ROSEAU, Dominica, CMC – The Dominica authorities Monday confirmed that members of the Barbados-based Regional Safety System (RSS) are on the island “to help regulation enforcement in ridding the streets of unlawful firearms”.
“Sure, the RSS is in Dominica, and the RSS is right here to help the police in eradicating the presence of unlawful firearms. Anybody who has it, we take it from you…and one could say it’s only a few murders, however each nation began with one, and it bought to fifteen, and it bought to 25, and it bought to 67, and it bought to 100, and it bought to 600,” Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit advised a information convention.
“And so, the Regional Safety System was established to help one another in sustaining and enhancing the safety of the area, but in addition the safety of every member-state. On the recommendation of the Chief of Police and the Minister of Nationwide Safety, who agree, to have the RSS be part of the police in our efforts in the direction of eradicating the presence of unlawful firearms within the nation.”
The RSS was established in response to the necessity for a collective response to safety threats that had been impacting the area’s stability within the early Nineteen Seventies and Nineteen Eighties. In October 1982, 4 members of the Organisation of the Jap Caribbean States (OECS), specifically, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Barbados to offer for “mutual help on request”.
St. Kitts and Nevis joined after gaining independence in September 1983, and Grenada in January 1985. The MOU was up to date in 1992, and the RSS acquired juridical standing in March 1996 via the Treaty, which was signed in St. George’s, Grenada. In 2022, Guyana joined the RSS.
Skerrit advised reporters that the safety of the state and the residents and residents of Dominica is “the federal government’s precedence.
“If the nation is unsafe, then every part else will fail. And we don’t wish to have a state of affairs in Dominica the place we can not drive freely or go to the seashore, or go to the river, or be afraid to stroll the streets.
“We now have to make sure that this doesn’t occur in Dominica and that the respect for all times is paramount, and that…violence and the presence of unlawful firearms in our nation doesn’t grow to be commonplace,” Skerrit advised reporters.
He mentioned he wished to sentence “within the strongest attainable phrases, all acts of violence which deliver ache and worry to our communities,” including “violence has no place in our society, and I name on each citizen to affix in constructing a tradition of peace and tolerance.
“As a Authorities, we stay dedicated to making sure the protection and safety of each Dominican. In current months, we now have taken steps to strengthen regulation enforcement’s means to curb violent crime, together with measures to deal with the unlawful use of firearms and enhance the sources obtainable to the Police Pressure. These are necessary steps, however we acknowledge that extra have to be finished.”
Skerrit mentioned that his administration will proceed to help the police with the coaching, instruments, and know-how wanted to detect and forestall crime, and to deliver offenders to justice.
“I wish to reiterate that whereas the federal government will proceed to take a zero-tolerance method to violent crime, this isn’t solely a Skerrit matter or a Authorities matter. It’s the duty of each Dominican to play their half in defending our communities.
“Dad and mom, church buildings, colleges, civil society and group leaders all have an necessary function to play in shaping values, guiding our younger folks and rejecting the tradition of violence,” Skerrit mentioned, including, “I proceed to interact regulation enforcement in our efforts to deal with this subject”.
He additionally mentioned that the “precedence battle for the nation now’s unlawful firearms,” warning that his authorities “is not going to sit idly by and never search to attempt all the alternatives which are obtainable to the state and the police to deliver a way of calm and normalcy to our nation”.
Skerrit mentioned whereas the federal government recognises that the current incidents are focused, “each life is necessary, and nobody has the authority to take anyone’s life underneath any circumstance”.
