The Opposition People's United Party today issued a strong release on crime, calling on the 'government to act immediately by replacing the Minister of National Security and to make drastic changes in the Command of the Police Department.' The PUP also called on the Prime Minister to immediately 'work out a comprehensive plan to reverse this situation.'
As the Belize Times goes to press, the son of Belmopan Mayor Simeon Lopez, prominent basket-baller Aubrey Lopez is the latest victim of the bloodshed, shot dead on Belize City streets on Wednesday night. Earlier this week, a seven year old girl was shot in the leg as she sat innocently on her sofa inside what was supposed to be the safety of her home. Over the weekend, four persons lost their lives – a youth at the hands of Police in Caye Caulker, a young Chinese mother in Cayo as she tended her store and two victims of decapitation in the village of Buena Vista down South.
Since December 2009, five persons have been killed by officers of the Police Department, and in two other murders there are allegations that Policemen pulled the triggers.
These murders join the spate of murders and other violent crimes which have Belizeans living in fear. As late as Tuesday, the Ministry of National Security still insisted that major crimes were down by an astounding 30% plus in the first quarter of 2010. Up to this week, the Prime Minister of Belize had also been silent on the issue of crime, saying when pressed only that he feels that his Minister of National Security has been doing the best he can. That hasn't been good enough for Belizeans who have been increasingly vocal in their demands for the Prime Minister to fire Mr. Perdomo for incompetence.
On Tuesday of this week Mr. Barrow's office sent out a release stating that – Cabinet is aware and accepts that the crime situation in Belize has reached crisis proportions, both in terms of the increase in violent crime, especially in urban areas, and the lack of confidence in the Police Department created by the rash of incidents in which Police personnel have themselves allegedly acted illegally causing injury to the innocent and in some cases loss of life.
It is unbelievable that only now is Cabinet ready to accept that crime has reached crisis proportions after so much blood has already been shed and the nation is paralyzed by crime. It is also unbelievable that Mr. Barrow's release confirms what Belizeans have been saying all along – the statistics coming out of the Police Department are bogus. Although the Minister of National Security and his Commissioner of Police maintain that crime has gone down 30%, Mr. Barrow's release very specifically mentions the increase in crime. His release also specifically mentions the lack of confidence in the Police Department.
The Opposition maintains that the release by the Office of the Prime Minister on Tuesday is just a lukewarm response to growing public pressure. Nowhere in the release does the Cabinet offer even one concrete suggestion or initiative which it plans to implement to reverse the shocking trend of crime. The release from the People's United Party calls for an end to the useless and meaningless babble and an immediate move to decisive action – 'Belize is fast headed towards a failed state and the Prime Minister and his Cabinet must be held accountable…Government must act now and do so decisively!'
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Source: The Belize Times
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