Ke­jan Haynes

Cari­com lead­ers are mov­ing to ban the pub­lic’s use of as­sault weapons and have al­so promised to write to the US gov­ern­ment to de­mand a stronger ef­fort to pre­vent the flow of guns in­to the re­gion and to stand with Cari­com the same way Cari­com stood by the US in their war on drugs.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley made the an­nounce­ment yes­ter­day at the two-day Cari­com Sym­po­sium on Crime came to a close at the Hy­att Re­gency in Port of Spain.

Ad­dress­ing their move to ban the use of as­sault weapons from civil­ian pop­u­la­tions, Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley ex­plained that over the years these weapons have slow­ly been li­cenced to the civil­ian pop­u­la­tion.

“We are say­ing that we do not re­quire those weapons with­in our so­ci­ety in a com­mon­place way be­cause of the out­come of the pres­ence in the so­ci­ety. We can con­tin­ue to pro­vide pro­tec­tion with small num­ber of hand­guns in the pop­u­la­tion,” the PM said.

Row­ley didn’t say when the leg­is­la­tion would be brought or if it would re­quire Op­po­si­tion sup­port. How­ev­er, he not­ed the re­gion­al lead­ers did all ask their op­po­si­tions to sup­port them as well with the leg­is­la­tion mov­ing for­ward.

“While some peo­ple are fight­ing to roll back what they have done, we’re say­ing let’s not go there, be­cause there is not a so­lu­tion to our prob­lem of safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty,” the PM said.

On the is­sue of the in­flux of guns in­to the re­gion, Row­ley said di­a­logue with the US was one of a few is­sues they agreed to speak on with one voice as part of the ac­tion plan com­ing out of the sym­po­sium.

He said a let­ter was to be sent to Wash­ing­ton, adding he had every con­fi­dence Pres­i­dent Joe Biden would take it se­ri­ous­ly. He didn’t go in­to de­tails about the ex­act con­tents of the let­ter, but said it was be­ing backed up with ev­i­dence that the threat was not just re­al, but was be­ing ex­pe­ri­enced.

“The is­lands in the Caribbean can­not sus­tain the death rate and the eco­nom­ic de­struc­tion that this wan­ton use of arms and am­mu­ni­tion is rak­ing on us,” he said.

The Prime Min­is­ter re­called the start of the drug war, when co­caine seeped on­to the streets of the Unit­ed States and they so­licit­ed the help of the Caribbean to join the war against drugs.

“To­day, we are say­ing to the Unit­ed States, the same way we fought with you to pre­vent the pow­der from go­ing up north to poi­son your com­mu­ni­ty, we want you to fight with us to pre­vent the guns and am­mu­ni­tion from com­ing in­to our ter­ri­to­ries,” he said to rous­ing ap­plause from the au­di­ence.

He said it could not be that the Caribbean was still fight­ing the drug war and now that guns and am­mu­ni­tion were de­stroy­ing so­ci­etal arrange­ments, it was of no in­ter­est to the Unit­ed States.

“We want a greater ef­fort in pre­vent­ing the man­u­fac­tur­ers of these killing ma­chines and pro­jec­tiles from hav­ing the prof­it-mak­ing out­come that is killing our peo­ple and de­stroy­ing our so­ci­ety,” he said.

But dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence fea­tur­ing the Prime Min­is­ters of Ja­maica, St Lu­cia and The Ba­hamas, lead­ers were asked what con­fi­dence they had in the US con­sid­er­ing their prob­lem with guns and as­sault ri­fles in their coun­tries.

“If we do noth­ing then noth­ing will hap­pen,” said Ja­maica Prime Min­is­ter An­drew Hol­ness.

“That per­son’s right to bear arms has been con­vert­ed, in our view, to a right to traf­fic in arms and that can­not be right,” said Ba­hamas Prime Min­is­ter Philip David.

Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley said the US could help by fund­ing bor­der pro­tec­tion as well as help­ing coun­tries with train­ing, in­for­ma­tion gath­er­ing and trac­ing.

Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley al­so promised a con­ven­ing of at­tor­neys gen­er­al from the re­gion to draft a suite of mod­el leg­is­la­tion re­lat­ed to some of the plans and promis­es made at the sym­po­sium.

He said in­stead of each ter­ri­to­ry try­ing to make its own leg­is­la­tion, coun­tries would use the mod­el agreed to on a Cari­com lev­el.

“So, we get some har­mon­i­sa­tion of leg­is­la­tion with re­spect to crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty.”