Mr Chairman, Prime Ministers, Ministers, Delegates

Let me first welcome you to Antigua and Barbuda. It is a great pleasure to see you all here.

Remember this is your second Caribbean home. Antigua, after all, is the place where the Caribbean Free Trade Area was conceived at Dickenson Bay in 1965; the location for the creation of the Regional Negotiating Machinery in 1996; and the site for the conceptualisation of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States in 1979.

Initiatives that deepen and strengthen the regional integration process have sprung root in the enabling environment of Antigua. It would be no surprise, therefore, if at this meeting measures are agreed to create regional machinery that will enhance our collective capacity to deal with matters of drugs and crime.

Mr Chairman, in these opening remarks I would like to give this Conference three things to consider.

The first is the creation of a single, well-manned and well-resourced unit that would deal with drug-related matters on behalf of the Region as a whole.

The second is the creation of a single well-trained, well-equipped, single rapid response unit dealing with drug-related and serious crimes throughout the Caribbean Community and Common Market.

The third is the establishment of one or two high security prisons for all of the countries of CARICOM.

Few would doubt that, in recent years, our region has witnessed an upsurge in crime. Still fewer would dispute that we have also seen the criminal use of weapons on an unprecedented scale. Even fewer would question that the majority of the crimes are drugs related. The data on our prison community certainly confirms that most of the prisoners are involved in a drug related crime, the majority being petty offenders and drug abusers involved in minor robberies.

In any event, there have been three unwholesome consequences from this upsurge in a drug related crime.

The first, and most troubling, is that our Police are confronted with organised criminals who have access to weapons and financial resources that, in come cases, are greater than theirs.

The second, is the spread of drug abuse and addiction in our communities, especially among our young. Instead of leading productive lives that benefit our social and economic development, these young people are contributing to crime and increasing the financial burden on the State.

The third, is the overcrowding of our prisons and the cohabitation of first-time offenders with hardened criminals. This mix is providing a recruitment and training ground for criminals. Thus, instead of rehabilitating and reforming prisoners, the prison has become a greenhouse in which criminals are being nurtured.

This troubling scenario brings me to the three propositions that I would wish this Conference to consider.

I strongly suggest that Ministers responsible for National Security give serious consideration to the creation of a single, well-manned and well-resourced unit that would deal with drug-related matters on behalf of the Region as a whole. Over the years, each of our territories has valiantly attempted to cope with combatting the drug trafficking problem.

While it may be true that since the creation of the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA), the cocaine traffic into North America has shifted from the Caribbean to Mexico, the fact is that, in per capita terms, traffic through the Caribbean remains high. The days are over when we could glibly say that the drug problem is one for the demand countries in North America and Europe.

The fact is that the increase in drug related crime and drug abuse and addiction in our own countries makes the problem ours as well. And, the truth is, none of us is winning the battle.

In this connection, I suggest that the time has come for a Regional Authority to effectively formulate and implement an anti-narcotic strategy. The Authority would be a Caribbean Drug Control and Crime Prevention Office - working to a Council of Ministers of National Security.

Such an office would be charged with the responsibility of devising and approving a regional anti-narcotics and crime prevention strategy; managing the policy including supervising the drug enforcement units; drafting common anti-narcotics legislation; negotiating cooperation treaties with other countries; executing an educational programme against drugs, and mounting a diplomatic démarche on behalf of all Caribbean states.

It is inconceivable to me that we, in CARICOM, could be moving as rapidly as we are toward a Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME) with all the unrestricted movement of goods, and the increased freer movement of people, without an attendant mechanism for addressing the problems of increased drug trafficking that is bound to flow from it.

Is it not strange that we will have a single market and economy, but our governments have no agreements that allow our police and coast guards to enter each other's territorial waters to carry out arrests? Yet, all of us have such agreements with a third country, the United States.

I do not say that we shouldn't have such an agreement with the US. Indeed, given the paucity of our own resources, I have come to the view that so-called Shiprider agreement is important to the fight against drug trafficking. But, why do we not have similar agreements among ourselves?

Mr Chairman, I am well aware that some of our countries, Antigua and Barbuda included, have established our own national offices for Drug Control and Money laundering policies. But, there is no reason why the national offices cannot work closely with the regional authority informing its work and providing local support for its initiatives.

I have no doubt that a regional office for drug control and crime prevention would be better able to attract support from the international community for the technical and other resources that are required for interdiction, education and rehabilitation.

This brings me to the second proposition that I would like this Conference to consider: the creation of a single well-trained, well-equipped, rapid response unit dealing with drug-related and serious crimes throughout the Caribbean Community and Common Market.

In my view, the time has come for a common police and prison service in the countries of the Eastern Caribbean, and possibly Barbados if that country is interested. I have proposed this idea to my colleague Heads of Government in the OECS in a formal paper submitted to the OECS Authority. It is a theme to which I intend to return in the future.

But whether or not we achieve a common Police and Prison Service in the OECS and possibly Barbados, there is now an urgent need for a single rapid response unit in CARICOM to deal with serious drug-related crimes.

Such a rapid response unit should ideally fall under a Committee of Commissioners of Police who would themselves be an institution of the Caribbean Drug Control and Crime Prevention Office.

However, assuming that the creation of such a regional Office is not possible in the short term, then the existing Association of Caribbean Police Commissioners should create the single rapid response unit. Then, through a series of Memoranda of Understanding the unit would be deployed into each member country to conduct investigations and make the necessary arrests.

Mr Chairman, to expect ill-equipped, ill-trained national police forces to successfully fight the sophisticated trafficking of illegal narcotics is almost an impossibility. Many of our countries do not now have the resources to equip and train our police forces individually. It is unlikely that even in the medium-term we will separately have the resources for such an undertaking.

Therefore, we have to pool our resources to select the best officers from all our national forces to form the special response unit. They can then be trained and properly equipped to gather intelligence, investigate crimes, and make arrests. Financing for the unit would come from each government on a formula similar to contributions to the CARICOM Secretariat.

The fact that this will be a regional response unit with its members having no particular ties to the communities in individual States would provide it with an objectivity that would be advantageous to its work.

And, now my last proposition: the establishment of one or two high security prisons for all of the countries of CARICOM.

A few months ago, in a formal paper I had suggested that the countries of the OECS and possibly Barbados, the British Virgin Islands and Anguilla could jointly establish a single high security prison for serious drug related offenders and other violent criminals.

I am still of the view that such a single high-security prison is a good idea. Within CARICOM, there may be a need for two such prisons.

In any event, the purpose of the high-security prison would be to isolate the worst offenders from non-violent, first offenders who have a better chance of rehabilitation and reform.

As I said at the start of this presentation, our overcrowded prisons are now recruiting and training grounds as low-risk young offenders are exposed to mature criminals. What is more the drug culture is being kept alive in many prisons through lax security and even complicity. Our young offenders are being deprived of the opportunity for reform. We cannot allow this to continue.

At the same time, each of our countries cannot be building two and three sets of prisons to separate different levels of offenders. That money should be spent on hospitals for the sick and schools for our children. It is in this connection that I seriously propose one or maybe two high security prisons for the Caribbean Community and Common Market.

Again, such regional high security prisons should fall under the jurisdiction of a Caribbean Drug Control and Crime Prevention Office which answers to Ministers of National Security.

But failing the establishment of such an Office in the near term, there is no good reason why an Association of Prison Superintendents could not be created with memoranda of understanding between our governments to govern the administration, financing and operation of such prisons.

Should we pursue this notion, overcrowding in our national prisons would be relieved, and we would be able to use them more effectively as institutions for reform and rehabilitation of first time offenders. What is more, we would be able to focus on addressing the needs of those with drug addictions.

Over time, each of our countries would be able to rehabilitate and reform first offenders, reduce our criminal population, and rehabilitate offenders who are drug users.

Our countries will be safer for it.

Mr Chairman, Prime Ministers, Ministers, Delegates, this Conference already has a packed agenda before it. There are several technical papers for us to consider. These papers are well researched and well argued, and I wish to express my deep appreciation to those who have given so much thought to these problems.

But, in the end, the best technician cannot propose or implement certain solutions that require political judgement and political will. And, it is political will that is now required if we are to meet the problems of drugs and crime in our societies.

I say again what I said earlier, I cannot envisage how we could establish a single market and economy without setting up the machinery for dealing with the increased problem of drug trafficking and crime that must flow from the unrestricted movement of goods and the freer movement of people.

I ask this Conference to give serious consideration to the propositions I have set out in this address so that we might make our regional home safer and more secure for all our people.

Thank you.

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