A state of public emergency exists in the twin-island republic of Trinidad and Tobago. It includes the power to search and seize without a warrant and powers of arrest and detention by police officers and soldiers. Persons should not have in their possession materials or documents which are likely to lead to a breach of the peace. Persons are also prohibited from making statements that are prejudicial to public disorder.
Yes, “the war on crime is on,” declares attorney general Anand Ramlogan. The recent occurrence of 11 murders in one day bears the scars for immediate action. The air is filled with fear. Blood stains the alleyways. Distant screams haunt the night as mothers wail over the loss of their sons and daughters. Streets lay empty and bare while starving dogs fight over misplaced men's meat and children's bones. “Indeed!” laments the passer-by, “crime has besieged the consciousness of our nation.”This is the new Trinidad and Tobago. This is the land of hope and glory and the sweet black trinity that calypsonian Sparrow sang about. This is the oil rich republic that historian Dr Eric Williams defended to his dying breath. This is the unrecognizable land mired in chaotic and contradictory fury, held hostage by a pillaging group of thugs and gangs, who are rewriting its history to reflect their own morbid view of reality.
And now the only choice left is to pay careful attention to the criminal element that exists within the very ranks of the police service, the army and other government departments.
Trinidad and Tobago was placed on a Tier Two Listing by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the US Department of State as early as 2010. As the most active country of origin and transit point for regional and extra-regional irregular migration to North America and Europe, Trinidad and Tobago was warned about the vulnerability of its borders to transnational organized crime networks and the risk of being exploited by terrorists and murderous drug lords by its own immigration officials and security personnel.
But this warning fell on deaf ears.
According to the US State Department, the regular presence of small cargo fishing boats (pirogues) from Venezuela and other Caribbean islands, loaded with drug shipments, continue to go unnoticed because security forces do a poor job of screening maritime traffic and who many times have been paid large sums of money to remain quiet.
Gangs loyal to political parties or to the police garner more respect than law abiding civilians. Victims of police brutality go by unmentioned. Institutional dysfunction allows violence to continue into escalation of gang warfare.
A state of emergency at this late stage of the game, after the criminals have long been given notice by interior forces to leave the hotspots and go underground allowing them to set up new cells and safer havens, comes as a laughing game.
Now attorney general Ramlogan, national security minister John Sandy, acting police commissioner Stephen Williams and chief of defence staff Brigadier Kenrick Maharaj are at their peak in going after gang members, circulation of firearms and drug traffickers and are bidding to get as many weapons as possible off the streets.
But this action comes a bit too late.
Rather than embrace their responsibility of sweeping out corruption within their own ranks, prime minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has instead chosen to incite fear and confusion in the minds of the citizenry and visitors alike by instigating a state of emergency, while the very creed of national security and all its code of ethics of the public service are being ceaselessly undermined by the corruption of its own immigration officers, police officers, military personnel and some of its notorious elites.
Abuse of immigration stamps, issuance of birth certificates, bribery and government passports to foreign nationals, has failed to ensure immediate actions into tabling legislation to deal with the problem of human smuggling and trafficking, hence inciting a free reign to make a mockery of justice by deflecting responsibility back to the very system that failed in the first place.
Critics argue that the state of emergency curtails the freedom of citizens, suspends the public’s constitutional rights, deprives citizens of their human rights and scares investor confidence. The rhetorical and inflammatory call to action for a state of emergency repels the root of the problem and favours the murderous gang lords more than the citizens and does not equal a platform for change.
Simply stated, the criminal element in Trinidad and Tobago lies in weak legislation and lax border controls to corrupt immigration officials, and police and security personnel operating from within.
The unrivaled moral task of saving Trinidad and Tobago, while at the same time safeguarding the lives of its citizens from the destructive effects of crime, sits evenly with co-operation and intelligence sharing between Trinidad and Tobago, and US officials.
August 27, 2011
caribbeannewsnow
