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Honourable Gaston Alfonso Browne
Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda and
Minister for Finance, Corporate Governance and Public Private Partnerships
Broadcast Statement
“Resolute in Protecting Our Nation: A United Stand Against Crime and Violence”
20th August 2024
Distinguished Citizens and Residents of Antigua and Barbuda
I address you as the Head of Government, driven by the same deep concern that you all share over the recent surge in gun-related robberies and acts of violence plaguing our society.
It is a matter of utmost urgency, and I assure you of my administration’s unswerving commitment to take the fight to these criminal elements and to defeat them.
Your government was elected to serve and protect; you—the law-abiding citizens and residents of our nation, from the scourge of crime and violence.
You and your children have an inalienable right to live free from fear, assured that your safety and well-being are our highest priorities.
This is not just a duty; it is an obligation that neither I, as your Prime Minister, nor any member of your government, will ever shrink from or apologize for.
It’s an obligation for which I accept full responsibility as your chief servant.
We are resolute in our mission to protect you, no matter the senseless partisan rhetoric spouted by the opportunistic voices of our political opponents.
While they manufacture excuses, giving comfort to these degenerates for their criminal behaviors and seek to distract from the issue at hand; your government remains focused on ensuring the safety and security of every citizen and resident.
Let me be crystal clear: neither I nor my government have ever interfered with the independence of the judiciary.
However, as the elected representatives of the people, we are obligated to voice our concerns when it comes to curbing the rising tide of violence in our nation.
This is not interference; it is a necessary dialogue in the fight against crime and violence.
The electorate of Antigua and Barbuda entrusted us with the responsibility to combat crime and to maintain the security of our nation.
We expect the judiciary and the legislature to join us in this endeavor.
We must stand united in protecting our people from the predators who threaten the peace and tranquility in our communities, especially those who wield guns and endanger innocent lives.
In this regard, I want to take a moment to commend the Commissioner of Police and the entire police force, who serve as the guardians of our people against crime and lawlessness.
Their readiness to put their own lives at risk in standing up to the criminals who terrorize our communities is nothing short of heroic.
We are all aware of the brazen willingness of some criminals to shoot at the police while they are conducting their duty to protect us.
I hereby unapologetically state: that while our police officers will continue to act with all due care and caution, they have a fundamental right to protect themselves.
They too have rights; they too have families who expect them to come home safely after carrying out their duties.
I also wish to extend my commendation to the members of the Antigua and Barbuda Defence Force, who have stepped up to assist the police with patrols that secure our homes and businesses, ensuring that our people remain safe and secure.
Their contribution is invaluable, and together, with other security forces, including ONDCP; our security forces stand as a formidable barrier against those who seek to destabilize our country and to disrupt our way of life.
To those who believe that we will retreat from our duty to combat crime—let me assure you, you are mistaken. We shall not retreat; we shall not relent.
In the fight against violence, particularly gun violence, we will be firm, we will be unyielding, and we will be relentless.
We have already enacted legislation to support stricter sentencing, extending the maximum penalty for gun crimes up to ten years.
Yet, when the courts hand down sentences that seem disproportionate to the gravity of the crime, it leaves us perplexed.
Despite this, we will at the next sitting of parliament enact increased penalties and tighten the conditions of bail to keep these criminal elements off of our streets.
However, the judiciary in the sub-region should consider realigning the sentencing guidelines and conditions of bail for gun crimes, in keeping with the current realities of crime and violence, which is now a public health epidemic in the Caribbean.
To that end, I have instructed the Attorney General, the Honourable Steadroy Benjamin, to engage with the Acting Chief Justice to discuss this pressing issue.
Our goal is to work closely with the judiciary to increase mandatory sentencing for gun crimes and ensure that justice is served swiftly and effectively.
This issue is not unique to Antigua and Barbuda.
We have seen the devastation that unchecked gun violence has wrought in other parts of the Caribbean.
In Haiti, criminal gangs have terrorized the population for years, committing heinous acts with impunity.
We will not allow that to happen here—not now, not ever; certainly not under my leadership.
Let me reassure our citizens and residents that gangs and those involved in gun violence will not be allowed to hold our people hostage.
We will fight them – fire with fire, steel with steel until they are defeated.
I wish to state categorically, that the constitutional and human rights of the lawless must not overshadow, or take precedent over the human and civil rights of the law- abiding.
No one should fear going to work, only to be robbed or killed by those who lack empathy; have no respect for the value of work, the value of legislation, or the value of life and property.
Therefore, I continue to urge the judiciary to realign their sentencing practices with regional governments efforts to combat crime and violence.
There are currently 474 repeat offenders who are roaming our streets with impunity. A significant number of them are on bail, armed and dangerous; pursuing a full time career of crime and violence, at the expense of our people.
If the judiciary continues to extend routine bail, short, or soft sentences on these hardened criminals, then their influence in attracting others to a life of crime and violence will expand and their numbers will continue to swell and soon exceed the aggregate numbers of law enforcement officers in our country.
I beseech the regional judiciary to act urgently in realigning the sentencing guidelines and to administer stiffer penalties, including mandatory jail time for gun crimes. Your libertarian policies to protect the constitutional and human rights of hardened criminals is now a significant impediment to effective crime fighting.
My administration has prioritized funding for law enforcement to increase their crime fighting efficacy.
As a consequence of a meeting yesterday of the National Security Council which I chaired; we have taken several significant measures, including a more coordinated approach among the various agencies to enhance law enforcement.
Several million dollars will be made available immediately to acquire additional assets, including two vessels to improve maritime surveillance of our porous maritime borders, that is proliferated with bays and quays, facilitating the smuggling of contraband including arms and ammunitions.
We will be acquiring ten additional surveillance drones to enhance law enforcement crime fighting capabilities and will be installing additional cameras on our streets, with superior technology to improve surveillance.
Additionally, more vehicles are being acquired and equipped with radios to facilitate a rapid response to these incidents of crime and violence especially robberies.
We have taken further measures to enhance law enforcement, including the hiring of 140 additional officers, and the acquisition of more gun-sniffing dogs, to identify guns and ammunitions that may be entering through our air and sea ports.
The acquisition of these crime fighting assets will be buttressed with training and the use of digital technologies, including artificial intelligence technologies.
Joint police and military patrols have increased and will continue to be a key part of our strategy.
The police has also established a guns and gangs suppression unit to fight these gang members who are destabilizing our society. We will be introducing anti-gang and juvenile curfew legislation, to curb criminal behaviors involving juveniles and to protect our minors from predators.
Our gangs suppression strategy will also include counseling and anti-gang public education and awareness in our schools. Also, alternative rehabilitation programs, will be introduced in our penal institutions to reduce recidivism.
Those youth who are involved in criminal activities will be housed at a juvenile detention facility, to be constructed on the defense force premises at Crabbs Peninsula.
Our cash incentive program for information leading to the confiscation of illegal firearms has already seen results, with 70 firearms recovered last year and over 40 so far this year.
My distinguished country men and country women.
We have equipped our law enforcement with the tools and resources they need to take the fight to these criminals and to defeat them.
The consequences of allowing these criminals to destabilize our country are too dire to contemplate.
We cannot grow our economy, or build a prosperous future for our people, in an environment riddled with crime and violence.
Defeating these criminals is not just a priority—it is an absolute necessity for the continued safety and prosperity of our nation.
Let me be abundantly clear: while we have pursued a liberal immigration policy, welcoming those who contribute positively to our society, we will show no tolerance for any immigrant involved in criminal activities.
They will be deported immediately upon conviction and service of their time in prison and will never return to our shores.
To every criminal, whether a national or an immigrant, I say this: you have a choice.
I say to you that crime and violence will not pay and those of you who engage in crime and violence will surely pay.
There are ample opportunities to earn an honest living in this country. There are employment shortages in several sectors including the construction sector.
Those who choose the path of crime and violence will do so at their own peril.
These able bodied criminals have no excuse to be perennial loiters and to prey on our people. Instead, they need to become productively engaged making meaningful contributions to nation building.
My government is committed to an “all of society” approach to breaking the cycle of lawlessness and violence.
This is a challenge that demands the involvement of every citizen.
It begins with effective parenting in the home, nurturing responsible and empathetic youth, and extends to the expanded roles of the church, schools, social workers and community activists in engaging our young people positively.
I call on all these stakeholders to join our government in this national effort.
Now is not the time for carping at each other; for stakeholder jabs, (jaundiced appropriation of blame) or to seek political mileage, or social media likes through libertarian, ignorant and partisan articulations.
This is a time for crime fighting solidarity involving all stakeholders; all citizens and residents.
Fighting this scourge of crime and violence requires a national response with each citizen, each resident taking full responsibility and playing his or her part in defeating these criminals. For example, our citizens and residents have an obligation to routinely share intelligence with law enforcement to assist them in apprehending these criminals.
Finally, it is within our power to defeat the criminals, as we collectively build a safer, stronger, and more prosperous Antigua and Barbuda.
We must all stand in solidarity in this fight to protect lives and livelihoods.
I Thank you, and may God continue to bless our beloved nation.
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Please ban ski mask, face covering with anything kind of material including shirts etc.
Make it law that anyone found covering their face will be arrested charge and sent to prison
Stop the import of ski mask and any other face covering.
Clean up the corruption in the country. Those young don’t have money to buy guns, so who is supplying these guns. You all have to find out where these guns are coming from ASAP.
“It’s an obligation for which I accept full responsibility as your chief servant”
“We are resolute in our mission to protect you, no matter the senseless partisan rhetoric spouted by the opportunistic voices of our political opponents”
This man has to be the biggest liar or hypocrite to ever walk this earth..A page out of Donald Trump book to backside.
Lol.
Wasn’t it the very opposition, people like me, @Brox, @watching, @ Rasmood and many others who were constantly screaming at you to do someone about the very dark side that you so eloquently speak of?
Now here you are talking about opposition rhetoric like it wasn’t a good thing we were willing you to do!
This man can’t even take accountability for his part in this recent crime wave and what Antigua has become under his leadership.
How many times we have told you to get rid of your so-called knighted AG and your inept Commish?
But Gatson it seems like you like the praise of your minions and not the constructive criticism of your opposition..so who can’t listen/hear will truly feel..it’s just a pity all of us has to suffer for your poor judgement on all things immigration.
Now you have a caloucel f..k up on your hands.. what a thing.
The PM has outlined a vision of emptiness, yes he is right to make it clear that “crime will not pay”. However, he has not provided significant outcomes for those criminals who have killed someone and the murderer is languishing in jail at the expense of his victims.
The deceased is not able to return from the dark grave and rebuild and the deceased family members live a life of perpetually mourning.
The PM has ignored the mood of the nation, which is to restore hanging. Hardened criminals must realised that they will be consequences resulting from their actions and languishing in jail does not offer recompense to deceased lover ones,as a Christian nation we must apply the principles of the Bible, “an eye for an eye.” Nations where hanging is part of their legal code, murder is almost non existence.
Antigua and Barbuda is an independent nation, therefore, we must be able to have laws that is equitable with our way of life.
He is right to make it clear to foreign criminals that they would not be tolerated. However, his speech did not go far enough with addressing how his administration plan on repairing the broken and ineffective Immigration Services.
PM, what the nation wants to see is strigent actions that are sustainable taken to combat crime that is crippling our society and not flurry words, nor shifting the blame and responsibility from your administration.
Your administration has been in power for two decades and throughout your leadership crime has spiralling out of control without any sight of it ending.
His speech failed to to inform the country what his administration plan on doing by removing all those illegal immigrants.
In addition, his speech failed to convinced and reassured born Antiguans living abroad who are terrified with returning to their homeland.
What the nation wants to see is swift, immediate and robust actions.
No time for politics now, we all need to join the war against criminal elements.
Prime Minister address was very appropriate, firm and resolute.
‘No matter the senseless partisan rhetoric spouted by the opportunistic voices of our political opponents ‘. Make your statement to Gaston Browne because you are the only one who doesn’t understand what politicking is.
Antiguans and Barbudans you have been played again.
Gaston Browne is aware you as a society of emotionally immature people, with short memories.
He is the one who gave the Gangs currency when he gave them the right to parade in Points and Bobby Alley for Jouvet a year ago. The chickens are coming home to rouse.
The type of crime in Antigua and Barbuda.
For Gaston to pretend that the Government is not turning a blind eye to the High Street gun retailers. Doing so is just as bad as the criminals.
All this curfew is going to be meaningless and disruptive when there are other simple solutions.
How about reclassifying objects that can be used as weapons and then instituting “STOP AND FRISK” ?
Give the police and other law enforcement officers the responsibility to stop and frisk. If You are found with a weapon, you go to jail, with no bail.
Gaston’s address to the nation was just empty rhetoric.
Back in the 50’s 60’s &70’s the US Virgin Islands had virtually no crime. Why?
First every non US citizen or non green card holder needed an Employment Bond. If an individual arrived on any of the islands they had 2 weeks to get an employment bond. Otherwise immigration (alien round up) took place at 4 am to 6 am. Anyone who did not have the right paperwork would be deported.
The tools are there to fight crime. Jamaica crime spiraled to be one of the highest globally because of the “Garrison Politics” the politicians were the ones who perpetuated Garrison Politics.
We have criminal arriving on our shore that’s are open borders.
Jamaica, and Trinidad and Guyana should not be allowed to export their criminals. CARICOM be damned. CARICOM is a joke when it comes to Antigua and Barbuda.
The man who says he wants to create an economic powerhouse is undermining his goals for he has no backbone.
We see an increase in tourism now for the US and UK tourists are running from Jamaica. We practice open borders letting the criminal migrants in.
There are good Jamaicans, hard working and uptight citizens. We seem to be getting more and more of the criminal type. I encounter them everyday the good and the bad.
Get the police out of the station houses where they sit and play warry most of the day.
Take action rather than rhetorical insults to the public.
Reform the criminal justice system by acting as leaders and not just opportunistic.
When the PM of St Vincent and the PM of Barbados attended a regional crime and security conference at the Seventh Day Adventist University in Trinidad and the took the judges to task for their decisions on crime. The regional Bar Association gave them a dressing down. The local Bar Association jumped on the band wagon.
No other Eastern Caribbean Prime Minister came to the defence the Gonsalves and Motley.
Now that the heat is on Gaston is saying the same thing as Motlry and Gonsalves said about the justice system in Antigua. The Bar Association did not say boo.
Why because we are an emotionally driven society with short memories .
Keep the criminals off of Barbuda
“NO Time for Politics now”. Tell that to PM Gaston Browne
Crime is political.
When was the last time a Chief of Police removed from his or her job owing to poor performance or incompetence. So long as the police brass serve the political functions of a dictatorial regime, the police brass is save in their jobs
The actions proposed in the Prime Ministers address are all politically expedient solutions that will yield limited results.
One such example
The Barbuda Ferries ask for ID from each passenger. When 15 years old are able to buy false IDs; don’t you think Our so-called Caribbean Brothers and Sisters with criminal intent and history carrying of false IDs.
Crime comes in many forms. There aren’t robberies in Codrington like as in Antigua. But when Jamaican tenants not paying one’s landlord, and it takes years to remove a tenant whose adult son threatens the landlord these are the criminal behaviors that evolves into stick ups and break-in’s.
Message to Gaston: If you don’t have the backbone to refuse them entry or deport them. Keep the criminals in Antigua we don’t want them walking around over here in Barbuda
Codrington is a small village where the police sits in the station house all day or race out to PLH properties when they are called.
Senior police on both islands are more interested in the protocol of solutes, badges and the little rod they carry. It’s more important that their juniors are treating them as Demi-gods. Solving crime is secondary to the BS they practice.
An emotional immature society with short memories will always be taken advantage of.
Gaston you lips were sealed when the Caribbeans Bar Association let-go on motley and Gonsalves
https://stluciatimes.com/153976/2023/04/oecs-bar-association-condemns-attacks-on-the-judiciary-by-gonsalves-mottley/
In making the following statement
“However, the judiciary in the sub-region should consider realigning the sentencing guidelines and conditions of bail for gun crimes, in keeping with the current realities of crime and violence, which is now a public health epidemic in the Caribbean”.
Where were you when Gonsalves and Motley were pilloried by the Caribbean Bar Associations for saying the same thing ?
I can go and on as to why your address in crime is meaningless.
You give credit to an incompetent police force while the public is gripped in fear, illustrates how out of touch you are Gaston. Are you afraid that they will turn against you when you make un-Democratic demands on them?
Did you forget that you head up the legislative branch of government?
Anyone who thinks this is a good address on the issue need to go back to school for a basic civic course.
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