MORE AND MORE LIKE HAITI…

DELMAS is an inner city community off Port-au-Prince, Haiti, just like Harpe Place, Port of Spain, but much larger.

There is much creativity, although nothing like Renegades, our 13-time Panorama winner.

In a land without a single elected official, Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier runs the town – Delmas, the rest of Port-au-Prince, and most of the 11.5 million country.

Barbecue recently ordered the blocking of roads to and from Delmas, similar to what briefly happened at Harpe Place.

He also facilitated the shutdown and looting of the city’s port and other installations and opening of prisons to free thousands of inmates.

He was displaying strength and impatience over a transitional team after the resignation of disliked Acting Prime Minister Ariel Henry.

Barbecue and other gang lords have turned Haiti into what CNN terms “a post-apocalyptic” land, with chaotic gang warfare, lack of law and order, and ruin and devastation.

In the weekend in which 11 people were murdered in Trinidad and Tobago, 14 corpses were counted on Port-au-Prince streets.

Henry’s presence in Haiti would lead to genocide, Barbecue warned.

By the way, Trinidad and Tobago and other Caricom leaders embraced Henry at a three-day conference in Port of Spain last July.

They issued another of their pretentious statements – sound and fury signifying nothing.

But they made no diplomatic outreach to create an international coalition toward social peace in the ravaged land.

It was Kenya – 7,600 miles away – that moved to send 1,000 police officers to the strife-torn country.

Caricom duly jumped on the wagon when the United States, fearing a flight of more illegal migrants, summoned a meeting and offered support.

But Barbecue and his armed gangsters are the only authority figures in Haiti, with strategic control of police stations, airports, and other vital facilities.

A United Nations official on the ground said he fears “it is a lost battle… total chaos.”

Increasingly, the narratives from Port of Spain and Port-au-Prince are disturbingly similar.

Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley, National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds and Police Commission Erla Christopher made vapid statements after the Harpe Place mayhem.

In a bizarre comment, Hinds wondered about the absence of outrage by residents.

The security triumvirate sounded as feeble and ineffective as Haiti’s Henry.

There were no announcements of refocused anti-crime measures to tame the rampant lawlessness.

No one knows about the allocation of the $100 million recently announced for police and army reservists.

And, of course, they took no responsibility for the ceaseless flow of blood.

Never mind that the authorities were warned a decade ago by a high-powered official team, headed by Professor Selwyn Ryan, that crime is “a dagger pointed at the soft underbelly of the capital city.”

Do “whatever is necessary” to silence the guns, the Ryan team of experts urged.

They provided a road map that included compulsory national service, customised schooling, cultural programmes, and more.

It would be “irresponsible and negligent” to ignore the inner city crime crisis, the authorities were told.

Since then, Rowley has appointed his own team to undertake a similar study, and not a single recommendation has been put into effect.

In the meantime, our security landscape increasingly resembles that of crime-riddled Haiti.