US pledges fight ag

Small-arms trafficking in the Caribbean continues to undermine regional security and the United States has pledged again to continue playing a lead role in the war against guns.

CARICOM has over the years, expressed concern at the high rate of illegal exportation of guns from the United States to the Caribbean and the negative effects it has had. Last year CARICOM declared a ‘War on Guns’ and voiced its disquiet at the rates at which guns were being trafficked from the US.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Western Hemisphere at the United States Department of Defense, Daniel Erikson, was on Tuesday asked by Stabroek News how the US is addressing the issue of small-arms smuggling.

“We recognise this is a big concern throughout the Caribbean because it is tied to illicit criminal networks… transnational criminal organised networks and to the overall drug and narcotics trade that exists in the region and of course can be linked to criminal minds in a variety of countries,” he said.

“The US government is focused at addressing this challenge primarily as a law enforcement issue, including providing additional prosecutorial assets to investigate and prosecute cases of illegal arms trafficking in the Caribbean,” he added.

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