KINGSTOWN, St, Vincent, CMC – Opposition Leader, Dr. Godwin Friday, want Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves and Police Commissioner, Colin John, to participate in a national prayer vigil on Thursday.
“We need this very badly. We need each other very badly. I am calling on the churches, civil society leaders including the trade union leaders, business leaders, men and women of decency and courage to come together,” Friday told a news conference as he commented on the crime situation here.
“Let us all come and pray together for peace and healing in our land, at Heritage Square in Kingstown, … [on] Thursday,” Friday said, urging the churches and religious leaders to take the lead.
“This is not a time for division and hate; it is a time for healing and hope. It is a time to appeal to our better natures, even in those committing crimes. And I speak here not only of murders and other violent crimes but also of the widespread stealing from farmers of their crops and animals, home break-ins, yacht break-ins; sexual assaults; of domestic violence. All are way out of bounds in this country.”
Friday said prayers were necessary to create security and peace here “so that we can build a prosperous country by the grace of God, where all of us have a place in that country and a share in that prosperity.
“This requires all of us working together on realistic plans and practical solutions to this serious problem of violent crime,” the Opposition Leader told reporters that crime and violence are out of hand.
He said the five people, including a 13-year-old school student, who was shot and killed last week in a mass shooting, had confirmed his belief that crime was out of hand.
“We are just past the middle of the year and have recorded 35 killings …most have been by gunshot,” Friday said, noting that at this rate, the country will break the killings set just last year when 42 people were murdered.
“We hope that by some miracle it does not continue that way because every time it happens, some family grieves, somebody loses a life, somebody loses a loved one,” Friday said, adding that the trend is “simply unacceptable.”
Friday said that Prime Minister Gonsalves had said a few weeks ago that he was working on a plan.
“But still no plan has been presented to the nation…also, the present commissioner of police has overseen a time of increasing gun violence and killings in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. He may have done his best to address the problem, but that has not been good enough to improve the situation. So, the time has come to have a new commissioner of police,
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