BRIDGETOWN, Barbados – Jamaica Prime Minister Andrew Holness Friday urged Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries to adopt a strong position against criminal gangs as regional leaders said that certain acts of violence “must now be regarded as acts of terrorism”.
From left: The prime ministers of Trinidad and Tobago, Dr. Keith Rowley; Barbados, Mia Mottley and Jamaica, Andrew Holness and Chair of CARICOM, Mia Mottley brief the media in Bridgetown, Barbados after the 48th Summit of CARICOM on Friday, February 21, 2025. (CMC photo)Holness, speaking at the news conference following the three-day CARICOM summit here, said that it is of critical importance that the region treats with the issues of gangs, adding that Jamaica has taken a very strong position on treating with gangs.
“We see gangs as an existential threat. Obviously, the ultimate case would be with the situation in Haiti. But we also see gangs acting in ways and committing acts that can only be destroyed as acts of terror.
“And therefore, I have called in Jamaica, and I’m making the call now and this CARICOM platform that there needs to be a global war on gangs in the same way that there is a global war on terror.”
Holness warned that if the gangs are allowed free reign, they will challenge the effectiveness and underlying states which governments are seeing happening not just in the region, CARICOM but in the wider Central and South America region.
“So we discussed the issue. I believe there is general consensus that in addition to treating with the security issue from a public health perspective and treating with the root causes of social disenfranchisement and economic marginalization that there needs to be a firm hand in treating with the gangs, particularly as it relates to the transnational element of the games, which means that the countries in the region, we have to greater cooperation and sharing of intelligence and resources tackling this very great threat”.
Earlier, the outgoing Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley, said the leaders had spent a lot of time discussing, strategizing, and taking decisions on an issue “which is common to all of us in CARICOM, and that is the unacceptably high level of crime and security.
“So we focused on the legislation, law enforcement, and the public health aspects. With respect to the legislation, we agreed that notwithstanding social considerations, we agreed that the changing nature of crime is such that actions of acts of violence, in certain instances, it must now be regarded as acts of terrorism.
“We’re talking here about indiscriminate shooting in a public place where the perpetrators endanger all and sundry. In order to address that, we believe that the legislation needs to be cognizant of what exactly we’re experiencing now as against what the existing legislation anticipated.”
Rowley said that the leaders sourced and obtained the services of a former attorney general of Belize, Godfrey Smith, “who has been tasked to review our legislative templates and to come up with legislative proposals for consideration by the heads for changes to be made on the legislative side to treat what we are experiencing.
“We also expect that using the tools of trade of the criminals at large in our communities, from Bahamas to Suriname, St. Lucia to Trinidad and Tobago, that they be deemed to be acts of terrorism and allow us to view them as the executive, but by our judiciary, and allow us to fashion the appropriate legislation.
“So we adopted the working definition of crime and violence as a public health issue since the effect on human conditions are such that violent crime largely carried out by firearms, 80 per cent of the killings that we’re experiencing are done by firearms”.
Rowley said 90 per cent of those firearms are coming to the Caribbean from one particular source.
“So we agree that this is a public health issue, and of course we will continue to engage it as such. We also agree that the George Bridge Declaration, which was put in at the second regional symposium, engaged crime as a public health issue and took a certain suite of decisions to engage it as such that we will continue to adopt those declarations.
“We supported the aims and the recommendations of the Needham Point Declaration, and these are all positions taken by CARICOM heads which should flow into actions through legislative and other arrangements.”
Rowley said that the leaders also further agreed to appoint a high-level representative on law and criminal justice, supported by a multidisciplinary team of technical experts, including those seconded by member states, and approved the terms of reference to design and lead implementation of a strategic plan to improve and modernize criminal justice delivery services across the Caribbean community.
“What this means is that we will not be struggling at the individual level as sovereign bodies, but accepting templates designed to suit our culture and our experience, and using the best technical skills in law and in social services to craft legislative offerings that we can all adopt very quickly.”
Rowley said that these are the foundational things that regional leaders are doing , acknowledging that “one of the highest hurdles that we’re required to overcome and to treat with at this time is the high level of violent crime in our societies and the organized commercial arrangements of criminals who terrorize our populations, whether they’re large ones or small ones.
“So we maintain a high priority on that and we expect that the changes that we are about to bring about in a number of areas in a holistic way would see us getting the upper hand and reversing the trend, which in some instances, in fact, threatening the very sovereignty of the states in which we are in which we live,” Rowley told reporters.
