US LAWMAKERS: WHY IS T&T SMUGGLING GUNS?

THREE powerful United States lawmakers want to find out what is behind the illicit smuggling of arms and ammunition from their country to Trinidad and Tobago and other Caribbean countries.

The legislators are calling for a major US federal investigation into the high level of illegal trafficking of firearms.

They are determined to uncover “a more robust picture” of how the weapons are being smuggled “into their final destinations and what measures are being taken … to address the problem.”

The lawmakers are Gregory W. Meeks, of New York, a ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Texas Representative Joaquin Castro, a ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Sub-Committee on the Western Hemisphere, and Illinois Democratic Senator Duck Durbin, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

They want the probe undertaken by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress.

The senior congressmen are anxious to know what measures could be undertaken, including the use of legislation, to stem the illegal shipment of firearms.

The lawmakers want a breakdown of the types of arms and ammunition and how they are being sourced and shipped.

They said that certain Caribbean countries – in particular, Haiti – are being destabilised “by the influx of illicit American firearms.”

An earlier report of the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime’s Global Study on Firearms Trafficking found that guns were involved in 70 per cent of Caribbean homicides, compared to 30 per cent globally.

Another report, this one by the UN Office of Disarmament Affairs, told of “high or increasing rates of violent crimes and homicides” in Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti.

The identified countries “have high numbers of illicit firearms trafficking,” the UN office stated.

The US Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security had previously said that the Caribbean is “a top smuggling destination” prompted by a high demand by drug traffickers.

There are huge black market prices based on demand, the department said.

The proposed GAO investigation comes at a time when Mexico has taken legal action against US gun manufacturers, claiming that the marketing and distribution are aiding powerful drug cartels.

 The case was dismissed by a federal judge but is being appealed.

Trinidad and Tobago and five other Caribbean countries are supporting the Mexican legal action.

The American lawmakers are especially concerned about the security situation in Haiti, where there are unprecedented levels of violence and kidnappings by extremely well-armed gangsters.

The US House Committee on Foreign Affairs six months ago was told that the US was the principal source of firearms used by Haiti’s criminal gangs.

Those gangsters, according to the Committee, are “destabilising the country, preventing the provision of basic government services, thwarting the distribution of humanitarian assistance, increasing levels of deadly violence, and causing an ever-increasing number of Haitians to lose hope and flee the country.”

Two recent reports by Haiti-based organisations have detailed the dreadful violence inflicted by gangs, especially in the capital city, Port-au-Prince.

Apart from the growing incidence of ghastly murders, there are also record numbers of kidnappings.

“Haiti does not stand alone as a Caribbean nation being destabilised by the influx of illicit American firearms,” the lawmakers wrote in their bid for a GAO probe.

Several experts and observers have commented that T&T, with its unchecked rate of violence, is along the road to becoming overridden and destabilised by crime.  

There is a high level of gun smuggling into T&T, facilitated by porous borders, corrupt police officials, a weak judicial system, and ineffective governance.

Scores of people are seeking to migrate.

Gangsters wield high-powered guns.