“The Police are not magicians”, the Chief Minister recently remarked. He was alluding to the need to provide useful information to law enforcement personnel about a number of violent crimes in Anguilla and the silence and non-cooperation of members of the public to do so.
There has been this lack of cooperation with the Police for quite a long time, whether through fear or to protect known offenders, by persons sometimes with eye-witness information. This has caused much frustration to the Police, delayed the process of justice and allowed criminals to roam freely and at liberty to kill, injure or maim our young men again, resulting in much pain on the island.
What was also unbelievably alarming, was that politicians appeared slow to publicly condemn the spate of violence and so, too, were a number of organisations – probably because they were unsure about what to say or how to say it. This was obviously further frustration for the Police who had every reason to feel that it was a lonely and uphill battle for them against violent crime.
All of us are now relieved that, with the escalation of violence, there are some most welcome efforts to reverse the trend. We have had the Peace Drive Group bravely coming out with motorcades and town hall meetings sensitising the public to the need to speak out against gun violence and to help the Police put offenders behind bars. We have also seen a gradual manifestation of other forms of public outcry by additional groups and individuals proclaiming that our small and vulnerable society, where tourism drives the economy, and where the future of our island is at risk, cannot take any more violence. There has been the recent emergence of the Blowing Point Peace Group with some very strong views about crime, detection, prosecution and punishment. There has also been much grumbling and perplexity in other areas of the island affected by sporadic gun violence, and perhaps it is only time before some of these villages form their own protest groups as well.
The latest group to emerge are Partners Advocating for Violence Eradication (PAVE) which just launched a National Anti-Violence Campaign. With the involvement of a long list of organisations in the public and private sectors, under the aegis of the Ministry of Social Development, this grouping by far represents the most ambitious and widespread effort to end violence on the island.
Every partner in this noble work is important, but one must give particular praise to the energetic and committed young personnel in the Department of Youth and Culture who answered the Ministry’s call for participation in the campaign ,and who showed a great deal of enthusiasm and involvement during the launch of the campaign. We must not forget the young actors, the filmmaker and scriptwriter who produced the short but powerful episodes depicting acts of violence and the need to rid the Anguillian society of this terrible scourge. Surely, the message alone was so intriguing and real that no potential offender who may have witnessed the film presentation, and the launch of the campaign in general, should contemplate to be a contributor to violence in Anguilla, unless that person is hell bent to do so.
The fact that the Governor’s Office, the Government and a number of other key partners are fully involved in this effort, gives rise to much hope and comfort. The expectation is that PAVE will not only prove to be a viable organisation of peace, but will accomplish its main goal: the eradication of violence from our lovely island home. That effort must surely be our resolute focus.
All the organisations and groups mentioned above, and those which will hopefully come on board in the near future, deserve our heartfelt gratitude for their commendable efforts, now and in the future, to prevent what may have eventually become a national crisis of violence.
