My understanding is the Police don’t even have the tools to take finger prints – Let alone conduct clandestine surveillance

Im certain the Police are frustrated as well

It’s time the Police are given what they need to get the job done; and for the citizens of Portsmouth to join together in a Citizens Watch Patrol!

If gone unchecked, this will absolutely ruin the future of Dominica – Not to mention Portsmouth which is trying diligently to amend its public-image!

Violent assault thefts are a COMMUNITY PROBLEM! It will take the entire communities vigilance to solve this dilemma – Or else everyone will be the victim!

In the “London Dungeon” you can get to know about Dr Crippen and Dennis Nilsen. In the early 1900s crippen soaked his dear wife in acid and nilsen defiled and dismembered 15 young men between 1978 and 1983. Do these people sound like heroes, innocents and political prisoners?

The victims of that yacht crime in Portsmouth are angry with good reason. Who likes their privacy to be invaded in that sort of way? – Nobody. If there is a potential for criminal acts (large or small) anywhere, by the laws of probability it’s going to happen to someone. So erratically sailing a yacht to various locations and not expecting to find crime seems like a naive outlook to me. Yet I do think that threatening to stay away and disseminating this bad news to the yachting community will help spur the authorities into action. I think they have gone ahead with this tourist trade without upgrading law enforcement and other allied services.

Some people who travel abroad tend to pretend that they don’t know what crime is. All I am, saying, in some well-known countries crime is an industry. People are fascinated with it. Those people who had that bad experience on their yacht could probably make a good bit of money selling their story to a news paper in one of the big financial centres. I made an assumption that the yacht people come from such a place. Their comments sounded like they had discovered crime for the first time.

The reaction of the people of the Dominica tourist trade is a predictable one. It’s called a damage limitation exercise. Where money is at stake people concerned become protective. Look at the actions of the New York and London tourist boards when the bombings happened. In Dominica media manipulation of public opinion is either non-existent or crude. People in the tourist trade tend to stress the positive aspects of their products. It is true that Dominica has a low crime rate. That is not the same as saying there is no crime. It’s all relative.

The important thing is that we should all be doing what we can to improve the situation.

Many, in fact most, of the celebrated inmates at the Tower of London were in fact heroes, innocents and political prisoners: Saint Thomas More, Sir Walter Raleigh, Queen Elizabeth I, and several of the wives of King Henry VII, so of course they’re celebrated. People visit Alcatraz Prison in the US not because of who was imprisoned there, but to see how tough the only prison with no escape was like.

Why should it matter where the victims came from?

However, it must be understood that a society with zero crime in this modern world that we live in does not exist anywhere.

I think plenty more measures could be taken to reduce the problem significantly. The people who have a financial interest in the tourist industry(this is probably nearly everybody)should promote good education for all, strong effective laws, employment, tough prison sentences, professionalism and mutual respect amongst people with the same vigor with which they sell their services.

But that is not going to happen just yet. Not while money is being made. The situation has to get worse before it is taken seriously. But then that is when it is more difficult if not impossible to solve. I think prison sentences should be longer and ex-prisoners could be electronically tagged and monitored for some time after they are let out. there must be quite a few repeat offenders.

When I was a child growing up in Dominica in the 1960s none of these types of criminal acts happened. We lived in a parish near Roseau in a concrete house. We had a few luxury items such as a record player, a fridge radios, ornaments etc. The house was never locked even when we went away. I never owned a set of keys as a child. It never crossed anybody’s mind that their belongings would be stolen if they left their house open. At that time the prison was open, inhabited by the same well known characters who had most likely just taken a coconut from a landowners estate. If by chance a worse crime than that happened the person would be sent to prison in Jamaica. Also there was no prison for women.

Some of the things that are considered crimes now they weren’t crimes when I was a kid. These days social attitudes are changing. Beating ones children or wife is now a criminal act. It wasn’t in my day. Oh by the way, I had never seen television until I traveled to England (in the 1970s) at the ripe old age of 20 years. In England crime was real and terrifying.

In Dominica they want modernization but that comes at a price. More interaction with the outside world brings benefits with some erosion of moral standards.

The interesting thing about Dominica is they have a chance to turn the situation around while the problem is still in its infancy.

I think the people who are advising against going to Dominica because they were robbed and beaten on their yacht are hypocrites. They have every right to feel angry, who wouldn’t? but on the other other hand, where do they come from?

USA
Britain
Europe
Brazil
Russia
Big Industrialized Country etc.

What no crime? No mafia? No serial killers? No football hooligans? No criminal industry? No crooked politicians?No drug dealers? No Beggars? No crack addict No? No homeless people? No CIA killing other peoples governments? No crime where these people come from?

In Dominica the tourists visit the nature trails. In London they can visit “the London Dungeon” at London Bridge where all the worse serial killers are celebrated. That place is on the tourist trail. I see a queue there every time I go past. All the really bad crimes are sensationalized in the papers and on TV. Books are written, Films are made, the full money-making works. Adults are having sexual intercourse with babies. There is a massive amount of computer fraud in the banking industry. Need I go on?

Lets all have the same moral standards everywhere.

Should you visit anyone of these crime potshots?

What do you think?

Not long time after the court, it was discussion on the radio and everybody who called on the phone, was showing their sorrow. The Government is planning to invest money to build a berth for cruise ship in Portsmouth together with move away huts and build shops, organize paid parking space for the yachts, putting up lights and etc.

In my native land, I have a friend of friend, who went to the prison. He was working at the shop and saw how some guy without mask on his face came to this shop and shoot several people in the middle of the day!!! The alive witnesses decided to tell that my friend of friend was shooting. They did it, because they were intimidated by somebody and afraid for their families. That is a real place where I have to worry!

I think in this world wherever you go – you have to keep all necessary precautions and always be aware of your surroundings. The bad things can happen everywhere. In Dominica the justice and democracy works.

I only hope that your friends were given a little more respect and sympathy than we were. And I hope Mr.Winston has stayed away from them. The last thing you need, after being robbed, beaten, and threatened with death is to have someone make out you are exaggerating and that it’s all your fault, which is exactly what happened to us. It was the lying and two-faced nature of some of the Dominican people which was so upsetting – worse than the robbery itself.

Yes, some Dominicans are nice, the Portsmouth Community Watch organisation were incredibly sympathetic and supportive to us and are still trying their hardest to find the whereabouts of the rest of our possessions because we cannot afford to buy replacements having had so much money taken from us. If it wasn’t for their support I don’t know how we would have survived the 10 days we spent in Dominica after the attack. We could not leave because of my husband’s injuries.

Please tell your friends that after a couple of months they will feel much better. I started to feel a great improvement to my spirits as soon as we left Dominica. We departed the island suddenly after receiving a copy of the nasty email from Mr.Winston. Because of his unkind remarks and lies we felt we were in further danger from the local people. My husband was still in great pain at the time and our boat was damaged from our previous voyage but we left anyway preferring to drown at sea rather than remain any longer in Dominica.

And I feel great now! We are not letting this experience change us and we are determined to continue our voyage to the Pacific ocean where we hear the people are peaceful and friendly and there is not as much violence and thiefing as in the Caribbean. The other evening we held a public showing of the photographs which were returned to me on my camera (the only item we got back after the trial apart from a broken computer). One of the thieves left many pornographic pictures of himself and his girlfriend and these were on my camera when it was returned to me by the police if you can believe that! Anyway, we were howling with laughter when we showed these pictures to everybody here! It was so funny!

Veselo, I worry for your safety living on the island. I also have friends who have lived there a long time. Their home was attacked at night by a gunman who actually shot at them! They now employ a private security guard. Have you thought about what is going to happen when Ross University closes and when the cruise ships and other tourists stop coming? The robbers, of which there are many in Dominica, will be very short of victims.

It is clear that these felons are known locally – as will become revealed to all imminently. So – if they do wish to clear their badly tarnished image and truly welcome visitors – let them RETURN the stolen money and articles. Having been pirated, with my late husband, by armed boarders in SE Asia, I know exactly the feeling of humiliation and powerlessness, which is tantamount to rape – which I have also suffered.

We long-distance cruisers do so because we enjoy the fraternal way of life and love to meet people of different cultures. Many of these are as poor as we are. Why do some then see us, often with our home-built, basic boats, as members of the super-rich elite? We often have to try and find work locally, just to put food on the table or fuel in the tank. The rich do not find themselves in the risky situation (usually weather-wise) of having to lay to anchor, choosing instead to stay in secure, expensive marinas.

I, too, with my international cruising and ham radio connections am spreading the BAD news about the abysmal, denied reputation of Dominica. IF AND WHEN I hear that it has changed its attitude towards visitors to its shores, I will do the same to correct this dire picture.

Buck up your ideas, Mr Winston – you are a disgrace to your name. Do not persecute the already persecuted.

And I also sorrow for the island, because I live here for a very long time and can tell how friendly people here and how life is tranquil. But as in any places in the world, it is enough just several sick persons, who will ruin everybody future.