The Ba­hamas has sent a six-mem­ber ad­vance team to join the Kenya-led Multi­na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Sup­port (MSS) Mis­sion that is tasked with restor­ing se­cu­ri­ty in the French-speak­ing coun­try of Haiti, where crim­i­nal gangs have been in con­trol of a ma­jor­i­ty sec­tion of the cap­i­tal, Port-au-Prince.

A state­ment from the Roy­al Ba­hamas De­fence Force (RBDF) said that the ad­vance team will be join­ing the MSS, which is “an ef­fort spear­head­ed by CARI­COM (Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty) in part­ner­ship with in­ter­na­tion­al al­lies such as Kenya, Ja­maica, and Be­lize.

“This co­or­di­nat­ed mis­sion will pro­vide crit­i­cal sup­port to help re­store peace and sta­bil­i­ty in Haiti,” the RBDF said, adding that the of­fi­cers will serve for six months in “a chal­leng­ing but nec­es­sary de­ploy­ment aimed at mak­ing a sig­nif­i­cant im­pact on the re­gion’s se­cu­ri­ty.

“Their par­tic­i­pa­tion not on­ly en­hances The Ba­hamas’ role in re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty but al­so sup­ports broad­er CARI­COM-led ef­forts,” the RBDF said.

Ear­li­er this month, Haiti’s Prime Min­is­ter Gar­ry Conille de­scribed as suc­cess­ful, his vis­its to the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates (UAE) and Kenya, as the French-speak­ing CARI­COM coun­try seeks to im­prove its so­cio-eco­nom­ic, se­cu­ri­ty and po­lit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion.

Conille told a news con­fer­ence that the ob­jec­tive of his mis­sion was to es­tab­lish new part­ner­ships with oth­er coun­tries, in­clud­ing the UAE and to meet with Kenyan Pres­i­dent William Ru­to, to help him raise aware­ness among the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty about the ur­gency of the mul­ti­fac­eted cri­sis in Haiti.

He said “in the com­ing weeks,” 600 new Kenyan po­lice of­fi­cers will be de­ployed to Haiti, as part of the MSS.

Kenya has been lead­ing the MSS un­der a Unit­ed Na­tions Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil sanc­tioned man­date as Haiti seeks to deal with an up­surge in crim­i­nal gang ac­tiv­i­ties ever since the as­sas­si­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Jovenel Moi­se at his pri­vate res­i­dence in Ju­ly, 2021.

“I am pleased to an­nounce that an ad­di­tion­al 600 Kenyan po­lice of­fi­cers are com­plet­ing their pre-de­ploy­ment train­ing and will be ready for du­ty next month,” Pres­i­dent Ru­to told re­porters last week,  call­ing on the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to “ur­gent­ly” ral­ly be­hind the MSS that is al­so fac­ing a lack of fund­ing.

Prime Min­is­ter Conille said he is con­fi­dent that oth­er coun­tries in the re­gion will fol­low suit.

In its state­ment, the RBDF pro­vid­ed de­tails on the ex­pect­ed task of the Ba­hami­an sol­diers, which in­clude mar­itime pa­trols, port se­cu­ri­ty, pre­vent­ing il­le­gal mi­gra­tion, coun­ter­ing il­lic­it traf­fick­ing and in­tel­li­gence co­op­er­a­tion.

It al­so not­ed that du­ties in­clude “con­tribut­ing to the over­all safe­ty of the Caribbean by ad­dress­ing desta­bi­liz­ing il­lic­it ac­tiv­i­ties” and “cre­at­ing a se­cure en­vi­ron­ment to en­able peace­ful po­lit­i­cal process­es, align­ing with broad­er ef­forts to re­store Haiti’s po­lit­i­cal sta­bil­i­ty”.

“This RBDF de­ploy­ment is no­table not on­ly for its mis­sion but al­so for the ground­break­ing in­clu­sion of the first-ever fe­male RBDF of­fi­cer to be de­ployed on an in­ter­na­tion­al mis­sion, a mile­stone mo­ment that re­flects The Ba­hamas’ com­mit­ment to gen­der equal­i­ty and lead­er­ship with­in its armed forces,” the RBDF said.

“The team’s ex­per­tise spans sev­er­al ar­eas cru­cial to the mis­sion’s suc­cess, in­clud­ing con­duct and dis­ci­pline, com­mand head­quar­ters as­sis­tance, op­er­a­tions, and ad­min­is­tra­tion.”

Prime Min­is­ter Philip Brave Davis and oth­er se­nior gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials at­tend­ed the of­fi­cial send-off of the of­fi­cers over the last week­end.

“Al­though Prime Min­is­ter Davis did not make any of­fi­cial re­marks at the send-off, his pres­ence un­der­scored the Ba­hami­an gov­ern­ment’s ded­i­ca­tion to sup­port­ing re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty and pro­mot­ing peace in the Caribbean,” the RBDF said.

“The com­mit­ment to this mis­sion re­flects the broad­er lead­er­ship of The Ba­hamas in sup­port­ing its neigh­bours in times of need.

“This de­ploy­ment serves as a tes­ta­ment to the re­silience and uni­ty of the Ba­hami­an peo­ple and re­in­forces The Ba­hamas’ long­stand­ing tra­di­tion of of­fer­ing a help­ing hand to its neigh­bours in times of cri­sis,” the RBDF added.

NAS­SAU, Ba­hamas, Oct 21, CMC –

CM­Caf/ir/2024