With radical beaches and turquoise waters, the Turkish islands and caicosA British territory in the Caribbean is best known as one of the most beautiful tourist destinations in the world.
But an internal investigation by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs seen by the Guardian exposed to what extent the islands were engulfed by extreme violence last year in the middle of a lawn of lawn for the control of drug trafficking tracks.
The local police, she concluded, had been “overwhelmed” by carnage, as Quarrel gangs came out of automatic rifles in the streets.
The report has also identified a series of failures in the Royal Turkish and CAICO police forces, including limited forensic capacities, no management structure for serious incidents and a bizarre insistence for the recording of crime data in a spreadsheet rather than in a British government database shared with other police forces in the region.
These results were taken up by a distinct report from the academics of Sheffield Hallam University, which reported a general public distrust of state institutions, including what was delicately described as a “gap of police legitimacy”.
Sources have declared to the Guardian several warnings concerning the incompetence of the police and possible corruption had been communicated to the governor’s office, a representative of the British crown in Whitehall with the constitutional responsibility of the territory in recent years.
Governor, Dileeni Daniel-Selvaratnam, who was appointed to the June post, refused to comment on the review of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but said in a statement that she was “determined to fight against allegations of corruption or bad practice”.
The journal of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, responsible for assessing the ability of islands to respond to serious crimes such as murder and theft, reported its conclusions in November 2022. At this stage, the war between the rival gangs had won 31 lives – against four murders in 2017.
“The magnitude of the threat posed by serious crimes has submerged the capacity and capacities of the Royal Turkish police and the Caicos Islands,” he concluded. “The levels of murder, violent crimes and the use of firearms considerably exceed everything that is experienced by the United Kingdom, or any other British territory abroad.”
In particular, the exam was put into service in March and on the basis of the field work carried out in summer – several months before the violence of the gangs exploded in the fall.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs refused to say what had prompted the report to be put into service. The report observed, however, that the illegal migration to the Turks and Caïcos (TCI), which has increased sharply in recent years due to small boats in Haiti and Jamaica, was an “aggravating factor” behind the increase in serious crimes.
Three months after the end of the report of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Helena Kennedy Center for International Justice of Sheffield Hallam University reported in the same way concerning the conclusions of its own investigation into the deep causes of a serious crime on the islands.
“Corruption is widely recognized in the public service system of TCI by participants in the interview (and) respondents to the survey,” he said. Endemics was therefore the problem that Icelanders thought that corruption was “the second most important concern for the crime to be resolved on the islands after the murder”.
Some of those of the academics interviewed described the fears that the information they provide to the police are immediately reported to the authors.
A defendant said, “There are rumors that at least the last three people who have been killed had given information to the police and that these people were targeted in a way because they have provided the police.
“There has always been this widely disseminated notion that … there are corrupt police officers, and they disclose information to criminals, and these criminals return to people and later kill these people.”
‘Serious threats of transnational crime ‘
The report of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was more equivocal, retaining direct criticism and offering praise in mood for recent improvements. But he also listed several failures and shortcomings, which suggests that they may have contributed to the island’s inability to resist the subsequent explosion of extreme violence.
Although the police management was sent to specific training for a serious response to incidents, the investigators found “no identifiable request” of the principles that would have been taught. “Political newspapers, meeting structures or defined roles” to respond to serious incidents were lacking.
He also observed a reluctance to use a British crime reduction system, Otrcis, which shares data with other British territories in the Caribbean. About a quarter of the reports were not registered in the system, the rest being in the place recorded only in a local spreadsheet.
The examination recommended that force record all crime data in OTRCIS. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not answer the question of whether TCI police were still doing it.
Daniel-Selvaratnam said in a statement that the islands faced “serious threats to transnational crime and irregular migrations” and that it had requested better collaboration between law enforcement organizations and greater external support since its appointment.
“As governor of the Turkish and caïcos islands, I undertake to fight head on the allegations of corruption or mediocre practices,” she said, adding that the current police commissioner would retire shortly.
“A key objective of my recruitment of his successor will be the strengthening of police standards and a strong ethical driving and performance framework for the police forces of the Royal Turkish and Caicos.”
