SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

The head of Cari­com is call­ing on the Unit­ed States to take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the pro­lif­er­a­tion of the il­le­gal gun trade in the re­gion.

Ba­hami­an Prime Min­is­ter Philip Davis made the com­ment while speak­ing yes­ter­day at a me­dia con­fer­ence ahead of the 44th meet­ing of the Con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment of Cari­com.

The meet­ing is tak­ing place in Nas­sau Ba­hamas from Feb­ru­ary 15-17 and T&T Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley is ex­pect­ed to at­tend.

Davis yes­ter­day said sev­er­al of the mat­ters high on the agen­da for the meet­ing were re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty and the con­tin­u­ing un­rest in Haiti.

He said Cari­com has been hav­ing dis­cus­sions with both the Unit­ed States and Cana­da on both is­sues.

Asked about the flour­ish­ing gun and drug trade through­out the re­gion, Davis said, “As al­ways, that’s a top­ic that we are con­tin­u­al­ly dis­cussing with the Unit­ed States. We con­tin­ue to re­mind them that their right to bear arms does not equate to the right to traf­fic in arms.”

He said the Ba­hamas has found that most of the guns be­ing used to com­mit crime in that coun­try can be traced di­rect­ly to the US. Davis said these traces re­veal not on­ly the place where the firearms are sold, but the peo­ple who pur­chase them.

“We con­tin­u­al­ly re­mind them (US) that we don’t make guns and we don’t ex­port guns be­cause we don’t make them and to find them in our coun­tries, it must come from where they are be­ing man­u­fac­tured and they have to take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for guns be­ing found and be­ing used in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties in our re­gion,” Davis said.

How­ev­er, he said the re­gion will con­tin­ue to work with the US to stem the il­le­gal gun trade. He not­ed that the Ba­hamas has had sig­nif­i­cant suc­cess over the past eight months in trac­ing and in­ter­cept­ing il­le­gal guns be­ing im­port­ed to the coun­try.

He said the goal is to re­duce the num­ber of il­le­gal firearms in the re­gion to its “ir­re­ducible” min­i­mum, where there will be no sig­nif­i­cant neg­a­tive im­pact on mem­ber states.

Speak­ing about the con­tin­u­ing un­rest in Haiti, Davis said Cari­com was wary of send­ing troops in­to Haiti. Protests and po­lit­i­cal un­rest in Haiti have wors­ened over the past year af­ter the as­sas­si­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Jovenel Moïse in 2021.

The Unit­ed Na­tions has dis­cussed send­ing in­ter­na­tion­al aid to Haiti but those dis­cus­sions have stalled.

Yes­ter­day, Davis said the so­lu­tions to Haiti’s mul­ti­tude of is­sues must come from with­in.

He said Cari­com was turn­ing to both the US and Cana­da for as­sis­tance in try­ing to find a so­lu­tion for Haiti.

“What we in Cari­com have come to ap­pre­ci­ate is that we do not have the re­sources to be able to deal with the Haiti prob­lem our­selves and we do need out­side help and that help, we are look­ing to the North, to Cana­da and the Unit­ed States, to come to the fore to help and it has to be a Hait­ian so­lu­tion, not an Amer­i­can, Cana­di­an or Cari­com cel­e­bra­tion, we are here to help them find a so­lu­tion,” Davis said.

He said the goal is to sta­bilise Haiti’s un­rest and en­sure the coun­try can have free and fair elec­tions where both can­di­dates and vot­ers are free from in­tim­i­da­tion and threats.

How­ev­er, Davis said no Cari­com mem­ber state has the re­sources to put an end to the un­rest on its own.

Davis said cli­mate change and food in­se­cu­ri­ty in the re­gion will al­so be dis­cussed at the meet­ing.