NASSAU, Bahamas – The Bahamas is calling on the United Nations to do more to help in the plight facing the people of Haiti, saying the global body needed to “step up to the plate”.
Attorney General Ryan Pinder (File Photo)Earlier this week, UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, while on an official two-day visit to Jamaica, described Haiti as a “tragic situation” and appealed to the international community to do more to help the country overcome its present political and socio-economic conditions.
He said Haiti faces dramatic humanitarian needs, a political system that is paralysed and levels of violence by gangs “that are absolutely appalling.
“The number of people killed, the number of people unable to live their lives, the dramatic food insecurity problems are indeed something that needs stronger commitment from the international community,” Guterres said.
Attorney General Ryan Pinder, speaking during the debate in the Senate on a resolution for the appointment of a parliamentary committee on human rights, said he had raised the Haitian issue as well as gun smuggling into the Bahamas when he addressed the 43rd Session of Universal Periodic Review in Geneva recently.
The attorney general said countries seemed to have abandoned their obligation to assist Haiti, adding “I spoke to the political impasse and unprecedented levels of gang violence now plaguing the state of Haiti [that] is causing a migration crisis in the region, and particularly The Bahamas.
“I advocated for more intervention, more attention and more involvement of the United Nations in providing a framework for stability and rule of law in Haiti.
“Madam President, it seems that the multilateral institutions around the world and the big counties around the world have abandoned their obligation to bring stability in the country of Haiti and have left it to our region of small island developing states with limited capacity and our own domestic challenges to marshal the situation,” Pinder said.
The Attorney General said that is not appropriate in a global and international environment. “They need to step up to the plate on this issue. Where is the United Nations? It’s a humanitarian crisis and they are not there.”
Last year, figures released by the Department of Immigration, showed that 3,349 Haitians were repatriated from The Bahamas.
In his contribution to the debate, Pinder told legislators that he had also spoken to the challenge Nassau has been having with illegal firearms “plaguing our streets, finding their way into our country, exclusively from other countries.
“I asked for the intervention of multilateral organizations, such as the United Nations, to assist in cross-border enforcement when it comes to guns, as their illegal use severely impacts a person’s human rights, and in this country, Bahamian human rights”.
Pinder, like other government legislators in the Caribbean, said guns are smuggled from other countries, not manufactured in the region and facilitated by the rules and regulations of the counties in which they are manufactured.
“That is a fact and the United Nations must step up to the plate and assist in this matter.”
Turning to the Haiti crisis, the attorney general said big countries seemed to have abandoned their obligation to assist altogether.
“I spoke to the political impasse and unprecedented levels of gang violence now plaguing the state of Haiti [that] is causing a migration crisis in the region, and particularly The Bahamas,” he continued.
“I advocated for more intervention, more attention and more involvement of the United Nations in providing a framework for stability and rule of law in Haiti.
“Madam President, it seems that the multilateral institutions around the world and the big counties around the world have abandoned their obligation to bring stability in the country of Haiti and have left it to our region of small island developing states with limited capacity and our own domestic challenges to marshal the situation.
“That is not appropriate in a global and international environment. They need to step up to the plate on this issue. Where is the United Nations? It’s a humanitarian crisis and they are not there.”
