The Government says Jamaica’s security apparatus has been galvanised and monitoring heightened as part of a blockade against any of the more than 4,000 Haitian prison escapees making their way here.

National Security Minister Dr Horace Chang gave the assurance on Tuesday after the police academy in Haiti’s capital came under attack by armed gangsters on the same day that gangsters also attempted to take over Toussaint Louverture International Airport.

Tuesday’s attacks followed assaults on Haiti’s National Penitentiary on Saturday in which gangsters released all but 98 of the 3,798 inmates and 1,033 from the Croix-des-Bouquets prison.

The escalating violence resulted in the Haitian Government declaring a state of emergency and a night-time curfew, which has been extended through Wednesday.

“As you are aware, they have gangs in Haiti with connections here, so that’s an issue; that’s where we have to keep our intelligence ears wide open, those who are locally connected and what’s happening in Haiti and watch our borders closely,” Chang told the Jamaica Observer.

“We are fairly focused on them… We have intensified patrols on the east coast
— Port Antonio, Portland, and St Thomas
— but we also have to reach out to those we have in Haiti, our connections that we have, as well as other jurisdictions operating there to maintain a watch on what’s happening,” he added.

“We are monitoring the situation very closely to prevent a flood of individuals coming here,” Chang said.

He added that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs continues to work with Caricom “to see if we can restore a level of stability”.

Dr Chang’s assurances came as security and intelligence consultant Robert Finzi-Smith chastised the Administration for being slow on the draw.

“We should have started already; if we are just starting now it’s too late. They are gangs with military expertise. They are not just miscreants; we are talking about trained insurgents. If they land in Portland and start to spread out, it’s over,” he told the Observer.

Finzi-Smith, who has more than 40 years’ experience in security and investigation spanning military and the private sector, is of the opinion that Jamaica should resurrect a key alliance with the United States to boost border security.

“I made a suggestion some time ago, and I don’t know if anybody heard me, but maybe they will hear me this time. We had a long-standing acquaintance with the United States as per Vernamfield, which was a United States airbase in World War II. It is almost the thickest airport runway in the island, it has bunkers underneath. If we offered the United States a reacquaintance where Vernamfield is concerned, they wouldn’t hesitate,” Finzi-Smith posited.

Vernamfield in Clarendon, was reportedly being run by the United States Air Force as a destination for long-range Strategic Air Command fighter escort aircraft. It was closed in May 1949 due to budget cuts.

“Cubans have a saying, ‘one hand wash the other, but you need both of them to wash your face’, so it would suit us to offer the United States the facility in return for their assisting in patrolling our waters. We would stop guns coming in and stop those with wrong intentions coming in or going out,” Finzi-Smith argued.

“This Haiti business has way passed the diplomacy situation. It’s late for knee-jerk reaction, but it’s not too late to plan for what is almost guaranteed to happen. What I am telling you is not ‘it could happen’, what I am telling you is that, if we don’t watch out, it will happen,” Finzi-Smith warned.

Referencing deceased Montego Bay-based gangster Omar “King Evil” Lewis
— the storied architect of the Jamaica-Haiti drugs-for-guns trade
— Finzi-Smith said the “long-standing association between the two countries in that regard cannot be ignored.

“You have people who, without the benefit of Customs, come and go through Haiti any time they feel like. We keep talking about Cuba being 90 miles away from us, Haiti not far. We have fishermen out there going to the cays and all of that; it takes nothing to go there with a fast enough canoe or speedboat. We need to increase our patrols. We have gotten some new aircraft that can do surveillance, one of them can fly as far as Trinidad and Tobago and come back without refuelling; use it and start getting ‘jiggy’,” Finzi-Smith advised.

In the meantime, the Royal Bahamas Defence Force (RBDF) on Tuesday said it will be creating a blockade in southern Bahamas, given the escapes.

“We are now taking steps to blockade the south-eastern Bahamas using aerial and multiple surface assets. We intend to do so in tandem with our regional partners, OPBAT (Operation Bahamas, Turks and Caicos), the United States Coast Guard and the Cuban Boarder Patrol through information and intelligence sharing,” said RBDF Commodore Dr Raymond King.

He said Bahamian officials are concerned that some of the escaped inmates or others may attempt to flee Haiti and head north.

On Monday, United Nations Secretary General Antonio Gueterres said he was “deeply concerned by the rapidly deteriorating security situation” in Haiti.

The latest violence followed the evacuation of thousands of residents from the capital Port-au-Prince, with the United Nations and Washington reiterating their concerns over the crisis as armed groups announced a coordinated assault to oust Prime Minister Ariel Henry.

The attack on the academy, where more than 800 cadets are in training, was repelled after the arrival of reinforcements, said Lionel Lazarre of the Haitian police union.

On Tuesday the Dominican Republic, which shares the Caribbean island of Hispaniola with Haiti, said it was halting all flights to Haiti.

Gangs controlling large swaths of Haiti have wreaked havoc for months, with coordinated attacks on strategic sites growing since last week.

They say they want to overthrow Henry, who was out of the country over the weekend in Kenya, where he was pushing for the rapid deployment of a UN-backed multinational police mission to help stabilise his country.

Lack of security at the Port-au-Prince airport has prevented Henry’s return home as of Tuesday, according to local media Radio Tele Metronome.

In power since the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise, Henry had been due to step down in February but instead agreed to a power-sharing deal with the Opposition until new elections are held.

Meanwhile the UN Security Council has scheduled a closed-door meeting Wednesday to discuss the crisis. Maria Isabel Salvador, the UN representative in Haiti, will brief the council remotely.

Late Tuesday evening news reports emerged that Prime Minister Henry had arrived in Puerto Rico.