Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Dr Amery Browne has high­light­ed a host of is­sues fac­ing the re­gion and the world while call­ing on the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to put aside their dif­fer­ences and work to­geth­er for the com­mon good. Among these chal­lenges was the pro­lif­er­a­tion of il­le­gal arms and am­mu­ni­tion through­out the Caribbean.

Dr Browne made the re­marks dur­ing his ad­dress at the Unit­ed Na­tions (UN) Gen­er­al As­sem­bly de­bate in New York yes­ter­day, where he em­pha­sised the threats to the re­gion’s safe­ty from il­le­gal arms traf­fick­ing.

Re­fer­ring to the host­ing of a first sym­po­sium on crime as a pub­lic health cri­sis in T&T last year, Browne said the con­tin­ued in­volve­ment of re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners was cru­cial in quelling the in­flux of il­le­gal guns.

“The pro­lif­er­a­tion of il­le­gal arms and am­mu­ni­tion has con­tributed to un­ac­cept­able in­creas­es in the lev­el of gun-re­lat­ed vi­o­lence and fa­tal­i­ties in our small so­ci­ety and in­deed across Cari­com,” he said.

“In ad­di­tion to our own ef­forts do­mes­ti­cal­ly, we con­tin­ue to work with re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners to free our cit­i­zens from the hor­rif­ic hu­man cost as­so­ci­at­ed with the easy ac­cess to small arms and light weapons and their vi­cious use against cit­i­zens and their fam­i­lies.”

Dur­ing last year’s sym­po­sium, sev­er­al Cari­com lead­ers in­clud­ing Bar­ba­dos Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley, Ba­hamas Prime Min­is­ter Phillip Davis, KC and Ja­maican Prime Min­is­ter An­drew Hol­ness lament­ed the role of the US in ex­port­ing arms to the Caribbean.

Browne in his re­marks said he wel­comed the par­tic­i­pa­tion of the US in quelling this is­sue, which he said “re­spect­ed no bor­ders.”

Re­main­ing on con­cerns with­in the Caribbean, Browne al­so shift­ed fo­cus to in­sta­bil­i­ty in Haiti, com­mend­ing the es­tab­lish­ment of an in­ter­im Hait­ian Prime Min­is­ter, Gary Conille and a Cab­i­net.

He al­so praised the Kenyan-led, UN-backed mul­ti-na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty sup­port mis­sion, but stressed the need for ad­e­quate fund­ing for any long-term suc­cess.

Browne not­ed that while the US and Cana­da con­tributed the bulk of fi­nan­cial re­sources to the mis­sion, he was dis­ap­point­ed that oth­er coun­tries did rel­a­tive­ly lit­tle.

“Some rel­a­tive­ly wealthy coun­tries have ei­ther con­tributed drips and drabs or noth­ing at all.

“We ap­peal to the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to con­tribute the nec­es­sary fund­ing to sup­port this cru­cial­ly im­por­tant ven­ture.”

Re­fer­ring to Haiti’s his­to­ry, Browne al­so re­newed calls for repa­ra­tions in the re­gion, as he ar­gued that the role of colo­nial­ism and geno­cide against the first peo­ples shad­ows fur­ther de­vel­op­ment.

“Our fore­par­ents were root­ed out and de­hu­man­ised and their blood, sweat, tears and labour were ex­tract­ed to build em­pires and beau­ti­ful cas­tles, trea­sures which some of us pay mon­ey to­day to vis­it, pho­to­graph and ad­mire.”

Browne al­so took note of the on­go­ing con­flicts in Ukraine and Pales­tine, the lat­ter of which he said was “deeply trou­bling” to T&T.

He con­tin­ued to ad­vo­cate for a per­ma­nent cease­fire and un­con­di­tion­al re­lease of hostages as a peace­ful res­o­lu­tion could be ad­dressed.