Purdy: Authorities must seek to tighten security at borders. - IAN ALLEN/Staff Photographer EM: Sometimes it appears that there are more guns than mangoes in Jamaica. Where are they coming from and how do we deal with that?
DP: We have to tighten up the borders. We have to start using the tools we currently have. The hurricane took away our mangoes but not our guns! If we could get a metal-eating iguana to come in we would be in great shape! But the guns are coming in from many different sources. Many of them are staying here, they are home-made, they are being refashioned but a lot them are coming in from abroad. They are coming in through drug trafficking routes; they're coming in through shipments; they are coming in through air cargo and it's a matter of the country tightening its borders. In years past we stopped planes coming in but we have a coastline that is wide open. We have to deal with that effectively. We have to get the marine police out, we have to have a vetted unit that is working the borders and securing it.
We have to have Customs using the X-ray equipment, the Ionscan equipment; all this sophisticated equipment that is available but for some reason keeps ceasing to work, because they pull the plug, you have certain employees that are not being monitored, supervised, held accountable. And we're constantly finding equipment that has been turned off, disabled, and not used. So we have equipment there; we have to start using it. We have laws there that allow us to search and secure and they're not using them effectively.
EM: So you are saying that the corruption and the collusion extend to the entry points where people are deliberately doing this to thwart efforts?
DP: Information we have would indicate that that, yes. That is clearly suggested. Having hard evidence is difficult, but equipment that is constantly failing is suspect. And when you keep repairing it and the next day it is turned off again or it's not being used, that is suspect and that's a matter of supervision and holding employees accountable to use the equipment there. And so the obvious question is why is it not being used?
You have to speculate, but it's not being used as effectively as it can. We have guns coming in through the coastline and there's nobody out there looking, or very few. These are very porous borders and they have to get serious about that. The tracking of guns is not adequate; the firearms licensing in this country is flawed as has been clearly documented. That has to be fixed! Why do you need so many licensed firearms holders? Why do licensed firearm holders need so many guns? What has the system been to acquire licences? Is it because they meet the requirements of the law, or they meet the payment schedule? That has to be addressed. And it hasn't been taken seriously until very recently, and that's got to go.
EM: Some say your own country is culpable as well in that not enough is being done on that side to stem the flow of guns that come from the United States into Jamaica. We are required to be very stringent in terms of our searches, as far the drugs leaving Jamaica are concerned. Is there a case for the United States to answer here?
DP: I'm sure there is culpability on the part of every country that does business with Jamaica. The borders have to be tightened coming and going. There's generally greater emphasis on drugs going out of the country and coming in, and guns that are coming in, but that doesn't mean we don't search them going out if we have the means and capabilities. It's a very expensive process; it requires inconvenience; it requires delayed shipments and it depends on what level of interference is acceptable to the public. The effort has to be stepped up, and I think it is being stepped up; I know the U.S. Homeland Security is every day enhancing their abilities to stop and to identify the trafficking. We (Jamaica) are getting shipments coming in that aren't all from the U.S. or the U.K.
They all have to be checked. You know they can come out of any port anywhere, but they come in to a very narrow band here, and that's where they are getting through. So if you check and if you're trying to check at both ends you increase the probability of finding it. If one end isn't and the other end is being lax things are going to come through, just flow through. That's why we had containers coming through with full cars. They used to send them through in pieces and then assemble them, and then they found out why go through the trouble of taking them apart when we can put the whole car in the container and ship it in.
That was demonstrated when the new X-ray equipment was turned on one of the first containers we checked had a car in it! Oh my! Let's use what we have and what's been provided and be effective with it. We have to have the will and the commitment to do it.
