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PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

pe­ter.christo­pher@guardian.co.tt

The re­cent truce by ri­val gangs may en­cour­age Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith to con­sid­er a gun amnesty if the gangs are se­ri­ous about peace.

Dur­ing a press con­fer­ence at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, Grif­fith of­fered a po­ten­tial amnesty if the truce an­nounced by ri­val gangs is tru­ly for the bet­ter. He said hav­ing seen the video of gang mem­bers meet­ing up in East Port-of-Spain over the week­end, he wel­comed such news.

“This is ex­cel­lent news, if it means that per­sons who have been in­volved in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty that have been in­stru­men­tal in and been the cat­a­lyst for the ma­jor­i­ty of the 5,000 mur­ders in the last decade and they de­cide to say ‘let us form a truce’ be­cause we want peace,” Grif­fith said.

How­ev­er, he said he hoped the gang mem­bers would take it a step fur­ther.

“And with this now, as the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, I want to help you with that truce since you are telling the whole coun­try that there’s a truce and you need peace. I am pro­vid­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ty for you to hand in all your firearms be­cause as gang mem­bers who want to have a truce, I would ex­pect that what you will do now is to give up all your firearms and then work to help­ing this coun­try,” said Grif­fith.

“If they have formed a truce and say they want peace, and with this as Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice I in­tend to help you with that truce. I am pro­vid­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ty for you to hand in all your firearms. As gang mem­bers and you want to have a truce, I ex­pect that you will do now if give up all your firearms and then work to help this coun­try.

A truce can­not be cos­met­ic that you high- five gang lead­ers with oth­ers, and then you have firearms.

“If you are speak­ing about a truce and you want to bring peace, then bring the items of war that you have used to kill many in­no­cent per­sons in this coun­try over the last decade.”

The ac­tiv­i­ty of the Port-of-Spain-based gangs came un­der fur­ther scruti­ny last week when they re­port­ed­ly unit­ed to tar­get po­lice of­fi­cers at the height of protests over the po­lice-in­volved killings of Mor­vant res­i­dents, Joel Ja­cobs, Is­rael Moses Clin­ton and Noel Di­a­mond were killed in Sec­ond Cale­do­nia, Mor­vant. The car of a po­lice of­fi­cer was al­so fire­bombed at her Laven­tille home dur­ing the sec­ond day of protests over the killings.

Last week, Grif­fith had ac­knowl­edged that there was a pos­si­bil­i­ty that the gangs had unit­ed to make a stand against the po­lice.

The truce be­tween the ri­val gangs was bro­kered last week­end by a group of dance­hall artistes, some of whom have af­fil­i­a­tions with the gangs.

Yes­ter­day, Grif­fith said the terms of such an amnesty would have to be con­firmed fol­low­ing con­sul­ta­tion with Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Stu­art Young. How­ev­er, this may take some con­vinc­ing. Last year, Young said he was against putting a gun amnesty in­to ef­fect as he lob­bied for amend­ments to the bail and firearm acts in Par­lia­ment. In 2017, Young’s pre­de­ces­sor Ed­mund Dil­lon had al­so sim­i­lar­ly re­ject­ed a sug­ges­tion of an amnesty.

In 2009, fol­low­ing the mur­der of 10-year-old Tecia Hen­ry, her moth­er Di­ane Hen­ry had called for a gun amnesty to be im­ple­ment­ed. While the amnesty did not come in­to be­ing, the Tecia Hen­ry Com­mu­ni­ty Or­der was or­gan­ised by the war­ring gangs. That peace ac­cord, which start­ed at the end of June 2009, last­ed un­til April 2010. (See page 6)