Crime solution: Turn soldiers into policemen

THE EDITOR: National Security Minister Howard Chin Lee’s latest crime initiative raised the ire of the Police Second Division mere seconds after the statement left his lips. The bone of contention is the plan to increase the ranks of the policemen on the beat by 1,000 men. Immediately, those officers who have been facing the fire asked where this manpower was to come from. Coming to Mr Chin Lee’s rescue, Prime Minister Patrick Manning indicated that retired policemen would be brought back into the service via the route of the SRPs (a system which was being phased out just a few months ago). This is supposed to free up officers from desk jobs and put more of them on the beat to combat the runaway crime spree. Somehow we have heard this before. There was once a plan to introduce civilians into the service to perform these desk jobs and free up trained officers. No one knows how far this went and the few civilians who made it into the police stations can tell how grudgingly Trinidad and Tobago police guard their turf.

I have a suggestion which would immediately provide the Prime Minister and Mr Chin Lee with 6,000 additional officers; already highly trained (much better than the police) who are ready and largely under used. It requires a bold step but this must be done. Scrap the Trinidad and Tobago Regiment. This is an expensive army waiting for a war that will never come. Yes they have proven their mettle in 1990 dealing with home grown internal insurrectionists and the like. However, who pray tell are we going to have to defend this country against from external conflict? Grenada? St Vincent, Barbados? Guyana? The greatest threat of external invasion lies with Venezuela. Any military scrap between us and Venezuela will be settled by diplomatic channels and the United Nations peace keeping bodies. We are fooling ourselves with an army which serves no real purpose. Incredibly, now we have the Prime Minister proposing a Navy, further nonsense. Hardly anyone in this country remembers how and why we ended up with an Army in the first place. Yes we are fond of seeing our military men and women in smart uniforms for Independence Day parades, marching to the strains of popular calypsos played to military tempo. We admire them in their grim battle dress as they crisply go about their business of “defending” the country. On close examination one would observe a common thread running through the armed forces of India, Uganda, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago and others. The similarities linking these countries is that they are all former British colonies. Hence the drills, uniforms, and traits have been patterned after the British.

How this came about is on account of Lord Earl Mountbatten (a cousin to Queen Elizabeth who was blown up and murdered on his yacht in 1983 by the IRA). He was put in charge of the decolonisation process in the wake of the independence movement which was sweeping the world in the 50s and 60s. (India got independence from Britain in 1948). As a pre-condition for independence, Lord Mountbatten insisted that those seeking independence must first have an army or at least a regiment. He is reported to have bluntly told those leaders including our first Prime Minister Dr Eric Williams, “No army, no independence.” This was the policy and we had to abide by it. With the ongoing crime wave and the criminals becoming more sophisticated, we must consider if we could continue to waste precious resources on an expensive army created on the whim of a long dead British colonial. Common sense should tell us to absorb these valiant men and women into the police service and keep a small core of para military servicemen undergoing the same army training at Chaguaramas. Their purpose would be to deal with the home grown insurrectionists who seem to rear their heads every twenty years or so. Costa Rica disbanded and absorbed their army into their police force long years ago with no ill effects. Indeed they got a better police service. We remember Dame Euginia Charles in Dominica who disbanded her army when they threatened mutiny against her. The military training of our soldiers would serve us well if they are transformed into policemen. Proper stakeouts can then be made at Wallerfield, the Caroni cremation site, Carlsen Field and other remote areas where criminals carry on their nefarious activities day and night. Take this course of action now Messrs Manning and Chin Lee or soon enough you will be announcing another useless crime plan.

MC DONALD JAMES
Port-of-Spain