The debate in this week's Royal Gazette on the Christmas gang truce and the merits of negotiating ceasefires with alleged criminals is a complex and important one.

In the stories, Carlton Simmons of Youth on the Move, says that the ceasefire broke after several people from one gang were refused bail after another person from the "42" was granted Police bail just days earlier.

He argues that had the Parkside members received bail and been able to go home, the truce would have held.

As it was, it did not, and by January 3, another man, Perry Puckerin, was dead.

Mr. Simmons and others have worked extraordinarily hard to try to end gang warfare and to restore peace and hope to some of the Island's most embattled neighbourhoods.

In the context, no one can blame him or others for doing everything they can to stop the madness.

However, that does not mean that every step taken is the right one or that peace is worth the price offered.

In this case, if the Police were to release people on bail on the assurance that it would keep the peace, then the Police would be taking a very dangerous step to a point where gangs and criminals can hold the Police and the community at large to ransom.

To that extent, Commissioner Michael DeSilva is correct to state that the Police's first job is not to negotiate with gangs, but to enforce the law.

And he was also right to at least try negotiations, especially in the fraught period before Christmas.

The question now is whether negotiations and efforts to bring an end to gang warfare are worth continuing, and if so, whether the Police should have any involvement.

The answer to both questions has to be yes. But several ground rules have to be laid down, one of which is that people do not get immunity from prosecution for serious crimes if they lay down their arms.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the Ceasefire Programme advocated by this newspaper and the Opposition United Bermuda Party, creates a means by which peace can be achieved and gang members can embark on law-abiding and productive lives.

In Ceasefire, the Police, social workers, church leaders and others come together to offer gangs a way out, with the promise that if they don't leave the gang life, their lives will be made a misery. Thus the Police have a role as they wield a carrot and a stick.

St. George's

There was relief in St. George's yesterday as Holland America Line's Veendam finally stopped in Murray's Anchorage rather than steaming on to Hamilton.

But the arrangement for the visitors remains unsatisfactory and it will be interesting to see how much the passengers enjoy being tendered into St. George's Harbour from the ship.

The ship was originally supposed to come into St. George's proper until it was realised Town Cut was too narrow. That symbolises the careless attitude Government has had towards St. George's for the best part of a decade. The Police Station saga, the endless failure to put a hotel on the Club Med site, the closure of the golf course, arbitrary ferry cancellations and so on have all contributed to making St. Georgians feel like stepchildren.

Now Government will "study" the feasibility of moving Government offices to St. George's – or Southside as a means of boosting the economy in the East End.

This is not a bad thing, but it is an old tactic by governments and reflects the oversize influence on the economy that the pubic sector has now developed.

But it is not a substitute for St. George's being a sustainable economic entity. What happened to the talks of making St. George's and Economic Enterprise Zone? Why does St. George's get so little promotion through the Ministry of Tourism as a World Heritage Site and living 18th Century town?

The betting here is that the "study" will result in very little benefit for St. George's, but it will have bought the Government some time.