Minister of Defense Jean Rodolphe Joazile [file]

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (defend.ht) – The Minister of Defense declared with firm conviction that Haiti will soon form its own armed forces. He predicts that it will happen before the end of President Michel Martelly’s term.

Minister Jean Rodolphe Joazile explains that this obligation will finally occur because they have support from countries like Brazil, Uruguay, France, and Ecuador where the first recruits will originate.

Those hopefuls are individuals with different backgrounds that are expected to arrive in Haiti in the fall.

Joazile counts 50 of them, among them, 10 engineers, that are currently being trained in Ecuador. They are expected to resume the work of the Ecuadorians once they (Ecuadorians) leave their base located in Petite-Riviere, Artibonite.

Enthused, the minister talks about the promising prospects of this project: “the reinstatement of a defense portal has always been one of the objectives of the president. It is after all one of the promises made during the campaign and the president intends to keep it,” states Joazile. He feels confident that this is the right time for this mission to evolve.

Minister Joazile, a former soldier of the Armed Forces of Haiti, assigns very little importance to labels when it comes to identifying what kind of service will be established in Haiti. He explains that the debate about whether it would be an army or a “gendarmerie” is ultimately impractical because the “focus should not be on what got us there; the fact that we made it should be enough because the goal is to take control of Haiti,” said Joazile fervently.

According to the former Senator of the Nord-Est, what is significant is that there will be a new force defending and protecting Haiti and its people. He stresses that Haiti is extremely vulnerable and fragile so we [Haitians] need to reprioritize and take the time to put things in perspective so that we don’t make the same mistakes again.