Following is the text of a petition delivered to Chief Minister, Hubert Hughes, on Tuesday, signed by some 700 persons.
Dear Chief Minister,
We the undersigned people of Anguilla are concerned about the serious spate of violence that is overrunning our country, over the last twelve months. This has led to the maiming and death of many of our young people particularly our young men. In just the last two days two young men have been brutally murdered one by stabbing the other by shooting and less than six weeks ago another young man was savagely gunned down in close proximity to a social event. All these acts as well as the others that have resulted in serious and permanent injury have been senseless and have placed a serious scar on us as a community, especially with the attitude of silence, which prevails.
We are fully aware that we all have a part to play both in ensuring that the perpetrators of these crimes are brought to justice as well as in contributing to the prevention of this kind of behaviour in our communities. As our Government we look to you for leadership on this issue and it is our view that it must be at the top of your agenda as it has the potential to do permanent and irreparable damage to our country.
We believe that the situation has long come to a critical point and we have not seen any real progress particularly with regards to the apprehension of the culprits associated with these criminal acts. The Police Force seems to be lacking in the resources and specialist support to effectively carry out what is required to curtail this ongoing trauma to our community. In this regard we strongly suggest that Government urgently proceeds to secure external technical expertise and resources to assist the Police in putting an end to this situation.
We want you to know that we as a community have been hurting for a very long time and are particularly upset that Government has been preoccupied with other issues that we do not consider to be of an urgent nature. Our communities are impatient and angry. They consider this to be the number one issue that we should be addressing at this time and believe that any issues are a distraction to the serious challenges facing our country.
We look forward to your most urgent response and attention to these very serious affecting Anguilla. A petition is being circulated at this time to show the widespread support for urgent and positive action for this situation.
God save Anguilla!
cc. Commissioner of Police
H.E. The Governor
Leader of the Opposition
The Media
(Published without editing by The Anguillian newspaper.)
