Minister Rayburn Blackmoore is calling for a robust identification system to target facilitators of gun trafficking as officials meet to advance firearm control
Dominica: Minister Rayburn Blackmoore emphasised the need for a more robust system to identify individuals facilitating the culprits, explaining that it will reduce the illicit trafficking of firearms in Dominica.
This week, the Ministry of National Security and Legal Affairs hosted a three-day Inter-Institutional Roundtable Meeting with different representatives from key government institutions in the region.
The meeting commenced on Wednesday, April 8 and will conclude on April 10, 2026, where the representatives have been engaging in high-level discussions on how to advance firearms control in the country and ensure safety for every Dominican citizen.
During the opening ceremony on Wednesday, the Minister of National Security and Legal Affairs, Rayburn Blackmoore, explained that the illicit trafficking of firearms in Dominica is continuing because people are benefiting from the crimes that are being committed.
He stated that in order to address this, a more robust system is needed.
“You have players within the various agencies, both private and public, who are facilitating the culprits. The system must be robust enough and serious enough to identify those players and to rid them out of the system,” he stated.
Minister Blackmoore went on to stress that everyone, both the Government and citizens, have the responsibility to do what is required to ensure Dominica’s future is one that is safe for everyone.
“We live in a small society, homogeneous communities, where everybody knows each other. And as a consequence, therefore, we harbour criminals. And if we are serious about the future of this country, all of us have that moral responsibility to do what we need to do to identify those who have made it their vocation to corrupt every institution in this country, including our young men, who have been used as mules to carry out the trade of worthless, no-face individuals,” stressed the Minister.
This roundtable meeting was organised through the collaboration of the United Nations Regional Centre for Peace, Disarmament, and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean (UNLIREC) and the CARICOM Implementation Agency for Crime and Security (CARICOM IMPACS).
It included senior representatives from national security, law enforcement, justice, foreign affairs, gender affairs, monitoring and evaluation, and other government institutions who gathered to address Dominica’s action plan against illicit firearms in alignment with the Caribbean Firearms Roadmap.