CASTRIES, St. Lucia, CMC – Prime Minister Philip J. Pierre wants young people to follow in the footsteps of gang leaders who send their children to the best schools and ensure they are not part of any criminal organization.
“The gang leaders living big and large. All over the world, gang leaders live big and large. You never see any gang leader child involved in any gang,” Pierre told a public meeting of his ruling St. Lucia Labour Party (SLP) on the Castries Market steps on Thursday night.
Pierre, also National Security Minister, added that the gang leaders send their children to the best schools even abroad, “but they leave you, you the young people, tell you ‘be in a gang and do this and do that.”
He said young St. Lucians should not allow anyone to influence them to commit crimes, saying that his administration is creating opportunities and providing options for a life of crime.
“Do not allow selfish people to make you break the law,” Pierre said, adding that the authorities are working hard to deal with the crime situation, including gun violence, and that the approach would not only involve the police and the Regional Security System (RSS) officers whom he invited to assist in the anti-crime battle.
Officers from the Barbados-based RSS were deployed here in March in response to deadly gun violence in the southern town of Vieux Fort.
“It is time to act, and I ask for your support. There will be some difficult decisions to be made, and some strong actions will be taken to deal with these cowards and criminals,” Pierre had said then in a national broadcast.
But he was critical Thursday night of those who wanted the crime to escalate in the country.
Anytime there is an unfortunate crime, they laugh. They are happy. Like they get up in the morning and pray, they say, ‘Bon Dieu, let them have some more crime so Labour can pay.’ That’s not happening.
“We had a crime problem. We had an issue with murders, but we did not hide. We, as a government, faced it man to man. We confronted it, my brothers and sisters, and we looked for help from overseas.
“But while we looked for help from overseas, we were like men and women. We didn’t run. We didn’t run away – run away and go and call our father. We stayed, and we worked hard,” he told supporters.
Last year, the island recorded 76 murders, and at the end of April this year, the figure stood at 27.
and then 