By Erasmus Williams
Basseterre, St. Kitts, March 19, 2018 – The violence and loss of lives in St. Kitts and Nevis over the weekend and during this month “is far too heavy a burden than we ought to bear” said Leader of the Opposition, the Right Hon. Dr. Denzil L. Douglas.
With two murders from four shooting incidents on the weekend, the former prime minister in a statement said the society and the youth of the nation are in crisis.
“Further compounding this reality and fuelling our country’s social dysfunction is a severe lack of leadership at the uppermost levels of our social strata. The foresight and innovation that are desperately needed to craft and execute initiatives aimed at arresting this downward social spiral in which our youth are trapped is blatantly missing. As a result, the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis has almost forgotten how peace and prosperity should look and feel,” said Dr. Douglas.
He called on the people of the twin-island federation to take serious stock of themselves.
“Before our very eyes, gun violence and bloodshed threaten to reorient our society and become our new normal. To prevent this, we must not allow the current disastrous state of affairs to continue. It is time for us to realise that those whom we beseech for the answers to remedy this problem either provide some that are utterly inadequate or they provide none at all. At the end of the day, our families and friends are left to mourn and weep bitterly while those responsible, offer up nothing more than a wreath and a sardonic grin for their pain,” said Dr. Douglas, the National Political Leader of the St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party (SKNLP).
Dr. Douglas said the future of the Federation rests within the hands and minds of the youth and their survival is paramount to the survival and success of St. Kitts and Nevis.
“Far too many lives have been lost. Far too much blood has been shed. Again, I implore the relevant stakeholders in our society, government and private alike, to come together in order to begin the painstaking process of identification and rectification of our nation’s social problems,” he said.
“Our cooperation in this national endeavour is of utmost importance because each time we lose someone to violence, our country loses a vital piece of itself,” said the opposition leader.
Within a 24-hour period over the weekend two males were murdered and two others injured in four separate incidents on St. Kitts.
There have been seven murders to date for 2018. The public is still awaiting the result of a second autopsy on a male found dead in bushes in January.
Photo: Leader of the Opposition, The Right Hon. Dr. Denzil L. Douglas at last Friday’s funeral of the Finch sisters who were murdered on March 1.
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