KE­JAN HAYNES

Re­gion­al lead­ers are once again look­ing to the US to ex­am­ine its role in the pro­lif­er­a­tion of guns in the re­gion.

The CARI­COM Heads were speak­ing at a round ta­ble dis­cus­sion on day one of the “Re­gion­al Sym­po­sium: Vi­o­lence as a Pub­lic Health Is­sue – the Crime Chal­lenge”.

Prime Min­is­ter of Bar­ba­dos Mia Mot­t­ley gave one of the strongest re­bukes, say­ing:

"The US has no moral au­thor­i­ty to speak to these is­sues... none!"

Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, during the Panel Discussion on Day One of the “Regional Symposium: Violence as a Public Health Issue – the Crime Challenge”, taking place at the Hyatt Regency. [Image courtesy TTT]

And Prime Min­is­ter of The Ba­hamas, Philip Davis KC, raised the is­sue of guns flow­ing from the Unit­ed States in­to the re­gion on more than one oc­ca­sion.

“I've been telling the Unit­ed States that I'm not go­ing to get in­volved in their de­f­i­n­i­tion or their right to bear arms. But it can­not mean for us in the re­gion, that that right to bear arms al­so gives the right to traf­fick­ing those arms,” he said.

As a crime pre­ven­tion mea­sure in The Ba­hamas, PM Davis re­port­ed that they in­sti­tut­ed a buy­back pro­gram for guns. How­ev­er, he said that did not work and so he put a stop to it.

Prime Minister of The Bahamas, Philip Davis KC, during the Panel Discussion on Day One of the “Regional Symposium: Violence as a Public Health Issue – the Crime Challenge”, taking place at the Hyatt Regency. [Image courtesy TTT]

“At one point, we had a buy­back pro­gram, but that buy­back pro­gram be­came a busi­ness and in­dus­try for some per­sons,” he ex­plained. “So, I've now re­versed that to the point where, un­til we are able to stop the flow, the buy­back pro­gram would not be a suc­cess­ful pro­gram and will not meet the goal that we wished—that is to re­duce the weapons in the hands of crim­i­nals on our streets.”

Prime Min­is­ter of Ja­maica An­drew Hol­ness had a sim­i­lar po­si­tion on the US’ role in the in­flux of guns. He said the Unit­ed States needs to part­ner with the Caribbean in the same way the Caribbean part­nered with the US in the decades long “war on drugs”.

“It is the great­est un­fair­ness that we have di­vert­ed re­sources in oth­er ar­eas in which we could have spent it to fund and sup­port a war on drugs,” Hol­ness said.

Prime Minister of Jamaica, Andrew Holness, during the Panel Discussion on Day One of the “Regional Symposium: Violence as a Public Health Issue – the Crime Challenge”, taking place at the Hyatt Regency. [Image courtesy TTT]

He ac­knowl­edged the role they both play, say­ing they—guns and drugs—go hand in hand.

Ac­cord­ing to PM Hol­ness, guns are need­ed to pro­tect drugs that are tran­shipped through bor­ders. They are then turned to deal with oth­er forms of crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties. He not­ed that in Ja­maica, the weapon of choice is no longer the AK 47. It is the AR 50 as well as the Glock, both of which are man­u­fac­tured in North Amer­i­ca.

“We must ap­peal to our friends in the north to in­crease their ef­forts to pre­vent the flow of guns in­to the re­gion,” as­sert­ed the Ja­maican Prime Min­ster.