CLEARER PICTURE: CARICOM leaders get first hand view of destruction in Haiti

KINGSTON, Jamaica, CMC – Caribbean Community (CARICOM) leaders who have been given a clearer picture of the devastation in Haiti caused by Tuesday’s powerful earthquake, will outline the region’s response to the French speaking CARICOM country at a news conference in Jamaica on Friday.

Prime Minister Bruce Golding returned home on Thursday night after leading a team to the devastated country earlier during the day.

The delegation included the Leader of the Opposition, Portia Simpson Miller.

Golding said he has already held discussions with various Caribbean leaders in a bid to co-ordinate a regional approach to assistance.

During his brief stay in Port-au-Prince, Golding held discussions with Haitian President, Rene Preval, regarding relief assistance which could be extended by Jamaica, and the input which could be provided by the wider CARICOM, of which Haiti is a member.

Golding returned home just ahead of a CARICOM delegation headed by the Dominica Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit, the current CARICOM Chairman, Barbados Prime Minister David Thompson and Secretary General, Edwin Carrington.

The other members of the delegation included the head of the Caribbean Disaster and Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA), Jeremy Collymore, the Chief of Staff of the Barbados Defence Force, Colonel Alvin Quentin; Co-ordinator, of the Regional Security System, Grantley Watson and  the  Vice President of the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), Desmond Brunton.

The delegation met with Prime Minister Golding and a Jamaica House spokesperson told reporters that the Prime Minister briefed the delegation on his visit, his findings, and his meeting with President Preval and discussed additional assistance to Haiti.

Haiti was hit by a powerful earthquake on Tuesday that measured 7.3 on the Richter Scale causing widespread death and destruction. The  regional and international community is providing assistance to the hemisphere’s poorest nation.