(Trinidad Express) A United Nations (UN) team will be coming next month to help destroy some of the illegal guns in this country, says Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar.
She was speaking yesterday morning at Piarco International Airport upon her return from New York where she attended the UN’s 66th General Assembly.
Questioned on the small arms treaty and drug trafficking, the Prime Minister said whilst on her one-day trip to New York she met with the UN authorities who work at destroying ammunition.
“The UN agency, they had already come to Trinidad. We had two conferences here and strategy papers on the issue of small arms, so that process is ongoing, in October they will return to help us destroy some of the small arms,” said Persad-Bissessar.
She added that at the UN General Assembly last year she had raised the issue of the proliferation of small arms in Caricom.
“I was of the view that more people are dying because of small arms than because of the large arms, the large arms come into effect when you have wars, yes there are wars in certain parts of the world but for us here in our nations in Caricom the small arms are the most deadly,” she said.
In July last year the Prime Minister met with Agnes Marcaillou, chief of the Regional Disarmament Branch of the UN office for Disarmament Affairs.
Following that meeting, Persad-Bissessar said Government was at war with criminals and will partner with the UN to crack down on and destroy illegal arms and ammunition. Marcaillou oversees the activities and operations of the three UN regional centres for peace and disarmament in Africa, Asia and the Pacific and in Latin America and the Caribbean.
There was a recommendation that Government assist in purchasing a kiln, at the cost of US$500,000, which is to be used to destroy weapons.
The Sunday Express reported exclusively this week on a research paper, commissioned by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on gangs in Trinidad and Tobago which raised concerns about a state stash of 5,000 surplus obsolete police-confiscated firearms and more than ten tonnes of small arms ammunition currently in police lock-up.
Speaking to the Express yesterday, Justice Minister Herbert Volney said all illegal guns must be destroyed once they cannot be submitted as evidence in the courts.
“I think that the guns when they are seized, they first should be tagged then sent for ballistic testing to determine whether they have been used in any criminal activity such as murder,” said Volney.
He said he did not expect that so many guns would be seized.
“I am overwhelmed, I didn’t expect that we would have brought in all these guns. It means that the State of Emergency in partnership with the people is working,” he said.
“If we rid the country of these guns when these young men come back, there will be no weapons of mass destruction,” Volney added.
