Musa Points to Murder Drop in Push to Protect LIU

As talk continues about whether Belize’s crime‑fighting strategy might shift under the new Minister of Home Affairs, former minister Kareem Musa is stepping in to defend the work of the Leadership Intervention Unit. Musa says there’s nothing at the Cabinet level suggesting the program will be scaled back. In fact, he argues the LIU has produced real results. He points to the sharp drop in murders over the last three years as proof that the initiative, first envisioned by the late William Dawson, is doing exactly what it was designed to do. And in his view, the answer isn’t to dismantle it… but to strengthen it.

 

Kareem Musa, Former Minister, Home Affairs

“From the information that I’m getting, at least at the cabinet level, I don’t hear any move being made to downsize it. I think the Leadership Intervention Unit as envisioned by the late William Dawson is such an incredible concept. Yes, there is a long way to go in terms of implementing a lot of what he had envisioned for the program, but you can clearly see a result in terms of the statistics each year, the last three years. For the first time in over twenty-five years we’ve had under ninety murders or ninety, ninety and below I believe, when we used to have one hundred and forty. And so when you look at it from a clear black and white statistical purpose you can see where it has had an impact. And so I would hope that it’s something that we can continue and even strengthen as we move ahead.”

 

And Musa says the numbers speak for themselves, three straight years of lower murder counts, something the country hasn’t seen in more than two decades. For him, the Leadership Intervention Unit isn’t something to scale back, but something to build on as Belize looks for long‑term solutions to violent crime.