Pubdate: Mon, 01 Oct 2007
Source: Antigua Sun (Antigua)
Copyright: 2007 SUN Printing & Publishing LTD
Contact:  http://www.antiguasun.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4119
Author: Andy Liburd

PM TALKS TOUGH ON CRIME, DRUGS AT THE UN

Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer has called on the United  Nations to 
increase the flow of assistance to the  Caribbean to deal with the 
upsurge in crime, noting  that "the bulk of violent crimes is drug related."

He further slammed countries like the US for its policy  of deporting 
criminals, calling it a "monstrous assault  on several of our societies.

"It so happens that the bulk of narco-trafficking  activity in our 
region is linked to illegal drugs bound  for North America and 
Europe," the prime minister told  the 62nd General Assembly of the 
United Nations last  Friday.

He said as a result of the role the Caribbean plays for  the drug 
traffickers as a transshipment point, the  Caribbean is forced to pay 
a high price "to protect  societies to our north, and the Atlantic 
from drug  shipments headed their way.

"We urge the UN family of agencies, in recognition of  the link 
between globalisation and crime, to provide  the Caribbean with 
increased assistance in this area,"  PM Spencer told the United Nations.

PM Spencer went on to call for support from "individual  member 
states" particularly those "who practise a  policy of criminal 
deportation," in a direct reference  to the United States.

"This practice parachutes graduates of metropolitan  criminal systems 
onto societies in which they often  have no families, no social 
network to assist in their  re-entry into vulnerable Caribbean 
societies from which  they had long been exiled," he stated.

The country's prime minister further carved out a case  for the UN to 
move with urgency to strengthen and  implant the various UN treaties 
on small arms and light  weapons.

He said the use of small arms by unemployed youth in  the Caribbean 
has had both disruptive and destructive  consequences on the youth in 
the region, and mainly  through the fault of the territories where 
the weapons  are produced.

"Here, too, small developing states, which produce no  weapons, are 
confronted by the tragedy wrought by guns  manufactured in countries 
which fail to control, and  which appear untroubled by the ease with 
which their  weapons of death cross international borders," PM Spencer stated.

"Even a miniscule increase in violent crime has a  negative impact on 
development in small island states,"  he added.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom