Gang warfare and Special Works

THE EDITOR: In order to understand gang warfare which has its current links with the URP we must trace its history to get answers. In the 1960s urban gangs waged warfare in Port-of-Spain as much as they are doing now. The death toll was less as bottles and stones, razors, the occasional cutlass and raw brute force were the weapons of choice. There were gangs as the Marabunters and the Apple Jackers who waged vicious turf wars. Quite a few of these people also belonged to the steel band movement and hence steelbands were also involved in violent clashes whenever they met at intersections during the carnival. To curb this violence the country’s first Prime Minister Dr Eric Williams created “Special Works”, a thinly disguised welfare programme aimed at harnessing the energies of these unemployed “badjohns” and taking them out of the life of violence and crime. “A similar strategy worked better with the steelband movement. The state sought and got corporate sponsors from the private sector; sponsors who coughed up hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years to provide instruments, prizes, even trips abroad. Steelband clashes died almost overnight. The last reported clash was in 1971 when Invaders ran through Starlift giving rise to Ray Holmon’s “Pan on the Run” in 1972. Special works quelled the urban turf wars and soon enough the politicians (PNM) saw it as a perfect tool to gain votes and the programme was spread out of the capital city into other districts nationwide. The result can only be described as a disaster.

Trinidad and Tobago at the time was still involved in agriculture, producing our own food. Pangola grass was imported from South America to be grown here for cattle fodder on state farms. The oil boom did not hit us yet and world cocoa standards were measured by Trinidad quality. With the oil boom in 1974 came money and the means to expand special works. It became DEWD (Development and Environmental Works Division). Soon enough farmers in the countryside began having difficulty in getting people to work on their farms. It was much easier to stand at the roadside for a few hours and get $80 per day for ten days than earn $20 per day doing back-breaking work on cocoa or coffee estates. Cocoa, coffee and citrus estates were abandoned by the dozens over the landscape and DEWD was on the road to becoming a monster. It became LID (Labour Intensive Development) under the NAR who sought a name change, for the sake of change but used the programme for similar devices. Under the UNC it became URP (Unemployment Relief Programme). Here raw political patronage exposed itself. A religious sect was literally given the programme on a platter and soon enough that organisation literally took over the programme, especially along the East/West corridor. Violence shootings and murder entered the programme as foremen and others opposed to rank corruption were eliminated. Special Works has come full circle. Created to quell violence, today it is the source of unbridled murder and strife. In a strange twist it has sprouted a siamese twin called CEPEP which in its short life is heading in the same direction. At the bottom of all this is greed which has taken over the society from top to bottom. Greed which will rend and destroy this country if a firm hand is not taken to sort our affairs.

MC DONALD JAMES
Couva