Rishard Khan

The US Am­bas­sador to T&T is as­sur­ing the Unit­ed Stares is com­mit­ted to curb­ing the il­le­gal flow of weapons from their soil in­to the Caribbean.

Am­bas­sador Can­dace Bond’s com­ments came dur­ing her clos­ing ad­dress to re­gion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tives at the end of a three-day Caribbean Basin Se­cu­ri­ty Ini­tia­tive work­ing group meet­ing on pre­vent­ing the il­lic­it traf­fick­ing of firearms at Hy­att Re­gency in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day.

In her ad­dress, Bond high­light­ed sev­er­al leg­is­la­tion and poli­cies in­sti­tut­ed in the US to com­bat the gun trade, such as the Bi­par­ti­san Safer Com­mu­ni­ties Act and the Stop Il­le­gal Traf­fick­ing in Firearms Act.

She al­so said the US spent over US$3.4 bil­lion to mod­ernise ports of en­try to com­bat the ex­port of weapons from their soil. She al­so high­light­ed the US$832 bil­lion in­vest­ment in­to the CB­SI and US$8 mil­lion in­vest­ed by the De­part­ment of State to Caribbean na­tions for ca­pac­i­ty build­ing to com­bat the trade.

In high­light­ing her coun­try’s re­solve in the fight, Bond al­so cit­ed last month’s ar­rest of two Trin­bag­o­ni­ans who were among three Caribbean na­tion­als caught ex­port­ing weapons in­to the re­gion.

“On April 13, the US De­part­ment of Jus­tice an­nounced that three mem­bers of a Caribbean arms traf­fick­ing ring plead­ed guilty to fed­er­al charges in Flori­da. Ac­cord­ing to the plea agree­ments, Oliv­er, Phillip, and King—two of whom are na­tion­als of T&T—were part of a ring that un­law­ful­ly ex­port­ed firearms, firearms com­po­nents, and re­lat­ed items from Flori­da to Trinidad and To­ba­go be­tween 2019 and 2022,” she said.

“The firearms, which in­clud­ed pis­tols, long ri­fles and re­lat­ed equip­ment, were con­cealed to avoid de­tec­tion by law en­force­ment and cus­toms au­thor­i­ties. The con­spir­a­tors ac­quired firearms from dif­fer­ent sell­ers through straw pur­chas­es, false­ly rep­re­sent­ing the iden­ti­ties of the ac­tu­al pur­chasers and re­cip­i­ents of the firearms, as well as their ul­ti­mate des­ti­na­tion.”

She urged na­tions to work to­geth­er to close any gaps that can hin­der the fight against pre­vent­ing the flow of these weapons in­to the re­gion. “A chain is on­ly as strong as its weak­est link, so we must all ex­am­ine and iden­ti­fy how we can work bet­ter to­geth­er. Re­gion­al co­op­er­a­tion will en­sure all links in this chain are strong and col­lab­o­rat­ing to ad­dress the shared threat,” she said.

She as­sured that the Unit­ed States is the Caribbean’s best and most trust­ed se­cu­ri­ty part­ner, and will con­tin­ue to work with na­tions of the re­gion to tack­le firearms traf­fick­ing and build law en­force­ment ca­pac­i­ty to ad­dress vi­o­lence and crime.

“We do this be­cause we are neigh­bours, friends and fam­i­ly and we have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to keep each oth­er safe,” Bond said.