NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO SQUABBLE!

Caricom Needs A Regional Crime Plan

RATHER than squabble over timing and conditionalities for "full engagement" with the interim Haitian regime, Caribbean Community ( Caricom ) leaders should quickly decide on a revised agenda for the upcoming special summit in Port-of-Spain.

This revised agenda must bring to the fore, new ways of combating the terrifying crime problem plaguing several member states, including Jamaica.

The Community leaders have approximately nine weeks before the proposed November special summit to develop new ideas and form new attitudes for a comprehensive collective review of policies and strategies to combat serious crimes, and minimise the threats to security.

It is their burden to erase the public impression that they have not been sufficiently focused ( at their recent inter-sessional and summit meetings ) for concerted regional responses to the challenges posed by the criminals.

In comparison, that is, to the time and energy these leaders spend on political issues, like the Haitian situation, and getting themselves ready for the Caribbean Single Market and Economy ( CSME ).

Generally, media briefings on Caricom's crime and security agenda have lacked specificities, laden with platitudes, and rarely provide new information on initiatives being pursued, without being required to give away sensitive intelligence information.

Perhaps the Community leaders could make use of the Port-of-Spain summit to show the difference; if, they could first agree to add crime and security to CSME-readiness as the two top priorities for their work agenda over two days.

The security of our Caricom societies is increasingly coming under serious threats from criminals.

In Trinidad and Tobago, where the population remains challenged to avoid being numb to nerve-wracking kidnappings for ransom, and killings linked to narco-trafficking, gang warfare and other crimes, the President of the Republic, Maxwell Richards, considers the country to be "at war," facing an "internal enemy".

Here in Jamaica, confronted with endemic illegal drugs, gun-running crimes and a shocking murder toll that exceeded 1,000 in 2003, Prime Minister PJ Patterson found it necessary last weekend to defend the performance of his National Security Minister Peter Phillips, while warning that spiralling crime "poses a major danger" to renewal of economic growth.

In Guyana, there are now renewed fears of the resumption of communal terror on East Coast villages following some vicious cases of killings, including a policeman, and armed robberies that have provoked new demands for joint anti-crime operations by the police and army.

The Barbados Surprise

But the country that may provide the surprise for those too focused on worse-crime scenarios in countries like Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana, would be Barbados -the major tourism destination of the Eastern Caribbean that works methodically to protect its image from being tarnished by the plague of criminality.

For every Caribbean state that depends to any significant extent on tourism, the crime epidemic is dangerous news.  Barbados, Jamaica, The Bahamas, St Lucia and Antigua know this only too well.

When, therefore, British and Canadian websites recently posted advisories alerting their nationals to reported incidents of rape and armed robberies of tourists in Barbados, the country's tourism minister, Noel Lynch, moved swiftly to quell any notion that the country was anything but "a very safe place".

The minister's anxiety is understandable.  But the Barbadian people and their Caribbean cousins living there would know that it is certainly no longer the "tranquil paradise" of tourist magazine and brochures.

In a just-released report, The National Commission on Law and Order, in Barbados notes in a candid, enlightening overview of law enforcement:

"Over the last 25 years, Barbados has been experiencing an unusually high number of serious and violent crimes, with murder, armed robberies and reckless violence among the youth becoming quite alarming...

"This has been accompanied by excessive involvement in the drug culture, both in supporting transshipment operations and in the increasing use of illicit drugs across all sections of the society.

"Perhaps the most troublesome feature," the report states, "is the frequency of drive-by shootings and the uncontrolled violence among drug dealers.  This environment has resulted in a considerable fear of crime in residential communities and the business sector.."

The work of the commission has coincided with similar bodies, though with variations in terms of reference, created by Caricom governments in response to a 2002 decision by the Community's Heads of Government to establish national commissions on crime, or the broader concept of law and order.

If, therefore, we are to be guided by their own statements and public outcries on the terrifying crime scenarios in a number of Community states - - including this one - then including crime and security for an action-oriented discussion at the November summit could prove useful.

Updated assessments from their respective National Security Minister and the Regional Task Force on Crime and Security, plus recommendations for concerted action from the Association of Caribbean Commissioners of Police could provide the basis for a special working session without affecting allotted time for CSME-readiness.

After all, the success of the CSME itself would very much depend on the capacity of our governments to have the upperhand on criminals and those bent on undermining law and order in our Community states which are working towards the realisation of a common economic space.

Our leaders must be seen to be acting in unison and with haste in the war against crime rather than engaging in their separate lamentations as the criminal underworld poses increasing threats to stability, peace and progress in one Caricom state after another.

The just-tabled report in the Barbados Parliament from the National Commission on Law and Order offers some very important recommendations that could also be taken on board in any regional review on new initiatives on crime and security.