Gun Proliferation Plaguing the Caribbean

In his capacity as First Vice President of the Association of Caribbean Commissioners of Police, Chester Williams says the proliferation of guns has been plaguing every country in the Caribbean. During last week’s A.C.C.P. conference held in Belize, ComPol Williams called out the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobago, Firearms and Explosives over the increased number of firearms coming into the region from the U.S. ComPol Williams says that he has been advocating for stronger legislation to crack down on the importation of illegal firearms at commercial ports.

 

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police

“I almost got into trouble with ATF because I am saying to them that the same way how the U.S. blacklisted us when drugs passed into our country and go into the U.S., even though they know we are doing our best to prevent it from occurring then who blacklist the U.S. when their guns are coming in from the U.S. into our countries and these guns are being used to kill our people? It is a fair comparison. But, I give them credit for the fact that I know that they are doing what they can, but I believe they can do more. One of the issues for me is that when we had the intersectional meeting in Maya last year we had the opportunity to visit the port in Miami and we were given a briefing in terms of what the port expects from persons who are sending packages abroad and there is little to nothing. I can go to the port today and send a package in a name, go back this afternoon use another name and go back this evening and use another name. So there is nothing there to ensure that the persons who are sending these packages are real people. What I am saying to them is they need to have some law within the U.S to regulate these things to ensure that persons cannot use fictious names to send packages abroad. Since the U.S is reluctant to do that we will have to do something in Belize and the Prime Minister has said to us that the Comptroller and I need to sit down to see how we can come up with some draft legislation in terms of how we can address this issue. Even in Belize we had this same issue. We have the candies that came in. Recently we have barrels that came in with guns.”