti, not just to return to where we were before the disaster struck,” Skerrit said. Cuba Cuba had a large medical team of more than 300 doctors working in Haiti prior to the earthquake and quickly sent extra personnel to the devastated nation, including Haitian doctors studying in Cuba, in addition to surgical staff and supplies to set up field hospitals. The doctors treated more than 13,000 patients and performed hundreds of surgeries, working tirelessly around the clock during the first days and weeks following the quake. Recognizing the valuable contributions of Cuba, the U.S. State Department offered to provide medical supplies to Cuban doctors working in Haiti. “The United States has communicated its readiness to make medical relief supplies available to Cuban doctors working on the ground in Haiti as part of the international relief effort,” U.S. State Department spokesman Darby Holladay said. During a conference of the Ibero-American General Secretariat in February 2010, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State of Western Hemisphere Affairs, Arturo Valenzuela, praised Cuba for working with the United States in providing relief to Haiti. In a rare gesture of cooperation between Washington and Havana motivated by the urgency to save lives, Cuba allowed U.S. planes, including military aircraft, to fly over Cuban air space for medical evacuation flights from the U.S. base in Guantanamo in southeastern Cuba, thus shortening each flight by 90 minutes. Dominican Republic Haiti’s neighbor, the Dominican Republic, played a key role in providing immediate disaster relief. The country, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, spared no efforts and urgently rushed food, water, supplies, rescue teams and medical assistance to the earthquake victims. Relief centers for refugees seeking aid in cities and towns across the border were also quickly established to tend to thousands of people in need. In addition to direct aid to Haiti, the Dominican Republic also helped many countries and organizations that could not gain direct access to Haiti due to the heavily damaged airport, roads and port facilities near the quake-affected areas. The Dominican capital of Santo Domingo and towns near the border with Haiti became the staging grounds and logistical bases for hundreds of relief missions, as well as for the international press corps covering the tragedy. More than 150 troops were deployed along the border to work with a contingent of Peruvian peacekeepers from the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, or MINUSTAH, to help ensure the humanitarian relief effort from the Dominican government was sent over. John Holmes, director of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, praised the vital contributions made by the Dominican Republic in ensuring that humanitarian aid reached victims, during a meeting with Dominican President Leonel Fernández in February 2010. CARICOM Member States: Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat, Saint Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago CARICOM Associate Members: Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands www.caricom.org By Dialogo April 01, 2010