(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) A meeting on Contingent Rights opened at the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat in Georgetown with the observance of a moment’s silence for those who have died in the powerful earthquake in CARICOM Member State, Haiti.

Ambassador Lolita Applewhaite, CARICOM Deputy Secretary-General who led delegates in Georgetown, and in Kingston, Jamaica via videoconferencing in observing the moment of silence also urged them to continue to keep the people of Haiti in their private thoughts and prayers.

The earthquake, with a magnitude of 7.3, struck on Tuesday about 10 miles from Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, flattening buildings and claiming the lives of thousands of persons.

Ambassador Applewhaite also read a brief statement from H.E. Edwin Carrington, CARICOM Secretary-General who was in the Dominican Republic attending a consultation on Haiti. The Hon Roosevelt Skerrit, Prime Minister of Dominica and Chairman of the Community, the Hon. Patrick Manning, Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, the Hon. Bruce Golding. Prime Minister of Jamaica, the Hon David Thompson, Prime Minister of Barbados, and the Hon Hubert Ingraham, Prime Minister of the Bahamas, are at that meeting hosted by H.E. Leonel Fernandez, President of the Dominican Republic.

CONTACT: piu@caricom.org