Latest news with #HaitiNationalPolice
Yahoo
03-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Thousands march against gangs in Haiti as Vatican is notified of murder of two nuns
Thousands of Haitians marched through the streets of the country's volatile capital on Wednesday, defying tear gas and gangs as they vented their anger against the surge in gang violence and demanded the resignation of the country's transitional authorities and the head of the Haiti National Police. During the massive protest, demonstrators brandished machetes and firearms. Others waved tree branches and red and black flags, once the symbol of the Duvalier dictatorship, but which has since become associated with other forces in Haiti. Protesters burned tires and blocked roads as they traveled down from Pétion-Ville and up from Delmas to converge on the offices of Haiti's Transitional Presidential Council and prime minister. Along the road, new graffiiti emerged in red: 'Aba Primature,' 'Aba CPT' — Down with the prime minister's office and Down with the Transitional Presidential Council. Threatening to attack both the offices of the Council and Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé, the crowd at one point ripped up an aluminum billboard sign, threw it on the ground and beat it with hammers. As they got closer to the offices, however, they were met by riot police who fired tear gas and, according to journalists on the scene, live rounds. While some protesters fled, others began throwing rocks. A Haitian police spokesman did not respond to a request from the Miami Herald about the use of live ammunition to disperse protest crowds. The protest was organized by a police officer who is assigned to the specialized unit inside the presidential palace, and heads a so-called citizens self-defense brigade for Canapé-Vert, one of the latest Port-au-Prince neighborhoods to come under gang attack. The protest march, one of the largest since the 2021 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse plunged the country deeper into despair, is a warning to Haiti's ruling authorities, which have been unable to bring relief amid the surge in gang attacks that led to the deaths of more than 5,600 people last year. Ahead of the demonstration, rumors circulated of pending gang attacks both in the capital and in Haiti's Central Plateau region, which led police to be on the offensive and concerned residents to remain home. More protests are expected this week both in the capital and in Léogâne, another city that has been hit by the violence. Wednesday's protest took place a day before the one-year anniversary of the political accord that was supposed to return stability to Haiti with the guidance of the ruling nine member presidential council. However, the power-sharing arrangement, which was created with the help of the Caribbean Community and the U.S. in Jamaica in March 2024, has not lived up to expectations. Haiti is unlikely to see a vote on a new constitutional referendum this year, or to have general elections, which were last held in 2016. The council has been engulfed in controversy amid accusations over corruption allegations involving three of its members and instead of relief from gangs, Haitians are seeing a tightening of their grip. As much as 90% of metropolitan Port-au-Prince is under the control of criminal groups, which in recent weeks have escalated their attacks. On Monday, the violence hit Haiti's Central Plateau after gangs stormed the rural town of Mirebalais, 31 miles northeast of the capital and not far from the border with the Dominican Republic. After setting fire to part of the police substation and burning vehicles in the yard, gangs stormed the prison and freed more than 500 inmates. The incident also led to widespread looting and the burning of homes, schools and churches, the United Nations said. In the mayhem, two Roman Catholic nuns were shot dead. The nuns, identified as Sister Evanette Onezaire and Sister Jeanne Voltaire, were working at the National School in Mirebalais and had taken refuge in a house along with a young girl. Armed gang members entered the house and shot the sisters to death. The young girl was shot in the chest. Her status remains unknown. The nuns' killings were reported to the Vatican. A voice message on WhatsApp from a nun talking about the slaying said the incident happened around 7 p.m. and others in the house were also killed by gangs that came onto the property two hours before. On Tuesday, residents continued to flee the town amid more gang attacks and growing concerns that Mirebalais could fall to gangs. In a post on X, the nonprofit organization Zanmi Lasante, which runs the 350-bed University Hospital of Mirebalais, issued a plea. 'The brutal attacks on Mirebalais threaten one of Haiti's most critical hospitals. If Mirebalais falls, Haiti's health system faces collapse. Hundreds of thousands will be left without life-saving care. The world must act NOW,' the organization said. In response to the violence police have sent reinforcements to the town and replaced the head of the local police. They also confiscated an armored loader that the gangs had been using. The violence in Mirebalais and Saut d'Eau, which connects the Haitian capital with the center of the country, forced a total of 5,981 to flee their places of residence, the U.N. International Organization for Migrants said Wednesday 'The majority of displaced individuals (83%) found refuge within host communities, while 17% settled in 14 displacement sites newly established as a result of this incident,' the U.N. said. The incident in Haiti's center highlights how gang activity is expanding beyond the West region, where Port-au-Prince is located, Stéphane Dujarric, the spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres told journalists in New York on Wednesday. As protesters in Port-au-Prince divided themselves into different groups and prepared as early as 8 a.m. to march on government offices, Mirebalais continued to be under threat. Gunshots were reported in the city as the fight against gangs suffered another setback: a helicopter, leased from the government of Taiwan to help Haitian authorities transport police troops and members of the Kenya-led Multinational Security Support mission to hot zones, was reported to be out of commission. The day, before armed gangs fired on the chopper, striking a police officer onboard in the arm.
Miami Herald
03-04-2025
- Politics
- Miami Herald
Thousands march against gangs in Haiti as Vatican is notified of murder of two nuns
Thousands of Haitians marched through the streets of the country's volatile capital on Wednesday, defying tear gas and gangs as they vented their anger against the surge in gang violence and demanded the resignation of the country's transitional authorities and the head of the Haiti National Police. During the massive protest, demonstrators brandished machetes and firearms. Others waved tree branches and red and black flags, once the symbol of the Duvalier dictatorship, but which has since become associated with other forces in Haiti. Protesters burned tires and blocked roads as they traveled down from Pétion-Ville and up from Delmas to converge on the offices of Haiti's Transitional Presidential Council and prime minister. Along the road, new graffiiti emerged in red: 'Aba Primature,' 'Aba CPT' — Down with the prime minister's office and Down with the Transitional Presidential Council. Threatening to attack both the offices of the Council and Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé, the crowd at one point ripped up an aluminum billboard sign, threw it on the ground and beat it with hammers. As they got closer to the offices, however, they were met by riot police who fired tear gas and, according to journalists on the scene, live rounds. While some protesters fled, others began throwing rocks. A Haitian police spokesman did not respond to a request from the Miami Herald about the use of live ammunition to disperse protest crowds. The protest was organized by a police officer who is assigned to the specialized unit inside the presidential palace, and heads a so-called citizens self-defense brigade for Canapé-Vert, one of the latest Port-au-Prince neighborhoods to come under gang attack. The protest march, one of the largest since the 2021 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse plunged the country deeper into despair, is a warning to Haiti's ruling authorities, which have been unable to bring relief amid the surge in gang attacks that led to the deaths of more than 5,600 people last year. Ahead of the demonstration, rumors circulated of pending gang attacks both in the capital and in Haiti's Central Plateau region, which led police to be on the offensive and concerned residents to remain home. More protests are expected this week both in the capital and in Léogâne, another city that has been hit by the violence. Wednesday's protest took place a day before the one-year anniversary of the political accord that was supposed to return stability to Haiti with the guidance of the ruling nine member presidential council. However, the power-sharing arrangement, which was created with the help of the Caribbean Community and the U.S. in Jamaica in March 2024, has not lived up to expectations. Haiti is unlikely to see a vote on a new constitutional referendum this year, or to have general elections, which were last held in 2016. The council has been engulfed in controversy amid accusations over corruption allegations involving three of its members and instead of relief from gangs, Haitians are seeing a tightening of their grip. As much as 90% of metropolitan Port-au-Prince is under the control of criminal groups, which in recent weeks have escalated their attacks. On Monday, the violence hit Haiti's Central Plateau after gangs stormed the rural town of Mirebalais, 31 miles northeast of the capital and not far from the border with the Dominican Republic. After setting fire to part of the police substation and burning vehicles in the yard, gangs stormed the prison and freed more than 500 inmates. The incident also led to widespread looting and the burning of homes, schools and churches, the United Nations said. In the mayhem, two Roman Catholic nuns were shot dead. The nuns, identified as Sister Evanette Onezaire and Sister Jeanne Voltaire, were working at the National School in Mirebalais and had taken refuge in a house along with a young girl. Armed gang members entered the house and shot the sisters to death. The young girl was shot in the chest. Her status remains unknown. The nuns' killings were reported to the Vatican. A voice message on WhatsApp from a nun talking about the slaying said the incident happened around 7 p.m. and others in the house were also killed by gangs that came onto the property two hours before. On Tuesday, residents continued to flee the town amid more gang attacks and growing concerns that Mirebalais could fall to gangs. In a post on X, the nonprofit organization Zanmi Lasante, which runs the 350-bed University Hospital of Mirebalais, issued a plea. 'The brutal attacks on Mirebalais threaten one of Haiti's most critical hospitals. If Mirebalais falls, Haiti's health system faces collapse. Hundreds of thousands will be left without life-saving care. The world must act NOW,' the organization said. In response to the violence police have sent reinforcements to the town and replaced the head of the local police. They also confiscated an armored loader that the gangs had been using. The violence in Mirebalais and Saut d'Eau, which connects the Haitian capital with the center of the country, forced a total of 5,981 to flee their places of residence, the U.N. International Organization for Migrants said Wednesday 'The majority of displaced individuals (83%) found refuge within host communities, while 17% settled in 14 displacement sites newly established as a result of this incident,' the U.N. said. The incident in Haiti's center highlights how gang activity is expanding beyond the West region, where Port-au-Prince is located, Stéphane Dujarric, the spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres told journalists in New York on Wednesday. As protesters in Port-au-Prince divided themselves into different groups and prepared as early as 8 a.m. to march on government offices, Mirebalais continued to be under threat. Gunshots were reported in the city as the fight against gangs suffered another setback: a helicopter, leased from the government of Taiwan to help Haitian authorities transport police troops and members of the Kenya-led Multinational Security Support mission to hot zones, was reported to be out of commission. The day, before armed gangs fired on the chopper, striking a police officer onboard in the arm.
Yahoo
27-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Jamaica prime minister endorses expansion of Haiti police as Kenyan-led mission struggles
Jamaica Prime Minister Andrew Holness said Wednesday that the escalating gang crisis in Haiti has reached a point that demands a rapid increase in the number of cops and equipment for the Haiti National Police to battle gangs that are on the verge of taking over the capital. Ultimately, the Haiti National Police 'has to take on the gangs,' he said. 'The present holding situation that we have is not necessarily moving the situation forward as we would all like.' Holness' comments came amid new protests and growing anxiety in Haiti about a possible takeover of the capital by armed gangs amid conflicts within the country's political transition government and its police hierarchy. He made the comment after a high-level meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who arrived in Kingston on Wednesday. As part of his first official visit to the English-speaking Caribbean, Rubio is seeking feedback from leaders of the 15-member regional bloc known as CARICOM on the volatile situation in Haiti, which Holness described as a threat to regional security. How much weight Holness and other Caribbean leaders' views on Haiti carry with the Trump administration remains to be seen. But Rubio, recognizing that the current multinational security mission led by Kenya is not large enough to take on heavily armed gangs, is trying to drum up support in the region for funding that would allow the mission to expand. In a separate discussion about Haiti on Wednesday sponsored by the World Bank, former Jamaica Prime Minister Bruce Golding said said that Force Commander Godfrey Otunge recently also told him and two other former Caribbean prime ministers that he needs an additional 1,500 officers to be effective against gangs. Golding said he believes that number, which would put the force at 2,500, is still too low. He acknowledged that funding remains a challenge to put in place 'an effective force, an overwhelming force' needed to defeat the gangs and stabilize Haiti so long overdue elections can finally take place. Golding said a former member of the Haiti's ruling nine-member Transitional Presidential Council, which the Caribbean Community had helped create last year, had complained that CARICOM's involvement bordered on interference. Golding's revelations underscore the challenges that an association of Caribbean elder statesmen known as the Eminent Persons Group, formed to help Haiti, has been facing. On Wednesday morning four Democratic members of Congress sent a letter to Rubio urging him to prioritize the ongoing humanitarian and security crisis in Haiti during his visit to the Caribbean, which also includes stops Thursday in Guyana and Suriname. 'With violent gangs causing unimaginable human suffering in Haiti, and spillover impacts for regional stability and on Haitian-American communities, the United States simply cannot afford to pass up the opportunity to advance region-wide support for a Haitian-led solution to the current crisis,' the letter said. It's signed by Reps. Gregory Meeks of New York and Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick of Florida, and Sens. Jeanne Shaheen of Missouri and Cory Booker of New Jersey. The four lawmakers specifically mentioned the recent cuts to U.S. funding, including the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development. They called the aid cuts 'a gift to the violent gangs who have exploited the country's political instability since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in 2021. 'We urge you to use this trip to the Caribbean to outline how the United States, and the State Department you lead, will galvanize the international community to allocate the necessary resources to stop the gangs and their elite enablers, and to help alleviate the human suffering in Haiti,' the lawmakers wrote. 'The United States cannot sit on the sidelines of a crisis of this magnitude in our own region. Failure to act risks furthering the humanitarian crisis to the point where gangs control the entire capital, and the United States, along with its partners in the region, are responding to a mass migration event.' The U.S. has been the main benefactor of the Kenya-led security mission. The Biden administration provided more than $600 million. Though the State Department has provided more than $40 million in waivers amid ongoing U.S. foreign aid freezes, it is unclear whether the Trump administration will continue funding the lion's share when the mission comes up for renewal in October. The Trump administration doesn't have a clear foreign policy on Haiti, even as it ends immigration protections as of April 24 for more than 200,000 Haitians who were paroled into the U.S. under humanitarian benefits during the Biden administration. Last month, United Nations Secretary General António Guterres ruled out transitioning the struggling Kenyan mission into an official U.N. peacekeeping mission and instead called for beefing up the current mission and using some of the U.N.'s budget to support salaries. The U.S. has yet to publicly weigh in on the proposal. In a preview of the visit, Maurcio Claver-Carone, the administration's envoy for Latin America and the Caribbean, told journalists on Tuesday that the administration is working on a new security strategy for Haiti but did not go into details. Rubio's trip, he said, was geared partly toward hearing the views 'of our neighbors and our allies in the Caribbean in order to see what they believe is possible and how they can chip in and how they could work with us.' After his meeting with Holness, Rubio also met with prime ministers Stuart Young of Trinidad and Tobago, and Mia Mottley of Barbados. Mottley also represented the 15-member Caribbean Community known as CARICOM. His last meeting was with the head of Haiti's Presidential Council Fritz Alphonse Jean and on Thursday he travels to Guyana and Suriname. Haiti, Rubio, acknowledged, has been 'a multi faceted challenge.' This was underscored Wednesday when armed gangs were shooting near the U.S. embassy and Kenyan officials still had not retrieved the body of their dead officer, a day after armed gangs in the Artibonite region burned three armored vehicles in an ambush. Though Jamaica was among the first countries to volunteer security personnel for the mission in Haiti, it has yet to deploy its officers. Of the 1,000 foreign officers on the ground, only 31 are from the Caribbean region. How best to address Haiti's unraveling crisis remains a central question of the security response. Those opposed to international intervention have long argued that the money is better spent on the Haiti National Police while others point out that while the police needs to be built up, the current crisis demands foreign assistance. Haiti's police are less than 10,000 for a country of 12 million and those involved in actual anti-gang operations are only a handful. At the same time, the force has been under-resourced and outgunned. Last year the academy, which itself has come under gang attack, only graduated 700 new police officers. The structure itself is not only too small to meet the needs, but dozens of police stations have also been destroyed by gangs and vetting individuals has become difficult in an environment where one in 10 Haitians is currently displaced. On Wednesday, Guterres' spokesman Stéphane Dujarric told journalists at the U.N. in New York that humanitarian aid workers have warned that escalating attacks on populated areas have forced repeated and record-level displacements in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area. 'The scale and pace of displacement is rapidly outpacing the capacity of humanitarian actors to respond,' Dujarric said. 'Nearly 23,000 people were displaced in just a week in mid-March, that's what the International Organization for Migration is telling us, with families seeking shelter in already severely overcrowded sites, with minimal essential services such as water, sanitation, healthcare and protection were among those displaced.' The U.N. Dujarric said, assesses the situation on a daily basis and takes decisions every day on how to respond to the crisis with its aid workers. 'It's really a flexible footprint,' he said, 'and people are shifted to the best places where they can deliver aid and deliver aid safely.' He also defended the efforts of the multinational support mission. The force is doing the best possible job they can given, Dujarric said, given 'the deficit in support they are getting from the international community.' 'Whether it's the Kenyans and other nationals who've sent people there, to put their lives at risk,' he added, 'They need more equipment, and Haitian political leaders need to also recommit to a political track.'
Miami Herald
26-03-2025
- Politics
- Miami Herald
Jamaica prime minister endorses expansion of Haiti police as Kenyan-led mission struggles
Jamaica Prime Minister Andrew Holness said Wednesday that the escalating gang crisis in Haiti has reached a point that demands a rapid increase in the number of cops and equipment for the Haiti National Police to battle gangs that are on the verge of taking over the capital. Ultimately, the Haiti National Police 'has to take on the gangs,' he said. 'The present holding situation that we have is not necessarily moving the situation forward as we would all like.' Holness' comments came amid growing anxiety in Haiti about a possible takeover of the capital by armed gangs amid conflicts within the country's political transition government and its police hierarchy. He made the comment after a high-level meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who arrived in Kingston on Wednesday. As part of his first official visit to the English-speaking Caribbean, Rubio is seeking feedback from leaders of the 15-member regional bloc known as CARICOM on the volatile situation in Haiti, which Holness described as a threat to regional security. How much weight Holness and other Caribbean leaders' views on Haiti carry with the Trump administration remains to be seen. But Rubio, recognizing that the current multinational security mission led by Kenya is not large enough to take on heavily armed gangs, is trying to drum up support in the region for funding that would allow the mission to expand. In a separate discussion about Haiti on Wednesday sponsored by the World Bank, former Jamaica Prime Minister Bruce Golding said said the head of the mission recently also told him and two other former Caribbean prime ministers that he needs an additional 1,500 officers to be effective against gangs. Golding said he believes that number, which would put the force at 2,500, is still too low. He acknowledged that funding remains a challenge to put in place 'an effective force, an overwhelming force' needed to defeat the gangs. Golding said a former member of the Haiti's ruling nine-member Transitional Presidential Council, which the Caribbean Community had helped create last year, had complained that CARICOM's involvement bordered on interference. Golding's revelations underscore the challenges that an association of Caribbean elder statesmen known as the Eminent Persons Group, formed to help Haiti, has been facing. On Wednesday morning four Democratic members of Congress sent a letter to Rubio urging him to prioritize the ongoing humanitarian and security crisis in Haiti during his visit to the Caribbean, which also includes stops Thursday in Guyana and Suriname. 'With violent gangs causing unimaginable human suffering in Haiti, and spillover impacts for regional stability and on Haitian-American communities, the United States simply cannot afford to pass up the opportunity to advance region-wide support for a Haitian-led solution to the current crisis,' the letter said. It's signed by Reps. Gregory Meeks of New York and Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick of Florida, and Sens. Jeanne Shaheen of Missouri and Cory Booker of New Jersey. The four lawmakers specifically mentioned the recent cuts to U.S. funding, including the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development. They called the aid cuts 'a gift to the violent gangs who have exploited the country's political instability since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in 2021. 'We urge you to use this trip to the Caribbean to outline how the United States, and the State Department you lead, will galvanize the international community to allocate the necessary resources to stop the gangs and their elite enablers, and to help alleviate the human suffering in Haiti,' the lawmakers wrote. 'The United States cannot sit on the sidelines of a crisis of this magnitude in our own region. Failure to act risks furthering the humanitarian crisis to the point where gangs control the entire capital, and the United States, along with its partners in the region, are responding to a mass migration event.' The U.S. has been the main benefactor of the Kenya-led security mission. The Biden administration provided more than $600 million. Though the State Department has provided more than $40 million in waivers amid ongoing U.S. foreign aid freezes, it is unclear whether the Trump administration will continue funding the lion's share when the mission comes up for renewal in October. No Haiti policy The Trump administration doesn't have a clear foreign policy on Haiti, even as it ends immigration protections as of April 24 for more than 200,000 Haitians who were paroled into the U.S. under humanitarian benefits during the Biden administration. Last month, United Nations Secretary General António Guterres ruled out transitioning the struggling Kenyan mission into an official U.N. peacekeeping mission and instead called for beefing up the current mission and using some of the U.N.'s budget to support salaries. The U.S. has yet to publicly weigh in on the proposal. In a preview of the visit, Maurcio Claver-Carone, the administration's envoy for Latin America and the Caribbean, told journalists on Tuesday that the administration is working on a new security strategy for Haiti but did not go into details. Rubio's trip, he said, was geared partly toward hearing the views 'of our neighbors and our allies in the Caribbean in order to see what they believe is possible and how they can chip in and how they could work with us.' Ongoing gang attacks
Yahoo
26-03-2025
- Yahoo
Kenyan mission in Haiti says one of its cops is missing. Gang videos show lifeless body
Another member of the international armed forced tasked with combating criminal gangs in Haiti has been killed after gangs on Tuesday ambushed three armored vehicles and set fire to them. The Kenya-led Multinational Security Support mission confirmed in a press statement that one of its police officers was missing, and efforts were under way to locate him. But soon after, the body of a lifeless police officer lying on dirt while dressed in camouflage and being physically assaulted by armed gang members began popping up in WhatsApp message groups. Gang members also shared videos celebrating the burning of armored vehicles belonging to the Kenyans. A third vehicle that was set ablaze belonged to the Haiti National Police. The death of the Kenyan policeman, if confirmed, would mark the second time an officer with the security support team has been killed in Haiti since the force began deploying in June. Earlier this month, the body of Samuel Tompoi Kaetuai, a father of two who was newly married, arrived in Kenya after he was killed in Haiti last month during an operation against the same Gran Grief gang in the Artibonite region responsible for Tuesday's violence. A Haiti National police source said the agency was still trying to sort out the details of the day's events, which involved violent clashes with the Gran Grif gang throughout the day in the area of Petite Rivière de l'Artibonite. The attack in the Artibonite region comes amid an ongoing siege of Port-au-Prince by members of a powerful gang coalition. On Tuesday, gangs perched themselves in a community called Clemenceau about 17 minutes from another rural hamlet, Belot, in the mountains of Kenscoff above the capital. They were planning to launch attacks against the remaining areas they do not control on two fronts from downtown and from the mountains, a source said. The continuing attacks have been accompanied by the burning of buildings and a rise in kidnappings, with gang suspected of abducting people to use as human shields against police drone attacks. Since last month, a government task force has been using explosive drones to target gang strongholds. While the drones have yet to take out any key gang leaders, they have put gangs on the defensive. The statement from the Kenyan-led security mission said the incident invoving its officer happened at around 4: 30 p.m. A Haiti National Police armored vehicle was patrolling the main Carrefour Paye-Savien road in the Pont-Sondé area of the Artibonite region when it became stuck in a ditch suspected of having been intentionally dug by gangs to trap vehicles, the mission said. In response, two Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, or MRAPS, operated by Kenyan police officers, were dispatched from Pont-Sondé to assist in the recovery. 'Unfortunately, during the rescue operation, one of the MRAPs also became stuck, while the other suffered a mechanical failure. As rescue teams attempted to manage the situation, suspected gang members, hiding in ambush, launched an attack,' the release said. 'Following this incident, an officer from the Kenyan contingent of the MSS remains missing. Specialized teams have been deployed to conduct a search and determine his location.' The mission has struggled to make inroads against gangs, while at the same time facing funding constraints as well as a lack of officers and equipment. The U.S. State Department said on Wednesday that Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who will meet with several Caribbean leaders in Jamaica, spoke with Kenya President William Ruto on Tuesday ahead of the meeting. Ruto said on X that Rubio 'reaffirmed the strong U.S. support for the Kenya-led effort to stabilize Haiti.' Rubio will discuss the dire situation in Haiti with the head of Haiti's Presidential Transitional Council, Fritz Alphonse Jean, in Kingston as well as with other Caribbean leaders. 'We all know and we share the deep commitment to tackling this challenge in Haiti,' Mauricio Claver-Carone, Trump's envoy for Latin America and the Caribbean, said Tuesday in a preview of Rubio's visit for journalists. 'The secretary is obviously very familiar with the challenges posed there. It's an intricate part of the community that the secretary comes from, and obviously something we've been dealing with for a long time; and look to work with our Caribbean neighbors in handling that particular challenge in this regards.'
