Brazil­ian Pres­i­dent Luiz In­á­cio Lu­la da Sil­va crit­i­cised the "aban­don­ment and in­dif­fer­ence" of most of the com­mu­ni­ty in the face of the Hait­ian cri­sis, dur­ing a meet­ing on Fri­day with del­e­ga­tions from 16 Caribbean coun­tries.

"Haiti can­not be eter­nal­ly pun­ished for hav­ing been the first coun­try to be­come in­de­pen­dent in the Amer­i­c­as," Lu­la de­clared in Brasil­ia be­fore Caribbean lead­ers, in­clud­ing the pres­i­dent of the Hait­ian Pres­i­den­tial Tran­si­tion Coun­cil (CPT), Fritz Alphonse Jean.

Lu­la said that it is nec­es­sary for all of Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean, as well as the en­tire in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty, to "get in­volved" more in the "dra­mat­ic" sit­u­a­tion in Haiti, a coun­try mired in a cri­sis that has last­ed for decades and has wors­ened in re­cent times with an in­sti­tu­tion­al col­lapse and a spi­ral of vi­o­lence.

"Sta­bi­liz­ing the sit­u­a­tion of vi­o­lence is fun­da­men­tal for there to be elec­tions" that re­store a cer­tain po­lit­i­cal and in­sti­tu­tion­al or­der to the coun­try, said the Brazil­ian leader.

The pres­i­dents of the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Luis Abi­nad­er, and Guyana, Ir­faan Ali, as well as the prime min­is­ters of An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, Ba­hamas, Bar­ba­dos, Saint Lu­cia and Saint Kitts and Nevis, and the vice pres­i­dent of Cu­ba, Sal­vador Valdés Mesa, are at­tend­ing the so-called Brazil-Caribbean Sum­mit.

Be­lize, Do­mini­ca, Grena­da, Ja­maica, Saint Vin­cent and the Grenadines, Suri­name, and Trinidad and To­ba­go were rep­re­sent­ed at the min­is­te­r­i­al lev­el.

Be­yond the sit­u­a­tion in Haiti, var­i­ous al­ter­na­tives to im­prove co­op­er­a­tion in dif­fer­ent ar­eas will be dis­cussed at the Brazil-Caribbean sum­mit.

Brazil, which con­vened this meet­ing, has pro­posed an agen­da that has as cen­tral points food se­cu­ri­ty, com­bat­ing the cli­mate cri­sis, risk and dis­as­ter man­age­ment, en­er­gy tran­si­tion, and mar­itime and air con­nec­tiv­i­ty, in or­der to boost tourism and trade.