The leaders of the region all seem to be appalled with the murder statistics across the Caribbean. There were several suggestions on how to handle criminals. St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves questioned giving bail to persons charged with murder.

There seems to be no interest in stopping the guns’

Holness rallies regional leaders to press US for action on illegal arms trade

18 Apr 2023

PRIME MINISTER Andrew Holness said that the Caribbean region as a collective group must agree that greater resources must be placed on international security in the police services “into our ability to gather intelligence and interdict and prosecute [criminals]”.

He was speaking on Monday during a twoday regional symposium on violence attended by Caribbean Community (CARICOM) leaders in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad.

“But we must also consolidate our efforts to lobby particularly the United States to assist us as we have assisted them in the war on drugs. They must assist us in the war on guns,” Holness said.

He described the present situation as “the greatest unfairness that we have diverted resources from other areas in which we could have spent it to fund and support a war on drugs ... . There seems to be no interest in stopping the other part of the trade, which are the guns. The guns fuel crime, they are an accelerant, they are needed to protect drugs that are transshipped to our borders. They are then turned to deal with other forms of criminal activity,” said the prime minister.

Holness said that in the case of Jamaica, the weapon of choice is no longer the Russian-made AK-47, but the AR-15 and the Glock, which are guns manufactured in North America.

“So collectively, as the leaders of CARICOM, we must raise our voice on this. We must appeal to our friends in the North to increase their efforts to prevent the flow of guns into the region,” Holness said, although he added that CARICOM nations could not negate their own responsibility in protecting their own ports of entry.

Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley on Monday called for concrete recommendations to be adopted at the end of a two-day symposium today.

She said it would be “an injustice” if delegates left without adopting decisions to be implemented across the region.

“We need the CARICOM arrest warrant. We need to have the exchange and rotation of judges ... . We need to have an enlargement of the jurisdiction of magistrates. We need cooperation on forensics and we need to ... deconstruct all the rules in our police service and reconstruct them,” Mottley said.

Mottley, an attorney, noted that many years ago “people did not get bail for murder.

“Now when I look at the stats, not just out of The Bahamas, Barbados and all through the region, the people who are causing the greatest problems are charged with two, three, four murders. Something is fundamentally wrong.”

She also questioned why the region is not involved in “proactive prosecutions rather than reactive prosecutions”, noting that 90 per cent of the prosecutions in the Caribbean are as a result of a crime perceived of having been committed as opposed “to people systemically going after people in a structured way”.

She agreed with sentiments that t he United States had “no moral authority” to speak out on gun-related violence.

PUSH FOR DEATH PENALTY

St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves urged CARICOM countries to use the death penalty as a deterrent to murders, saying they should not be afraid of the European Union withholding financial assistance to the region as a result.

In 1983, the Council of Europe adopted the first legally binding instrument providing for the unconditional abolition of the death penalty in peacetime, which is Protocol No. 6 to the European Convention on Human Rights. This text is currently ratified by all 46 member states.

Germany, for example, is against capital punishment under any circumstances and, together with partners around the world, is resolutely campaigning for its abolition.

Gonsalves, a Roman Catholic, who said both his mother and the Pope were wrong in denouncing the use of the death penalty as a deterrent to murder, insisted that it should be used for murder.

“I know the Europeans do not like that. They had it for a long time and they may not want to give aid to bring it back and so on and so forth. But I am satisfied, being a legal practitioner for many years, that most of the people who do killings are cowards. Never mind this macho thing which they present. They are absolute cowards,” Gonsalves said.

Gonsalves also noted that “too many of our judges and our magistrates are too soft”.

Gonsalves, the longest-serving head of government in the

15-member bloc, said Caribbean countries have “put a lot of resources into the police, into crime fighting, into the judiciary ... and more money ought to be put as we have to do some of the things regionally and we have to update our laws, making sure that when we update our laws, [they] are reasonably required ... and justifiable in a democratic society.

“I am not calling for any totalitarian measure. I am not calling for that. But there is in aspects of our judiciary – a creeping lack of awareness as to some of the problems which we face.

“How can you give somebody who is charged for murder bail? Let’s be serious. How can you do that?” Gonsalves asked, adding, “Where those judges live? On Mars?”

He said he is hoping that the symposium would be the stepping stone for the establishment of a comprehensive set of packages to deal with the crime situation, hoping also for “an action plan with things which we can do regionally, things we have to do nationally”.

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