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It's New Year’s Eve - one of the most anticipated party nights on the calendar. But tonight in Belize City there is a palpable sense of foreboding and people are telling us they are afraid to go out because there are grenades out there and people who aren't afraid to use them. Well, if your urban terror security alert is at stage red, there may be some relief tonight, some hope that you can step it down to maybe...amber.  That's because an important sit-down was held this afternoon between rival gangs and we can tell you that there appears to be a real chance for peace.

At 1:30 this afternoon leaders from Kraal Road, George Street, South Side Gangsters, Supaul Street, and Martins, met at the CYDP office in Belize City. The sit down was organized and mediated by CYDP director Edward Broaster with all sides agreeing to attend voluntarily. Importantly we’re told that all sides that promised to show up did so.

In the present climate of sustained hostility, that alone is an encouragement but what happened inside makes it even more so. The meeting lasted just under 3 hours and all parties stayed inside until it was done. We're told that discussions were heated but they were also open, and, it ended in a joint prayer – where all nine gang leaders held hands in prayer! Raymond Killa Gentle, the boss of Kraal Road gave us an important interview. It’s his block that was blasted with a grenade on Monday night and today he told us that he’s not going to retaliate, in 2010 – it’s about peace.

Jules Vasquez,
“The people are scared right now. What can you say?”

Raymond “Killa” Gentle, Kraal Road
“Well you can’t believe the people to be scared after a grenade throw but we just came out of a small meeting where we met with a one and two who you could say are OG’s from different hoods where we sat down with a pastor and Broaster and Douglas Hyde and different people who are trying to work together concerning this situation, this crime situation happening in our neighbourhood. So we just came to one agreement and went down in a word of prayer for that 2010 we are looking for peace between each other. So far in the meeting everybody came to an understanding that we will try and put the past behind and look for a better 2010 between George Street and Kraal Road, Supal, Southside, and any neighbourhood involved in this war happening in our area right now.”

Jules Vasquez,
“So you could say that for the time being, you will hold it down?”

Raymond “Killa” Gentle,
“That is what I could say because it comes from the horse’s mouth and I am not a man of fear, I am a man of God. So if Shine says, if whosoever says this is the way how we want to start our 2010, that means it is showing that I don’t have no fear to get into my vehicle with my kids and reach from point A to point B because I take their word as a man that it is time for this madness to stop. So it came to a conclusion between we. We are not saying it will stop but me as a man who has been around Kraal Road all these years and the different leaders from different neighbourhoods, we come a conclusion that we will try our best to control the youths in the neighbourhoods who are raise the problem. So any little effect that comes around us, we will see how we could address it.

I represent Kraal Road and I could give account for the youths of Kraal Road. As far as I know, Kraal Road is a neighbourhood which has a past, way up in the 90s, early 90s, 1992 to 1993, way up to like 1999. Since 2000 and beyond we’ve tried to make a difference in Kraal Road. For the past four or five years we’ve had a football team which is representing the same individuals who they are trying to say are mingling in crime and violence. So we just get together to prove that Kraal Road isn’t involved in any criminal activity back there. So we don’t mind work towards peace because from the beginning we weren’t in any criminal activity.

The Police Department, I am not pointing any fingers, and different people in the society are encouraging this situation because people the hear and say; bwoy this yah one seh I wah kill you. They throw a grenade on Kraal Road and before the grenade throw we knew a grenade would have been thrown. So it is the same people in society who are back and forthing this crime situation. We came to an understand that yes, we understand that it is just people the come and say, ‘well bwoy I hear Killa want to kill Soup or Soup want to kill Killa or this or that.’ It is up to you to follow those crazy talking and once you are a man with responsibility and a man with a positive mind, a conscious man, you will know that talking you should not follow.

You have to be careful of how you move yes because the streets the rest a kind of way where the youths are out there fighting for fame but at the same time the youths can’t pick up a gun if some senior in the neighbourhood doesn’t give it to them. The youths have their own ways to again because the young bwoys are sometimes beyond we in the crime level. Burglaries, thefts, and those are same stages they come across their firearm which we can’t control because it is for them.”

Jules Vasquez,
“But the grenade landed in your yard. You are saying now you can get past that and you can move on, you will not seek retaliation for that?”

Raymond “Killa” Gentle,
“Well I don’t understand what the happen, I over-stand everything which is happening. The grenade landed in my yard because rumours are out in the street that Raymond Gentle sent out a hit on Dean Tillett which is wrong and then the brothers of Dean Tillett probably, or friends of Dean Tillett, got that kind of information and said alright, and said that is the way how they will retaliate and they made the wrong retaliate. We have one fatal, we didn’t appreciate that it is a minor. No individual at all, it is a grenade throw where it could have been more serious because where the grenade land is where a group of guys were hanging out, a lot of people live in the yard, and we have one fatal so we just have to accept the things we can’t change.

But for further notice, we will try our best to see how that grenade business could be held down because it is like a grenade war and we don’t want to follow that up. Kraal Road for instance doesn’t want to follow that up because everybody know Raymond Gentle gone on interview, give up grenade, and people expect for a grenade revenge but from my perspective, that won’t happen because I am not into crime on that level. I am looking for a different lifestyle for the four kids I have.

We are looking forward to meet again in two weeks so we could see how we could keep ourselves together. We are not trying to stray but this meeting happened today and two weeks later we will ask for another meeting, bring back the same guys them with probably some more who weren’t a part of the first one and see how we could keep it like that together, slow down the crime rate. We can’t say we could stop it but we could help slow it down, the murder especially.”

Jules Vasquez,
“You ended with a prayer and he felt that was auspicious, what was that moment like?”

Paul Casanova, Ended Prayer
“It was a very very special moment. Everybody held hands, as a matter of fact I didn’t even suggest it, it was Gentle himself who suggested that since we have a pastor among us let’s end off the session with a word of prayer. Of course that was very very special to me. So we all held hands and we had a very inspirational prayer. I would say God blessed us. And I would say afterwards we even had one of the guys talking truce to each other apologizing there right after the prayer. So I would say it was a positive meeting we had.”

As Killa Gentle said, a follow up meeting is planned and we are told a family day for rival crews is also a possibility.

But it’s important to note that many of the complaints raised in the meeting are about the police. We say that to point out that while it is a CYDP effort and the CYDP is staffed with police that agency must mediate against its own Police Department whose tactics are seen in embattled neighborhoods as a large part of the problem. The talks to find common ground between both sides will continue but until then we suspect that everyone – including the affected neighbourhoods is hoping the peace holds.