PM Douglas “sickened by violence” and calls on parents and society to train and discipline children and youths

St. Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister Hon. Dr. Denzil L. Douglas

“I don’t want to hear that this is happening in Trinidad & Tobago, I don’t want to hear that it is happening in America, I don’t want to hear any of that, because I know what life used to be like in St. Kitts and Nevis, and I want this cancer out!  I want this pathology out!  I want an end to this madness that is taking place in this beloved country,” said Prime Minister Douglas on his “Ask the PM” on ZIZ Radio and Sugar City Rock on Tuesday morning.

“How is the family of Travan Francis supposed to deal with his body lying in the street in a pool of blood, at 3 o’clock in the morning?  How is the family of Desroy Walwyn supposed to deal with his body lying in the street.in a pool of blood…at 3 on Sunday morning?  What on earth got into the heads and the hearts of those who decided to just gun down living, breathing human beings – just because they feel like it,” said Prime Minister Douglas in response to Sunday’s homicide, which took the lives of two Cayon villages.

“How are the family members of any of the young men who have been gunned down over the years supposed to deal with any of this?  How are our neighbours and passersby supposed to deal with this,” said Dr. Douglas.

Twenty-two persons have died as a result of gun and stabbing crimes this year.

“This is really not normal!!  This is not good for us as a people, the peace loving people of St. Kitts and Nevis!  Human beings are not supposed to be witnessing these things!  Young shooting and stabbing up each other cannot be normal here in St. Kitts and Nevis,” said Dr. Douglas, who called on the society to “wake up.”

Prime Minister Douglas called on parents to discipline their children and the society to become more neighbourly. ~~Adz:Right~~

“Parents saying to me they ‘can’t go with their children’ is absolute nonsense! If you have a child, it is your job to teach that child what is right from what is wrong!  If you have a child, it is your job to stay at home at night with that child!  Locking up our children and going out to “have a good” time creates big problems for the rest of society.  It creates unstable children!  And neighbours need to speak up when they see this type of neglect, this type of abuse, and this type of slackness taking,” said Dr. Douglas.

He referred to the tendency of parents to spend heavily on name-brand clothes for the children instead of channeling those resources in other meaningful areas.

“Parents buying into this constant brand-name, buy-buy-buy culture creates problems for us.  We have to stop thinking that we are what we wear…..or we are what we have….that is a kind of sickness that leads to extreme stress in our society, it leads to destruction, and it leads to criminality,” said Dr. Douglas, who added that the habit of older men having relations with young girls and then leaving them with their babies is creating problems for the society.

“It is a crime.  These men need to be prosecuted and thrown in jail.  When older men cause young girls to have babies they cannot afford to take care of, or when these girls are so irresponsible and childish that they have no idea of what parenting is all about, this creates major problems for the rest of society!  This is not cute, and there needs to be greater condemnation of it,” said Prime Minister Douglas.

He said anyone who stabs and shoots and kills will be made to pay - to the full extent of the law.

“That is guaranteed, but we also have to start “minding each other’s business” much more, as a society.  And I’m very serious about this today,” said the St. Kitts and Nevis leader.

He called on the society to speak out when parents failing to train their children.

“We have to speak out when we see parents brutalizing their children.  We have to speak out when we see parents being awful examples for their own children.  We have to care more about what happens to other people’s children in St. Kitts and Nevis.  We need to go back to the days when we knew in our bones that some behaviours were plain unacceptable - because the little slip-ups lead to ever bigger and bigger ones.  This is the way it was when I was a boy myself!  And that is why our society was so much healthier than it is today,” said Dr. Douglas.