Last week, while delivering the keynote address at the University of the West Indies Commemoration Dinner in Mona, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister Patrick Manning called for greater regional coordination in combating the escalating problem of crime throughout the Caribbean. This suggestion by Manning must be commended, as this crime problem is not plaguing just one or two Caribbean countries but the entire Caribbean, and there are no signs that the problem is being solved anywhere. Just last week there was the second incident of a mass killing spree in Guyana, and an assault on a police station.

The fact that the crime rate has grown drastically, not only in Jamaica, Trinidad and Guyana, but in several of the smaller nations, traditionally known as peaceful and safe countries, indicates that there must be a common cause for this surge of crime. Analysis of the problem has pointed out to the deportation of Caribbean nationals, convicted of criminal activities in North America and Britain, and, to a lesser extent, the challenge in social and economic development, as among the common reasons for the rise of crime in the Caribbean. But, although those may be valid reasons, the often violent and ruthless nature of some of the crimes throughout the region indicates that there is another more serious common thread.

This thread, Manning rightly identified, as the illegal drug trade, which is taking place throughout the region. As if to support Manning’s point, a few days after he gave his speech a plane laden with ganja crashed in Clarendon, Jamaica, while the smugglers fled. It is becoming increasingly obvious that there is now a strong linkage between the deportee problem, economic hardships, and the drug trade. The deportees unable to find lucrative traditional jobs when they return to the Caribbean, are sucked up into the illicit drug trade by unscrupulous operators, who are willing to aggressively perpetuate and protect this trade, not hesitant to use very violent measures.

These operators include both domestic and transitional players to whom the drug trade is not just a ploy to make some quick money, but rather, an enterprise. The Caribbean region, because of the strategic location of some islands like Jamaica, is proving to be very viable for the development of this enterprise in which vibrant exchange takes place between drugs, cash and guns. Almost every country in the Caribbean is characterized with vulnerable coastlines of which drug and gun smugglers take easy advantage. The players in this enterprise also seem to find it relatively easy to capitalize on the economic plight of the larger population throughout the region to buy support and silence, even among the security forces. Plus, equipped with advance technology, the leaders of the enterprise (and their trade) easily spread like a cancer from country to country throughout the region.

The real danger is that as the narcotics enterprise grows it becomes superior to the security capabilities of most Caribbean countries. Therefore, the real threat intensifies that this narco-enterprise could gradually supersede the authority of state governments battered by pressing domestic problems. When this problem is replicated among several Caribbean nations then it is easy to realize that the entire security of the region is in jeopardy.

There is no doubt that the respective leaders in the Caribbean have recognized this problem, because Manning’s call for a regional security system is not the first such call. Last year, during the Cricket World Cup, great pains were made by CARICOM to strengthen regional security. So, the formula has already been found to develop such regional security. Additionally, there exists a Regional Security System among the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, which could be utilized as a model from which to build a wider CARICOM regional security entity, with responsibility for policing the borders of all the member countries as well as monitoring both inter-regional as well as domestic drug trade and activities.

It is hoped that Prime Minister Manning will not just make this appeal for a regional security force and step back, but, rather, be actively involved in leading the initiative to ensure that it become a reality. One of the problems that plague the Caribbean is that there is this tendency to react, rather than be proactive. Leaders reacted to the need for a secure regional system during the world cup, for example, but when the series ended the emphasis that was placed on regional security waned. This was so, although there was an offer by the British to train and coordinate customs and border security resources.

The entire region must now heed Mr. Manning’s call and place the development of a regional security system not only high on the agenda of future CARICOM meetings, but set an urgent, but realistic schedule for its implementation.