Mem­bers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force will not be dis­patched to Haiti to as­sist with re-es­tab­lish­ing de­mo­c­ra­t­ic rule in the coun­try, Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Dr Amery Browne said yes­ter­day.

Speak­ing at a me­dia brief­ing at the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry in Port-of-Spain, Browne said the coun­try’s sup­port will come via a mon­e­tary do­na­tion, which Guardian Me­dia was told is US$200,000.

“What I can tell you is that Trinidad and To­ba­go has been in sup­port of ac­tions to treat the Haiti sit­u­a­tion. We have pro­vid­ed fi­nan­cial sup­port, as well as hu­man re­sources, to Cari­com’s good of­fice ef­forts, to the Em­i­nent Per­sons Group (EPG) and to the oth­er diplo­mat­ic foun­da­tions that have been laid in prepa­ra­tion for the multi­na­tion­al force. “With re­spect to the con­tri­bu­tion of boots on the ground as it were, the Prime Min­is­ter has made it very clear that the cur­rent po­si­tion of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go is that we are not in a po­si­tion to con­tribute mil­i­tary forces and have boots on the ground at this stage,” Min­is­ter Browne ex­plained.

Haiti is cur­rent­ly un­der a state of emer­gency and cur­few, as lo­cal se­cu­ri­ty forces seek to re­gain con­trol of the coun­try.

Vi­o­lence and in­sta­bil­i­ty have erupt­ed af­ter gangs stormed two ma­jor pris­ons in Port-au-Prince, forced the clo­sure of the main air­port and kept the cap­i­tal un­der siege as they called for the res­ig­na­tion of the coun­try’s Prime Min­is­ter Ariel Hen­ry, who re­mains un­able to re­turn to Haiti af­ter a vis­it to Kenya seek­ing se­cu­ri­ty forces to help bring sta­bil­i­ty back to the coun­try.

Hen­ry has agreed to re­sign once Cari­com com­pletes the set­ting up of a tran­si­tion com­mit­tee to steer the way to elec­tions in Haiti.

Browne added at the end of the me­dia brief­ing, he was to at­tend a Cari­com heads of gov­ern­ment video con­fer­ence meet­ing on the Haiti mat­ter, where he will be up­dat­ed on the re­gion­al body’s next move.