San Juan, Puerto Rico.- The Caribbean Community (Caricom) announced this Monday that the United States promised to help stop the flow of illegal firearms into the regionwhich suffers from a rise in crime.
“The United States offered to work with the Caribbean countries. We need their cooperation and support to confront it (illegal arms trafficking),” assured the president of the Council for National Security and Law Enforcement (Consle, for its acronym). in English) from Caricom, Horace Chang.
The president of Consle explained in a televised press conference that there will be collaboration from different US agencies to try to stop this flow of weapons towards the Caribbean.
Chang, who is also Jamaica’s Minister of National Security, charged that weapons reach the Caribbean “very easily”.
Last week, Jamaica hosted a Consle meeting, at which Chang reported that the problem of illicit firearms trafficking was identified as a first level threat in the Caricom Regional Security Strategy and as one of the main promoters of the criminality.
“None of our countries manufactures firearms, and yet the harmful effects of their proliferation and contribution to gang violence permeate our respective territories and are responsible for more than 70% of homicides in Caricom,” he said then. The responsible.
Washington’s commitment to help the region was in fact given during an extensive presentation during that meeting by the US agencies of Homeland Security and Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, among others.
“They would like to significantly increase their activity in the region to begin the process of mitigating this really serious challenge in the Caribbean,” Chang insisted on Monday.
President de Consle stressed that “the continued trafficking of illicit firearms in the Caribbean represents a clear and present risk to all Caribbean leaders.”
It’s a long-standing scourge in countries like Jamaica, but now, instead of diminishing, it’s spreading throughout the Caribbean, according to Chang.
In Jamaicathe number of people killed during the first nine months of this year stands at 1,171, and Jamaican criminal gangs are spreading to other territories such as the Turks and Caicos Islands.
“Our friends in the eastern Caribbean are having a serious problem with gun crime. This threat is generating significant levels of criminal violence throughout the region,” he added.
Chang cited among the countries that have recently been the scene of an increase in crime Trinidad and Tobago, and Saint Lucia.
“If the firearms are not there, the incidents of their use will be reduced, without a doubt. So, we have to face this plague that now attacks us throughout the region,” he said.
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Caricom members are Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago. EFE
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