Narcotics, gun trafficking fuelling violence in the region – UN report

A United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report suggests that violence associated with the illegal narcotics and gun trafficking enterprises continues to be responsible for the high rates of serious crimes and criminality within the Caribbean region.

Bahamas National Security Minister Tommy Turnquest said official statistics “bear this out” adding that 66 per cent of the 105 murders committed in The Bahamas as of October 11, 2011, were “related” to criminal enterprises ” with the motives of illegal drugs, conflict and retaliation” being the major reasons behind those murders.

The report revealed that murder rates in the Caribbean and Central America are the highest in the world (and) highlighted that “the strongest explanation” for the high rates of crime and violence in the region is narcotics trafficking.

According to the local statistics, 72 per cent of the 105 murders were committed with the use of firearms, further underscoring the correlation between the illegal guns and narcotics trafficking criminal enterprises.

The Bahamas recorded a 44 per cent increase in the number of murders and a 29 per cent increase in the number of attempted murders over the same period.

The UNODC report stated that the drug trade drives crime and criminality in a number of ways, including “provoking” property crimes that are related to addiction; by contributing to the wide spread availability of fire arms, and by the violence that is tied to drug trafficking.

Robberies in The Bahamas increased by 16 per cent, house break-ins by nine per cent and stealing from vehicles by 58 per cent over the same period, the report noted. Turnquest said an analysis of the murders committed in The Bahamas revealed that many of the victims, and persons, either suspected or charged with the murders, “are known to police.” He said while some per sons “have tried to portray this analysis as cavalier and uncaring, nothing could be further from the truth.”

“I have said repeatedly that the majority of our murders are as a result of persons involved in criminal enterprises. That is a fact.

“It does not give me any comfort because in the main, these are young, Bahamian males who are being murdered. I am concerned about these murders, but I am more concerned about those innocent victims, those armed robbery victims, who are killed by these thugs.”

Turnquest said the issue of crime and violence did not “suddenly hit The Bahamas by storm,” but occurred over a number of decades.

“We did not wake up one morning and suddenly find our borders overrun by murderers, drug dealers and robbers,” he said. “Over the past 30 years, nations with strategic locations, such as The Bahamas, became transshipment points for wealthy drug barons and regrettably, we have been subjected to an onslaught by the criminal underworld.”

Turnquest said the presentation of several anticrime legislations in Parliament over the past two weeks is part of the government’s efforts to put in place all of the necessary legal and other mechanisms designed to fight crime and criminality from an “over arching standpoint.” He said these include improvements to the Criminal Justice System and the socio-economic makeup of the country.