PEOPLE HAVE a right to protect themselves, their family and their values, and this may have been the thinking behind the 41,800 persons who applied for gun licences over the past eight years in Trinidad and Tobago, now a major crime hot-spot in the Caribbean.

Some 215 people were granted firearm users licences from a total of 4,220 applicants received so far this year, and out this, 144 were non-nationals probably working in embassies and in the energy sector.

Last year, 7,957 people applied for gun licences, the highest number of applications for the eight-year period.

The high number of applications for gun licences clearly reflect the level of insecurity and fear among citizens and non-nationals of becoming yet another statistic — and a high probability of another case of unsolved murder.

The twin-island state has a 21 per cent detection rate for murders, compared to 16 per cent last year.

In Trinidad and Tobago, some 75 per cent of murders are committed with illegal firearms, which mainly come through South America, according to law enforcement officials.

Last year, homicides reached a record high of 550, while the 2009 figures are slowly inching their way towards that number, although National Security Minister, Martin Joseph gave a personal assurance in the Parliament recently that the country’s soaring murder rate will not surpass last year’s rate.

Up to May this year, Trinidad police seized 130 illegal firearms and700 rounds of ammunition. Last year, a total of 460 illegal firearms were taken off the streets.

Jamaica, where on average 1,000 people are murdered annually, is also rocked by a high incidence of gun-related crime and violence — far surpassing Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean as a whole.

Guyana also has its share of gun crime — with some criminals being the owners of sophisticated weaponry than what the police possess.

Who could forget the pictures of the murdered victims of Lusignan, where 11 persons, including five children, were sprayed with gunfire, and in Bartica, where a dozen people were killed, both horrible incidents taking place last year.

Small islands in the Eastern Caribbean can no longer boast of being without their share of criminal elements.

In St Lucia, government earlier this year ordered police to take back the streets after six persons were murdered, and a threat from criminals to assassinate law enforcement officials.

Crime and violence in the Caribbean is documented internationally.

The 2007, World Bank and the UN Office report on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) notes that murder rates in the Caribbean at 30 per 100,000 population annually are higher than any other region of the world.

The proliferation of illegal small arms threatens the ability of states to meet their Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), as the “high rates of crime and violence in the Caribbean are undermining growth, threatening human welfare, and impeding social development.”

The documents also link the upsurge of illegal guns to the trafficking of illegal drugs, which are transshipped through the Caribbean.

Gun ownership is an outgrowth of the drug trade and, in some countries, of politics and associated garrison communities, it commented.

Ambassador Camillo Gonsalves of St Vincent and the Grenadines told the recent UN General Assembly that the Caribbean, “[which produces] not one single firearm and one single kilo of cocaine, is awash in drugs and guns, and is now the sub-region with the world’s highest per capita murder rate.”

Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister, Patrick Manning, who has lead responsibility for national security in CARICOM, also spoke at the Assembly about the illegal drug transshipment trade, which has been fueling trafficking in small arms and light weapons, with troubling

consequences.
Although the Caribbean has been pooling its resources in the fight — and there is now unprecedented cooperation among the legal and security systems of countries, he urged more resources to battle this menace, and encouraged states which have not been supportive of the

initiative to negotiate a legally binding Arms Trade Treaty to join and ensure that it becomes a reality.

At a June conference in St Kitts and Nevis on youth, crime and violence, CARICOM Secretary- General, Edwin Carrington called on governments to make all efforts to avoid the proliferation of guns.

Noting that the murders of young men were taking place at an alarming rate, he said it may be necessary to revisit the 100 or so recommendations of the Task Force on Crime and Security to glean if any of the recommendations could be applied to this increasingly untenable situation.

Last year, the Canadian-based Project Ploughshares and its partner organization, the Women’s Institute for Alternative Development (WINAD) based in Trinidad and Tobago, hosted a workshop in Port of Spain to explore regional approaches by Caribbean governments and

civil society to small arms-related violence.

The working group reports suggested elements for a Caribbean response to small arms proliferation and misuse, which include thorough and transparent data acquisition at all points along the small-arms chain; policy-oriented research and analysis of causes and costs of gun

violence; harmonized small-arms control standards across the region; collaboration among states and sectors, and especially with civil society; attention to pertinent issues, such as ammunition, gender, and ethnicity; and use of CARICOM structures and frameworks.

According to the workshop, CARICOM Member states have regional and multilateral small- arms commitments. For example, CARICOM states are politically bound by the UN Programme of Action (PoA).

However, since 2001, only a third of CARICOM members have provided a national report on implementation of the PoA to the UN Office of Disarmament Affairs, and only Trinidad and Tobago has provided more than one report.

The 2004 report by Trinidad and Tobago describes “regional efforts geared towards reducing crime” through two mechanisms: The CARICOM Task Force and the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD) of the Organization of American States (OAS).

The CARICOM Task Force on Crime and Security report contains 113 recommendations on research, collaboration between government and civil society, strategic interventions based on training and capacity-building, and a financing strategy for sustained funding.

In 1997, the OAS adopted the Inter-American Convention Against the Illicit Manufacturing Of and Trafficking In Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives, and Other Related Materials (CIFTA).

Consequently, to begin to reverse the proliferation and misuse of small arms in the region, the workshop said an important step for CARICOM states is to effectively implement existing agreements.

More countries in the Caribbean are also signing agreements to combat arms trafficking with the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) of the US Justice Department to provide access and utilisation of e-Trace services, which assist in the identification of

firearms trafficking patterns and geographic profiling for criminal hot spots and possible sources of illicit firearms.

Could we then conclude, with all these law enforcement collaboration, measures, treaties and recommendations, that in the coming years, the Caribbean will begin to see some reduction in gun violence in the coming years?
Dare we hope?