Acting Commander of the Royal Bahamas Defence Force (RBDF), Captain Shonedel Pinder recently expressed his confidence that officers are ready for deployment to Haiti. The Government of The Bahamas committed to providing 150 officers for a peacekeeping mission to Haiti led by Kenya in 2023. Officers have been undergoing training in Jamaica and other countries in preparation for the mission.
Pinder said, “what we’ve done is ensured that the level of expertise in terms of where we lend our support and its the official position of The Bahamas government expressed that would be apart of the maritime domain. It’s something that we do daily. It something that we contain our successes in and it’s something that we feel our persons can operate from comfortably with the foreign waters of Haiti which will probably be offshore in international waters which is what we want to do. It’s lending our expertise where we best can provide input to bring about the continued stability in the region and for Haiti it’s to ensure that the Haitian people will know that The Bahamas government is doing all it can to help their situation.”
For his part, Minister of National Security, the Hon. Wayne Munroe said the solution must be Haitian driven. “It’s not about anybody imposing its will on the Haitian people. They are people who defeated Napoleon, who defeated the Americans and so it’s not a matter where you impose any solution on them. It must be a solution that they come up with as a people, that they’re comfortable with as a people and we’re here to assist them as a sister nation in CARICOM.”
There has been continued unrest in Haiti since the assassination of the President, Jovenel Moïse in 2021. In March 2024, Haitian Prime Minister, Ariel Henry announced his resignation from the post. A Transitional Presidential Council was installed this week to run the country until elections can be held.
