CRIME FIGHTING IN THE REGION

For a long time, Jamaica has been a trans-shipment port for Colombian
cocaine. It is also said that a lot of the cocaine gets smuggled out
into the islands and sold.

In addition, drug smugglers from Haiti trade sophisticated guns for
marijuana and cocaine, and the island is therefore awash with guns.

The World Bank in a recent report says crime in the Caribbean -- and
it's mostly referring to Jamaica -- is "undermining growth,
threatening human welfare, and impeding social development".

The Bahamas is a part of this region.

This country is also struggling with a major crime
onslaught.

For this year alone, scores of Bahamians have perished, most of them
lost in a miasma of crime, greed and awful despair.

Information coming in from places elsewhere in the region -- like
Haiti and Jamaica -- tell a similarly depressing story.

Sadly, some of our youth are perishing, biting the dust and being
‘wasted' in a moment when so very many of them might have been
a blessing to this or that loved one.

Instead, these youth are being buried by their parents.

Crime has become so much a fact of life in this country and in this
region that many Bahamians and their Caribbean counterparts currently
take its incidence for granted.

Like others who have commented on this issue of crime, we are
convinced that very many Bahamians have entered a world from which
there is no exit, save by way of Death's cold hand.

More to the point, some Bahamians and their Caribbean neighbours are
realistic enough to know that the options they have include getting
rich quick or to die trying.

In the last decade, thousands of these people have been
killed.

Compounding the matter at hand is the fact that there are very many
people who condone crime not only in this country, but throughout the
region.

Indeed, our research suggests that there are very many people in
places like Jamaica and Haiti where the trades in drugs and guns
currently feed real economic growth, albeit at a frightfully high
price for very many people.

Sadly, such now seems the case in The Bahamas.

What makes the Bahamian case even more frightening is the fact that
it has a magnetic force for any number of people in places like Haiti
and The Bahamas. That is due to the fact that these two countries are
the sources from which many immigrants come.

One group -- the Haitians-is easily distinguishable due to the fact
that they speak a language -- a French patois -- that sets them apart
from the majority of Bahamians who speak their own unique brand and
blend of English.

Jamaican immigrants are another matter altogether; they speak their
own version of the Queen's English, thus allowing them to blend in
with Bahamians in a manner that is far easier than their Haitian brethren.

As we take note of anecdotal evidence suggesting that there may be
trans-national criminal links between some of these immigrants and
their Bahamian counter-parts.

Time and time again, we hear reports about this or that plane coming
in from Haiti and the fact that onboard there is cocaine and other
drugs to be found by Bahamian law-enforcement authorities.

And then there are those other stories about this or that Bahamian
thug who is living and presumably working in Jamaica, trading in
either guns or drugs.

In and of itself, this information is not particularly
startling.

In a sense, The Bahamas is that kind of place that some consider a
smuggler's paradise. So is the entire region. As archipelagoes, The
Bahamas and its sister nations in the region are being subjected to
stressors that -- literally speaking -- come with the territory.

In a sense, this region is a place where geography is tantamount to
destiny.

On the one hand, geography conspires to make this region one of the
loveliest in the world, therefore setting it up for an onslaught of
tourists from all around the world.

That most of them happen to be from the United States, Canada and
Britain speaks to the reality and significance not only of geography,
but also of the continuing salience of colonial ties and sympathies.

To this day, there remains a part of the Caribbean that is French,
another part that is British and yet again, parts that are Dutch and
American.

All of them are struggling with crime and the fear it
spawns.

All of them are struggling with the fact that Cuba, the United States
and Haiti are their neighbors.

It necessarily follows that the crime problem in the Caribbean is one
that requires a regional focus.

We believe that the United States of America should -- as a matter of
principle and justice -- play a role commensurate with its size, role
and sway in the wider region and throughout the world.