It was interesting to see the look on the Prime Minister's face during his press conference on Tuesday. His usual swagger was gone, his bravado was turned into a look of hopelessness and on the whole he looked defeated. With his leadership in question, the Prime Minister was less then reassuring; instead his was the look of a man who has run out of ideas.
During the Press Conference the Prime Minister offered Belizeans the same solutions that were rejected earlier, to change the constitution to allow for preventative detention, which effectively would threaten the civil liberties of Belizeans. Indeed there are some who will say yes; whatever is necessary must be done. Others will say, "Just stop the violence … by any means necessary". The problem with this is that there is no proof that Preventative Detention will make any difference whatsoever in stemming the violence and the rising crime rate.
In October 2008, during a meeting of the House of Representative, I stood up in a spirit of bipartisanship and offered to work with the Government to deal with the crime situation. I did this fully aware that the problem with crime was not a red and blue problem, a race or religious problem, it was a Belizean problem and that all of us would be needed to fix it. In my presentation I put forward 10 proposals that covered all aspects of crime, from the need for us as a people to look at our values and our attitude, like vulgarity, rudeness, indiscipline and so on; to how we prosecute crime. I encouraged the government to use some of the revenues from oil to strengthen those institutions that are critical to crime prevention and crime fighting. I called for the completion of the project that had started under the PUP to build a proper forensic lab. I talked about our ability to do ballistic testing. I asked that we discuss the issues of a moratorium on the issuing of gun licenses. I also said, "If it is a fact that many of the crimes committed in Belize are drug and gang related then we need to not only strengthen the serious crimes unit of the force, but we also need to make sure that the prosecution branch is strengthened and that the DPP's office is fully staffed and equip with achievable targets for above average rate of convictions."
Today we know that millions have been spent on a private attorney to fight civil cases, yet the DPP's office is still not adequately staffed to properly manage their case load.
Included in those proposals were also recommendations that involved community programmes, youth volunteer brigades, after school programmes in at risk communities, and I even went as far as to commit to involving the organs of the PUP in the help in the fight against crime. Most important, I gave the Prime Minister my assurance that if he were to seek as much as $50 million in funding to address this problem of crime and youth at risk I would support such legislation.
The response to this offer was personal attacks and criticisms however the following year the crime situation got even worse.
In 2009 again I raised the issue of crime and violence in our country. Once again I reached out to the government. "Our personal security is one of the most pressing social issues facing Belizeans and we must all come together to reverse this situation before it reaches a point where we would have totally lost control."
Last year again, with murders reaching a new record high, I raised the issue calling on the government to immediately increase the number of police officers by instituting a new intake. I also called for a mandatory jobs programme for school drop outs in the high risk areas of Belize City.
The first quarter of 2011 has produced over 30 murders not to mention the many Belizeans who have been injured or seriously wounded. At this pace we are very likely to have another record number of murders by the end of 2011. The solution to the problem has not changed, and like the first time he presented it, the Prime Minister's plan to bring back Preventative Detention will not result in any reduction in crime. His desire to overturn a 400 year old tradition of trial before a jury of your peers and replace it with trial by judge will not do anything to improve the conviction rate if witnesses continue to be intimidated, evidence continues to be gathered poorly, and most certainly it will not reduce the number of times the DPP's Office enters pleas of nolle prosequi.
What is needed is a comprehensive plan that will involve all aspects of our social and economic life. Our society must change, we must look out more for each other, become more tolerant, respectful, and most important, we must make those who wish to break the law know and feel the consequences for their actions. Our response to criminal activities must be swift, but it must be fair.
I have said it before and I will say again, "we no need fu play politics with this issue. All of us are affected by this; let us work together in a respectful way to address this crisis that is destroying our country".
| | | | | |
Source: The Belize Times
0 comments:
Post a Comment