Jamaican PM: Foreign help alone won't stop gun shipments

Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness is calling on Caribbean countries to make the acquisition of national security tools a priority to ease regional reliance on aid from foreign partners.

Holness made the remarks during his feature address at the first day of the Regional Symposium on Violence as a Public Health Issue at the Hyatt Regency Conference Centre, Port of Spain, on Monday.

His address dealt specifically with transnational organised crime with challenges posed by small arms and light weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean.

He said while partnership with the United States is crucial in preventing the influx of illegal guns to the Caribbean, regional countries should not be overly dependent on their assistance.

Holness stressed that Caribbean countries should take the lead in the security and protection of their people and urged stakeholders to strengthen their law enforcement capacities.

"I also call on our governments to put our money where our threats lie.

"We have to increase our capabilities and capacities.

"We have to scan the goods coming through our ports, to buy the offshore patrol vessels, to have the maritime surveillance.

"We cannot rely on foreign countries to tell us what is moving in our waters and what is coming in our ports.

"They are only going to tell us what is in their interest, we must act in our interest.

"One of the things we must do regionally and individually is to increase our capacity to control our domain."

In addition to strengthening regional capabilities, Holness said the US also had a responsibility in clamping down on the illegal exportation of guns to the region.

Referring to past and present efforts by Caribbean countries to disrupt shipments of drugs to North America, he said similar efforts should be placed by foreign governments in preventing guns from reaching the region.

Holness also warned that failure to do this could render the region's war on drugs ineffective.

"Our children are being killed. Our young men are being killed with drugs exchanged for guns which head to North America.

"Our children are just as valuable as the children in North America.

"There has to be equal energy, effort and attention paid to preventing illegal guns from coming into our country as we pay equal energy, effort and attention in preventing illegal drugs from going to their country."

Holness said now more than ever a united front was needed to combat crime and lamented that Caribbean countries in the past were not able to treat crime with the necessary priority which led to the extent of challenges facing the region.

He said central to addressing violent crime was the need to create laws with local circumstances and complexities in mind.