Trinidad and Tobago to host regional anti-crime conference

MINISTER of Foreign and Caricom Affairs Amery Browne on Thursday said in April, Trinidad and Tobago will host a regional conference on violent crime as a public health issue, given the fact of many Caricom countries experiencing an influx of illegal guns. He told the post-Cabinet briefing at the Diplomatic Centre, St Ann's, that the recent Caricom Heads meeting in The Bahamas had heard robust remarks on crime from several leaders including the Prime Minister.

Browne said Dr Rowley had made remarks on "crime, violence and the treatment of violence as a public health concern" in the Caribbean community area.

Browne said across the region, the observations on crime were ubiquitous, (that is, present everywhere simultaneously), amid easy access to high-powered weapons and challenges at the levels of the police and judiciary to assist governments to reduce violent crime.

"A number of decisions were made. The most important to us was that TT will host a special symposium on crime as a public health concern in April."

The symposium will be supported by the Council for National Security and Law Enforcement, Council for Human and Social Development, the Regional Security System, and Caribbean IMPACS.

Asked if the US would attend given that most illegal firearms in the Caribbean come from the US, Browne said that had not yet been determined.

"The flow of guns from North America and elsewhere into the region has already been the subject of detailed scrutiny and that examination will continue.

"The Bahamas has been one of the strongest voices on this issue, given their very close geographic proximity to the US and a number of very alarming and very disturbing cases where they have told us that they have actually traced the guns to a purchase and an export in a barrel or some other mechanism and the challenges they have experienced in terms of getting the bureaucratic connections made and the type of collaboration that would really help us to make a dent in this pattern."

Browne said TT was not alone in facing a violent crime epidemic which he said was spread across the whole region.

"It was quite riveting that even some of the smaller islands, the OECS (Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States) countries, their prime ministers, their leadership have been pleading for more of a regional response to this violent crime scenario and welcomed the call by the Prime Minister and the invitation to participate.

"The national security apparatus in our country and the region is just one element of what has to be a comprehensive multi-stakeholder response."