PM Harris and Premier Brantley lead nation into a false sense of security, says Dr. Denzil Douglas
By:Erasmus Williams
Basseterre, St. Kitts, April 2, 2018 – The people of St. Kitts and Nevis is led into a false sense of security with an increase in violent crimes in St. Kitts and Nevis and the continued misleading statements from the Federal Government and the Nevis Island Administration that ‘crime is trending downwards.’
This view was expressed Sunday following the discovery of dead bodies in Nevis and St. Kitts in just over 24 hours and reports of robberies on both islands during Holy Week.
“In the face of this upward crime trend, the current government’s continued insistence that crime in our Federation is trending down has proven to be a most damaging statement. Not only is it a blatant and outright lie, it also attempts to force upon our people a false sense of security that perpetually proves detrimental to one and all,” said Leader of the Opposition, the Rt. Hon. Dr. Denzil L. Douglas in a statement.
Saturday morning, March 31, the partially burnt body of 27-year-old Marlon James, a Guyanese national and resident of Brown Hill, was discovered in bushes at Hamilton, Nevis with signs of multiple gunshots wounds.
The decomposed body of a male, believed to be that of 22-year-old Priston Joel Flemming, missing since February 27, was found in a ghut in the Wingfield area of Old Road on Sunday April 1, 2018.
If an autopsy confirms that Flemming’s death was unnatural, he would be recorded as murder victim number 10 for 2018, with the second autopsy report on the death of Shaquille Pemberton, whose body was found in bushes, still to be made public by the police.
“Our youth are being cut down by the twos and threes in ways far more gruesome and violent than our people have ever seen,” said former Prime Minister Douglas, who added: “Right before our very eyes, the leadership failings of those in the coalition administration have given way to the regression of our society. Evidently, the current government of St. Kitts and Nevis is yet to realise that super-sizing the law enforcement budget was not a solution to achieving a reduction in crime and violence in our country.”
Dr. Douglas noted while Prime Minister Dr. Timothy Harris and Premier of Nevis, Mark
Brantley repeatedly insist that crime is trending down, “barbarism and general social chaos creep steadily throughout the land.”
“The constant denial emerging from our nation’s two ministers of national security, reeks of sheer incompetence and a total lack of empathy on both their parts,” Dr. Douglas said.
He pointed out that despite the calls of the St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party and himself, as Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, the government led by Dr Timothy Harris, fails to bring together the relevant stakeholders as well as the Parliamentary Opposition “in a serious forum dedicated to identifying solutions to this national scourge.”
“Time and again, I have beseeched the government to include the Opposition in their discussions on this matter, because as the Labour Party has always insisted, crime is a social problem, not a political one. To date, our requests for inclusion in this national endeavour have gone largely ignored; no member of the Opposition has been included in any serious decision-making forum convened for the purpose of identifying solutions to crime and violence,” said Dr. Douglas.
“I am therefore strongly of the view that the steady loss of lives across the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis due to violence, are of little to no importance to Prime Minister Harris and Premier Brantley. They simply do not care,” said Dr. Douglas, who used the opportunity to extend sincerest condolences to the families of Marlon James, Preston Flemming and others victims of violent crimes on behalf of himself and the St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party.
“As citizens and residents of this nation, we stand with you and offer our thoughts, prayers, and support to you throughout this most trying of times. May the souls of your loved ones rest in eternal peace,” said Dr. Douglas.