Five Murders In Six Days – Step Down PM Douglas
Basseterre, St. Kitts – Nevis
August 18, 2011
People’s Action Movement
The leadership and the Executive of the Peoples Action Movement express deep and heartfelt sympathy to the immediate families, close relatives and friends of the four young men who were most recently murdered before the very eyes of the public. We also wish a speedy recovery to those who survived the most recent spate of unwarranted firearm attacks, and who remain laid up in Hospital. This senseless disregard for human life has gone on for way too long without serious visible efforts being made to curb the hurt which is being perpetrated upon our citizens, some of whom relied upon the now deceased to provide financial and equally important fatherly support to children left behind.
For too long citizens have been calling on those in authority to display the leadership necessary to get this sixteen year old crime wave under control. Cries to the administration to provide funding for crime fighting resources have all but been ignored. Public demands for reduced political interference in the Police Force has fallen on deaf ears and has only resulted in abusive rebuttals by the Prime Minister and threats of discipline against fellow policy makers at Cabinet level.
Advisors suggestions; for changes to the education system emphasizing youth skills development, improvements to social conditions through urban development, creation of employment opportunities for male youth, better coastal protection, and improved contact between youth and mentors; have all been largely rebuffed and ignored. The mismanagement of the Federation’s financial resources and blatant corruption to our democratic system of government by electoral fraud has not inspired confidence in our youth to provide them with the future which they wish for themselves.
After twenty six murders in eight months at a murder rate in a population of less than 50,000, we have earned the dubious distinction of being the country with the highest murder rate in the World. We have grown accustomed to the refrain that there is crime all over, but the fact is crime in St.Kitts-Nevis is incomparable with our neighbors in the Caribbean including Barbados, Antigua, Dominica, Grenada who all boast a much lower murder count and murder rate than St.Kitts-Nevis. The fact is our crime rate should never be as high as it is.
It is time we reverse this murderous trend as crime in this nation appears to be getting progressively worse! The time for crime fighting action is now. Long speeches and crime conferences have failed to produce results. The Leader of the Federal Opposition has made a number of recommendations which the Peoples Action Movement fully endorses and would wish to see implemented immediately. Other crime fighting plans have been tabled by the NGOs and the Peoples Action Movement, both of which ought to be very seriously considered and added to any plans which the present administration may have developed on its own. The ineptitude and disastrous manner with which the escalating crime problem has been handled thus far demands drastic change.
Many of the murders which have occurred may have been avoided had a more proactive approach been taken to the seriousness of crime in this Federation. We must not continue to slumber only to be awakened when a visitor is shot or murdered and our economy irreparably damaged, before this Federation takes the corrective actions we all know to be required.
The Leadership of the People’s Action Movement would also like to express outrage at the continued deafening silence of Prime Minister Dr. Denzil Douglas on this unprecedented crime wave.
The federation is in the midst of s CRIME CRISIS and the country requires the leadership of the government. If the present administration is unable to provide such leadership they should step down .