Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley, who leads Caricom’s crime and security committee, said efforts are on to make gun violence a terrorist offense to address the growing gang violence in the area.
Dr. Rowley made the following announcement during the 48th Regular Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government in Barbados’ concluding press conference last night: “We agreed that notwithstanding social considerations, we agreed that the changing nature of crime is such that actions and acts of violence in the public space in certain instances must now be regarded as acts of terrorism.”
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The prime minister of T&T aimed to clarify the necessity of the proposed legislation, which he expects to be prepared in the upcoming months.
PM Rowley noted, “We are talking here now about indiscriminate shooting in a public place where the perpetrators endanger all and sundry. We believe in order to address that, the legislation needs to be cognizant of what exactly we are dealing with now as against what the existing legislation anticipated and to that end, Heads sourced and obtained the services of a former AG of Belize Godfrey Smith, who has been tasked to review our legislative templates and to come up with new legislative proposals for consideration by the heads for changes to be made on the legislative side to treat with what are experiencing as opposed to what we are surprised by.”
He continued, “We also expect that these acts, using the tools of the trade of the criminals at large in our communities from Bahamas to Suriname, St Lucia to Trinidad and Tobago, that they are deemed to be acts of terrorism and allow us to view them not only by the executive but also by our judiciary and fashion the appropriate legislation to do that.”
Guardian Media, however, attempted to draw attention to the fact that previous attempts to declare crime a public health emergency and Caricom’s declaration of an assault weapon prohibition had not succeeded in stopping gang violence in the area, specifically in T&T.
Dr. Rowley was asked how characterizing it as an act of terror would be any different, the T&T Prime Minister explains, “What we are saying here is the actions themselves, because they endanger people indiscriminately, that is what makes them acts of terror and then we need to craft our legislation to take that into account to strengthen law enforcement and also to assist the judiciary in treating with acts of that nature because they are such a substantial threat. So, it’s not the law we have in hand now but what we will review, modify and present going forward.”
Prime Minister Andrew Holness of Jamaica also attempted to respond to the inquiry, highlighting the fact that other nations may follow Haiti’s example if the recent wave of gang violence is viewed as routine criminal activity.
Holness stated, “I only need to point to the situation that exists in Haiti and to just turn slightly from that to what we are seeing emerging in other Caricom countries with gangs that are arming themselves deliberately, stockpiling weapons, seeking to capture communities and to corrupt public officials. That should not be considered ordinary criminality, that is a threat to the state and Caribbean nations must face that squarely and call it what it is, these are acts of terror.”
He added, “And they are often times transnational. Criminals in Trinidad may have links to criminals in Jamaica, certainly the criminals in Haiti are transporting guns to Jamaica and possibly likewise. Certainly, criminals in Miami, some of them, our nationals are illegally trafficking weapons to Kingston.”
Caricom head and Barbados PM Mia Mottley discussed the differences in this strategy.
“One of the things we are distinguishing ourselves from previous meetings on is the commitment through the George-Bridge Declaration to work together but also to repurpose existing regional institutions to strengthen them at this very time, when the possibility of other states being put significantly at risk in terms of their existence and viability is immediate. As Andrew (Holness) said, we have the example of Haiti and we are committed that in the context of a community such as this, there has to be coordinated approaches to intelligence and in some instances, we may have well have to consider how at a functional level, we go beyond supporting each other.”
PM Mottley stated, “This is not something we wanted to do but it is imperative now.”
Additionally, Dr. Rowley declared that Caricom has consented to designate a representative of high-level law and criminal justice to develop a strategy plan for modernizing the region’s criminal justice system.
