UWP’s Lennox Linton has asked the Regional Security System (RRS) of regional governments to stay away from Dominica during the coming elections. The opposition leader said they should allow local authorities to manage the emerging threats and challenges of the elections. He said his party does not want a situation where the RRS will join with the “local police to brutalize citizens” of Dominica.
Linton made this request in response to speculations that PM Roosevelt Skerrit has called on regional governments in the Caribbean to deploy the RSS to Dominica during the coming general elections.
“The next few days and weeks are going to be very interesting,” Linton said. “We expect the international community to continue keeping its eyes of Dominica. We are also asking the governments of CARICOM, to refrain from sending members of the Regional Security System (RSS) to Dominica to help the local police to brutalize citizens of the Commonwealth of Dominica simply expressing their democratic right to protest for [their] rights.”
Linton said the international community is supportive of the UWP’s demands for electoral reforms before the coming elections. He added that without these necessary changes, there is no assurance of a fair and free election in the country. He tagged Skerrit a one man who with his cronies is trying to deny the citizenry of their rights by perpetuating himself in office.
The RRS was established in 1982 to combat regional threats and instability in member countries of Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines – four member countries of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS). The countries were signatories to a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Barbados which provided that the RRS can be deployed to provide “mutual assistance on request” to member countries. St. Kitts and Nevis became signatory to the MOU following independence in 1983, and Grenada did the same in 1985.
The MOU was updated in 1992 and 1996 to empower the RSS help regional countries in times of national emergencies, natural disasters, terrorism attacks, domestic crises, civil unrest, wars, and threats to national security among others.
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