Concerned by the extensive powers enjoyed by the Prime Minister, the major political and civil society opposition parties had proposed a governance framework closer to the intent and spirit of the constitution by proposing the formation of a presidential college along with a Prime Minister. They had also underlined the importance of confidence-building measures. To better supplement their position, they had coalesced and signed at the end of the meeting in Jamaica the Joint Declaration of Kingston.
During this visit, in addition to engagements with the Prime Minister and key political and civil society stakeholders, the EPG met with representatives of the business community and a group of persons with expertise in security, human rights and marginalised social groups whose insights were helpful.
Aware that the mediation effort would take time, the EPG placed emphasis on discussing process in order to put in place a mechanism that would facilitate progress taking into account the inherent difficulties of negotiations involving a large number of protagonists. The objective was attained to some extent. The principle of reducing the negotiating group of government, opposition and civil society representatives to manageable size was more or less accepted, awaiting the outcome of internal consultations by one of the three groups on a revised Draft Process Protocol. Progress was also made in reducing the items for negotiation. Other positives related to broad agreement on the issue of enlarging the High Transition Council and greater cohesion on security, the issue being not the need for security assistance but what form it should take.
The EPG recommended that talks between the various groups which had taken place since the Jamaica meeting should continue in order to help narrow the differences between the protagonists. It also advocated the importance of trust-building by the government. The EPG informed it would return to Haiti in the coming weeks to renew its facilitation efforts.
The heavy lifting to clear the afflictions of Haiti must be led and done mainly by the Haitians themselves with some assistance from outside.
God helps those who help themselves.
This is the most empty release I have seen. The elephant in the room is the 11.65 million population that mostly live in poverty. When you have such a large segment of your population on constant survival mode all the survival instincts are on steroids and commonsense amongst the competition is non existent. It is not going to fix overnight and will involve deeper Caribbean integration and revolutionary thinking. I say Guyana is underpopulated and with the discovery of crude oil has the geography and potential economics to ease issues in Haiti. That is a lecture by itself. Unless there is a longterm vision to ease the negative impacts of the population pressure and the improve the availability ability to gain economic independence nothing will change. The poverty gradient is too steep and that means constant social instability.
Just another talking shop I’m afraid. While this was taking place the chairman of Caricom, Roosevelt Skerrit was with the E.U. In Brussels so I guess he does not consider himself one of the Caricom eminent persons. So what is the purpose of Caricom then? Sorry if I’m cynical but the facts show that this is a fair observation and question.