Despite mockery, John Briceño maintains bipartisan approach is needed

Briceño’s youngest son is fourteen; he says he fully understands the pain of the families who have lost their children and others to violence. And despite the doubling of boots on the ground, Briceño believes that the root causes of crime are the poor economy, unemployment and corruption in the highest levels of government. The P.U.P. leader notes that U.D.P. government has failed to respond effectively to the erosion of personal security and though he has reached out seeking a bipartisan approach to solve the crippling issue, he has had no response. In fact a previous attempt made by Briceño was mocked by the Minister of State for Police, Elodio Aragon Junior.

John Briceño, P.U.P. Leader

John Briceño

“Just coming in December of last year or a few months before, I reached out to the Prime Minister in the House and said, let’s sit down as the government and the Opposition and let’s come up with some plan of action to address the issue of crime. And he promised that he was going to do it; to call us and have members from both parties; that never happened. I think at the last House meeting I tried to reach out to the Minister in charge of police, which is the former Deputy Commissioner of Police Aragon. And I was trying to make the case that beating our young people into submission is not working; that the police has to be what it was before—a person that the community trusts and that the community respects; not a person that you fear. And that we need to try to change course of action and come up with a new strategy. Of course, Mister Aragon responded political instead of reaching out to us and see what we can do. As community leaders, the churches, everyone…this is something that we need to address very quickly. As the Leader of the Opposition, I am prepared to meet with the Prime Minister any time, any place, for us to set aside the politics for a while and to try to come up with a strategy that can address the crime wave that has taken over our society. And it means addressing it from several angles—not only going after the criminals, but also addressing the issue of the economy, the issue of poverty and even about addressing the rampant corruption within the U.D.P. government. We have to do something and we need to do something now.”