Officers of the Royal Bahamas Defence Force (RBDF) are preparing for deployment to the embattled country of Haiti as part of a multinational mission led by Kenya.
RBDF Commander Clinton Johnson will be part of the group headed south. In an interview with ZNS News he said of the pending deployment, “there’s a job to be done and just get out there and do it. That’s what everybody who signs that asset station for the Royal Bahamas Defence Force realizes.”
RBDF Officers are scheduled to leave the country on Friday for training in Jamaica. Johnson said, “they have extensive training that we be going on in peacekeeping operations, also in TIPs where you’re trafficking in persons because even now, not only regionally but internationally you have a lot of refugees, you have a lot of movement of persons and as a result of this displacement and a lot of these different things that are happening not only regionally but internationally a lot of different issues arise.”
According to the Commander, Bahamian marines will have a maritime role in the mission. “When we have patrol craft that go into that area members of this team will probably, I cannot speak on behalf of the Commodore or the Minister, but I think from what I’ve gotten, that would be adding additional persons on the ships in case they need to have interdictions and they may need to have extra manpower onboard the ships.”
Thanks to negotiations by the RBDF Commodore, Dr. Raymond King, twenty persons will receive further training in Chile and Argentina that will certify them in peacekeeping efforts.
