By IPS Correspondents
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, Apr 7 2008 (IPS)

For two days, they met behind closed doors, and when they emerged on Saturday night, Caribbean leaders were unanimous that it was time to invest in new strategies to stem the rising tide of violent crime in the region.

Host Prime Minister Patrick Manning of Trinidad and Tobago signaled that most, if not all of the new measures would be implemented ahead of the Summit of the Americas in April 2009.

The special Caribbean Community (Caricom) session here was held against the backdrop of rising murder rates in several nations, notably Jamaica, Guyana, The Bahamas and Trinidad. Last year, these four countries had more than 2,500 homicides.

While recent opinion polls indicate that many Caribbean nationals favour the death penalty as a deterrent, regional leaders said that issue had not formed part of their deliberations.

However, with many economies closely linked to tourism, they did agree that it was imperative for the region to reestablish itself as a safe destination – an image Caricom Secretary General Edwin Carrington noted that “we have been using, selling to the world to encourage visitors to our shores”.

Carrington said while the region was dealing with the effects of globalisation in the context of trade and economics, it was also necessary for it to deal with crime and security “in much the same way these factors (trade and economics) affect the global village”.

“It will take us well beyond the business of law enforcement into the core issues of our social development. It will require us to reformulate our social policies to deal with public awareness, educational deficiencies, skills training, unemployment and poverty,” he said.

Criminologist Ramesh Deosaran blamed a growing sense of lawlessness “facilitated by weak or sporadic law enforcement and an expanding informal economic sector” for the crime problem in the Caribbean.

With abductions for ransom also on the rise, the leaders said they would train counter-kidnapping units, including response teams and hostage negotiators, and would allocate resources to “monitor and target gangs/individuals whose modus operandi includes kidnapping/forcible abduction”.

They also intend to combat the proliferation of small arms and light weapons through the establishment of a Regional Integrated Ballistics Information Network and a Regional Investigative Management System.

In a five-page summary, the regional leaders gave a commitment to enhance and expand the successful security arrangements put in place for the 2007 International Cricket World Cup – aware also of the financial burden that had accompanied such measures.

Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer told IPS that budget constraints had in the past made it difficult to adequately fund crime and security initiatives.

“Those resources far outweigh the ability of these small vulnerable states to be able to tackle the question of crime and security in a meaningful way, and recognising also that some of the challenges in this area may not have anything to do with the Caribbean itself but because of what is happening in the international arena,” he said.

“So we feel that the international community has an obligation to work with us. We have appreciated the support that we have had in the past but more and tangible support is required at this time,” Spencer added.

The United States, which was among a host of countries that provided assistance to the Caribbean during last year’s Cricket World Cup, has already signaled its willingness to help.

Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Ambassador Thomas Shannon and U.S. Navy Commander Admiral James Stavridis, who visited three Caribbean countries recently, said their message to regional leaders is that Washington “is a caring friend and partner, and we genuinely welcome the opportunity to discuss ways we can helpful in addressing regional security concerns”.

But Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding noted that Washington has in recent years shifted the focus of its interdiction efforts to the Pacific corridor “at the expense of the level of intense surveillance that is required in the Caribbean corridor.”

“It is a matter that we intend to take up with the United States,” Golding said. “The Caribbean is the transshipment point – it is the passage through which drugs travel …and therefore it is something that both of us (U.S.-Caribbean) have an investment in seeking to apprehend and to prevent.”

Caribbean leaders say they intend to sign a Maritime and Airspace Security Cooperation Agreement by July this year and would engage international partners, particularly Washington, “with respect to the implications for the region of their anti-narcotics efforts in Central America and the Pacific Coast”.

Studies by both the United Nations and the Inter American Development Bank (IDB) indicate that the drug trade has been largely responsible for the growing increase in criminal activity in the region. Caribbean leaders said they would increase coordination among law enforcement agencies and maximise the use of available technology in detection, deterrence and seizure of illegal drugs entering and transiting the region.

The policy decision by Washington and London to return Caribbean nationals who have committed crimes in the United States and Britain has also been cited by regional governments as a major factor driving the rising crime levels.

Leaders are hoping to negotiate agreements that would provide an adequate notification period, the settlement of personal affairs prior to deportation of long-term residents, and the release of complete dossiers, including criminal and medical records.

In addition, the region also wants arrangements “to reduce the financial burden on deported persons and on receiving countries” as well as “support for programmes designed to aid the rehabilitation and reintegration of deported persons in the region”.

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