INHUMANE and uncharacteristic of Barbados.
That’s how Reverend Carlyle Williams, District Superintendent of the Wesleyan Holiness Church, described last weekend’s ghastly deaths of six young women in a raging fire at Tudor Street, The City.
“In my own view this particular criminal activity is not human. It is inhumane, insensitive, and certainly as a nation we mourn the loss of these young people and we share in the pain which is felt by those significant others.
“As a Barbadian, I am hurt and we are in prayer for relatives and friends of the victims,” he said.
Williams made these comments minutes after delivering the sermon marking the opening of the legal year 2010-2011 at The St Michael Cathedral yesterday morning.
The 66-year-old preacher wants the two villains who torched the store, trapping the young women inside, to surrender.
“I hope the perpetrators would be moved to surrender when they consider the heinous act they have committed that has thrown this nation into chaos.
“We are in prayer that these guys will by the shortest route give themselves up. This is a precedent. We have never had anything like this in Barbados.
“The cutlass assault was bad, but to burn the place down and trap the people inside . . . . Even animals dying like that would be a painful thing, furthermore human beings.”
Before a congregation which included Attorney General Freundel Stuart, Commissioner of Police Darwin Dottin and Director of Public Prosecutions Charles Leacock, Williams challenged the community to come up with solutions to enhance family life.
Noting that there was nothing greater than self-mastery, the first step towards greatness, Williams said the society would be rich and empowered by the character of conduct of people who could not be bought, “who will put character before wealth, who will make no compromise and who will be honest in small things as well as in great things”.
“This principle is indeed worthy of application for the long-term benefit of our prized Barbados,” he added. (MK)
