By Keile Campbell

Journal Staff Writer

Leader of the Coalition of Independents (COI) Lincoln Bain professed that sending 150 Bahamian personnel to assist with peace-keeping efforts in Haiti is a fruitless endeavor.

His comments came earlier this week as he spoke to the media outside the governor general’s office as the party went to file for a commission of inquiry concerning the Davis administration’s handling of the immigration crisis.

“I have personal experience in Haiti, I started to go to Haiti to volunteer after the earthquake. I was the first Bahamian to land in Haiti, chartering a plane and sending aid there, and I spent a lot of time living in Haiti. Now, based on my knowledge of Haiti, sending 150 troops will do nothing for Haiti. The U.N. and all of their military forces have not been able to do anything for Haiti. Haiti has a particular culture that has to be dealt with internally. The gang war going on is an election culture that they have. Gangs control neighborhoods, after the neighborhoods are controlled, everyone in the neighborhood is supposed to vote for whatever gang is in control, and this is happening because an election is eminent. This is the culture of Haiti and it happens every time,” the leader of the COI said.

“It has never been this vast. It has never been this serious before. It’s never gotten so hard, but now the gangs are more powerful than they were in previous years and that’s why this is happening.”

He suggested that the role The Bahamas should contribute to the issue in Haiti is that of diplomacy, ensuring that proper elections are able to be held, otherwise, The Bahamas should not interfere.

“We should secure our borders to make sure that those persons are not able to flood into the Bahamas. Why is this a problem? I am a person with police experience and I am telling you that this is not just a humanitarian situation, this is an organized crime situation. There is smuggling of people, guns and drugs going on right now, using this situation as an excuse. These criminal gangs are now in The Bahamas getting emboldened. They’re in Abaco buying properties. They are setting themselves up in The Bahamas and they are even overtaking our local Bahamian gangs,” Mr. Bain said.

“This is a serious problem that is beyond the humanitarian side that they’re trying to make you focus on. If these dangerous people are allowed to come into our country, which they are, how are we gonna defend ourselves?”

Mr. Bain called the sending of personnel “out of order”, while he insisted that those manpower resources would be better served at home securing our own borders.

He proclaimed that Minister of Immigration Keith Bell admitted that there is nothing The Bahamas can do to secure its borders, while he further questioned the logic behind sending Bahamians to Haiti when the country needs the full capacity of its enforcement personnel rather than putting them at risk.