NY Caribbean Institute Calls For Haitians Injured In Quake To Be Medevaced To Caricom States

Submitted by Caribbean Guyana Institute for Democracy

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK: The President of the New York based Caribbean Guyana Institute for Democracy, Rickford Burke, on Friday called on the United Nations (UN), US State Department, Organization of American States (OAS) and the Caribbean Community (Caricom), “to evacuate Haitians who have been injured in Tuesday’s devastating 7.0 earthquake to sister Caribbean States in the region for medical treatment, so as to avert further humanitarian catastrophe and to free-up resources and congestion in Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital.”

Burke specifically called on Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrits of the neighboring Island of Dominica and Prime Minister Bruce Golding of Jamaica,  to “step up and help the Haitian people in this hour of crisis, and allow some of the wounded to be treated in their country.” He also endorsed a call for some injured Haitians as well as some who would become refugees, to be temporarily resettled in the South American sister Caricom State of Guyana, located along the Atlantic Ocean.

Burke said that “Guyana is a country that is 83,000 square miles large with a population of only 650,000, who are mainly concentrated along the Atlantic coastline, occupying only about 40% of the country.” Noting that “More Guyanese live outside of Guyana, with approximately one million living in North America and the Caribbean alone, he observed that with about 60% of Guyana uninhabited, that country can easily accommodate a large number Haitians, and that the international community will be obligated to help the Guyana government manage that process.

Guyana, which is 1326.91 miles from Haiti, is the only English-speaking South American State and is a member of Caricom. Caricom is headquartered in its capital city Georgetown. The former British colony is bordered by Suriname – also a Caricom State, Brazil and Venezuela. Trinidad and Tobago is its closest neighbor in the Caribbean.

Burke contended that the “Under the status quo ante, the Haitian health care system was extremely primitive and fragile and that that fragile system along with the physical infrastructure in Haiti are now in ruins and fundamentally lack the capacity to cope with possibly hundred of thousands of sick and wounded and the magnitude of the disaster and relief effort. Guyanese-American leader criticized Caricom countries for not offering to have the wounded medevaced to their States.

In an urgent letter to Former US President and UN Special Envoy to Haiti, Bill Clinton, State Department Counselor Cheryl Mills, Caricom Secretary General, Edwin Carrington and OAS Secretary, General José Miguel Insulza, the Institute’s head suggested that the three meet urgently with Caricom Leaders to discuss the issue, as “Time is of the essence and the images of the injured being either ignored or treated in hospital compounds, on roadsides and on floors are heart-wrenching.” He added that “Obviously the injured cannot receive acceptable medical care in Port-au-Prince and that medical personnel arriving in the city are already overwhelmed.”

“The lack of action is regrettable. There is absolutely no reason why neighboring Caribbean States cannot become staging areas for the sick and wounded on a larger, well coordinated scale, so as to free up the congestion of relief personnel, medical and other resources being currently flown directly into Haiti, which does not have the capacity or infrastructure at this point to facilitate such a huge, simultaneous recovery, humanitarian, relief and medical effort” Burke observed.

He expressed condolences to and solidarity with the Haitian people and said his organization is working with Haitian-American leaders to mobilize additional humanitarian and financial recourses for the relief effort.

The CGID President commended the Obama Administration for its swift response to the crisis in Haiti and praised US President Barrack Obama for pledging 100 million US dollars to help rebuild Haiti and for tasking former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush to help mobilize resources to help Haiti.