ARTICLE - MARTELLY VISITS CIMO HQ

PRESIDENT MARTELLY VISITED THE HQ OF CIMO
(Haiti Libre) -

President Michel Martelly, paid a visit, this Monday, March 12, 2012, to the agents of the Corps of Intervention and Maintenance of Order (CIMO), whose headquarters is located opposite the National Palace. The Head of State had a fruitful meeting with the head of this specialized unit of the National Police of Haiti (PNH), Commander Jean Bazelaire Dornélus, on the conditions under which evolve the agents of this force of order.

President Martelly, .... during the visit has promised to accompany and supervise the CIMO, devoid of adequate means to enable its agents, to fully assume their role of keeping order in the country.

"...I came to see firsthand the conditions under which the police are working ... CIMO works in a cracked building, where any shock may cause loss of life... I think it is serious! CIMO lacks staff, and the means;... the body can not meet its mission of maintaining order... There are not logistics. If there are problems now in an area of the country, and they must send garrisons, they have no vehicle for that. We can not lie to ourselves; we have a police force with a staff sometimes, which has even problems of food... A person who does not eat, how will he do in the heart of the action? What will be his state of mind? This is a profession that is the most risky, because you have a uniform, and serve as targets for bandits [...] and despite everything, you always keep the morale [...] Say what you want, in a country where the police earns badly, and who have not the means to work, the police would have the right to let go, and not to give the best of themselves.

We need to strengthen the CIMO. We can not say that the body is in bad faith. But, it is important to seek the cause that makes it that we don't have he service we want. Sometimes, there are vehicles that do not have spare parts [...] other times, the body needs tear gas or water, which it does not have... so the body becomes dysfunctional, because it does not have the equipment to work...

Canada particularly, the United States and France are in favor of a strengthening of the police, so while I'm discussing problems that can be described as simple, but which are a priority and urgent with the Commander, I inform you that I called the Canadian and French Ambassadors, so that we can do a tour together, in order to see exactly the conditions under which our officers live [...] there is work to do, and I promised to the CIMO and DDO that we will revisit them before the end of this week with the Ambassadors,.... to identify specific things that must be done to strengthen the police, and to give it the means to intervene [...] We will also talk to our Minister of Finance, to see what funding he has, which means he has to equip this force, and also think of the wages that the police receive each month. An agent 1, earns 15,000 gourds... We are a poor country, that's true, but with 15,000 what can be done [...]?"