{"id":8862,"date":"2024-09-10T15:31:56","date_gmt":"2024-09-10T19:31:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=8862"},"modified":"2024-09-10T15:31:56","modified_gmt":"2024-09-10T19:31:56","slug":"jamaica-to-deploy-a-limited-number-of-soldiers-and-police-to-help-fight-gangs-in-haiti","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=8862","title":{"rendered":"Jamaica to Deploy a Limited Number of Soldiers and Police to Help Fight Gangs in Haiti"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness announced Tuesday that his country would send two dozen soldiers and police officers to Haiti this week to boost a U.N.-backed mission led by Kenya to fight violent gangs<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

The 20 soldiers and four police officers are scheduled to arrive Thursday and will join nearly 400 Kenyan police who arrived earlier this year and are working alongside Haitian police and military, said Vice Admiral Antonette Wemyss-Gorman, chief of defense staff for Jamaica\u2019s military.<\/p>\n

The Jamaicans will be responsible for providing command, planning and logistics support, Holness said at a news conference.<\/p>\n

Jamaica had pledged a total of 170 soldiers and 30 police officers, but Holness said it wasn\u2019t possible to deploy them all at once.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not practical,\u201d he said, adding that facilities to host those arriving and a command structure need to be in place before the full number pledged is deployed. \u201cWe want a very successful operation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The initial number of police and soldiers announced by Holness surprised many and comes at a time when the U.S. government has warned that the Kenyan-led mission lacks money and personnel as it considers a U.N. peacekeeping mission<\/a><\/span> as one way to secure more resources.<\/p>\n

In recent days, the U.N. and Ecuador circulated a draft resolution obtained by The Associated Press asking the U.N. to start planning for a U.N. peacekeeping operation<\/a><\/span> to replace the current mission. Such a proposal would have to be decided by the U.N. Security Council, which experts do not believe would approve it.<\/p>\n

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On Monday, U.N. Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres said \u201cit\u2019s very strange\u201d that there is apparently no money available to support the Kenyan-led mission.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cI think countries should assume responsibilities and should come and provide the necessary funding,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Holness did not comment on the possibility of a U.N. peacekeeping mission but said the current mission \u201ccan be a long and extended process.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that the mission is not the only or final solution to problems in Haiti, where gangs control 80% of the capital of Port-au-Prince.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

The violence has spread to other areas across the country, with more than 3,200 killed from January to May, according to the U.N. The ongoing violence also has left more than half a million people homeless in recent years.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHaiti is the example of what could happen if states and governments do not take the problem seriously and put in place the measures and resources necessary to bring the problem under control,\u201d Holness said.<\/p>\n

Overall, the mission is expected to have a total of 2,500 personnel, with the Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Benin and Chad also pledging to send police and soldiers, although it wasn\u2019t clear when that would happen.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, the Bahamas\u2019 foreign affairs minister, Fred Mitchell, told reporters that while the government hasn\u2019t wavered in its pledge, it\u2019s unclear when it\u2019ll deploy troops to Haiti given that the mission\u2019s dynamics have changed.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things the Bahamas has to consider is the new position of the U.S.,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The mission is expected to cost roughly $600 million a year, although the U.N. has received only $68 million out of $85 million pledged so far. The U.S. and Canada have provided the majority of funds for now.<\/p>\n

– D\u00e1nica Coto, AP News<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness announced Tuesday that his country would send two dozen soldiers and police officers to Haiti this week to boost a U.N.-backed mission led by Kenya to fight violent gangs. The 20 soldiers and four police officers are scheduled to arrive Thursday and will join nearly 400 Kenyan police who arrived earlier…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":8864,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dims.apnews.com\/dims4\/default\/b756a1c\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/5208x3427+0+0\/resize\/1440x948!\/format\/webp\/quality\/90\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fassets.apnews.com%2F66%2Fce%2Fdbb9ad2f4effc29e65f34ddec724%2F935b3edb4cd14ab495280f3775d1f9d6","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[182],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-security-public-safety"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/124"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8862"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8865,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8862\/revisions\/8865"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}