Please, enlighten us Mr Giuliani

THE EDITOR: Please publish the following letter to Mr Rudolph Giuliani. Dear Mr Giuliani, I trust that you will feel welcome in our midst. Clico, as I am sure you have already realised will not spare a greenback to ensure that you have a pleasant and rewarding stay. I believe that you will find our people quite friendly and willingly accepting of tourists, whether long or short stay, visiting our shores. Your good friend Donald Trump will testify to the personally beneficial and wonderful time he had here a few years ago. In your case, you may be with us a day or two or perhaps only a few hours. But according to your host, during your stay you will share your profound insights on understanding and combating crime — this experience gained, no doubt from your days as a crime-busting mayor of New York City.

I am certain that you, and your staff, would have done much research on the crime situation in Trinidad and Tobago. And perhaps even looked for similarities between the two jurisdictions. I am sure Mr Giuliani that a man of your insight will understand that the map is not the territory. In your research you would have been studying the map. To be sure, it would have been necessary and useful. It is in the territory, however, that the pitfalls lie. And as a citizen, I would be very interested in hearing what a foreigner, a stranger to our corrupt ways who is also innocent to the peculiarities of our country, would have to offer as solutions for the unprecedented levels of crime gripping this nation. And how, pray tell, you as a transient with the advantage of having no vested interest, will approach remedying the situation.

On the ground here, in the territory so to speak, we have a huge drug problem. Perhaps not so large as New York City but maybe more complex. Let me illustrate. In our situation, the government and its law enforcement agencies appear unable, or unwilling to identify the drug kingpins in the country. As far back as 1994, I told a seminar on crime, conducted by the business community at Queen’s Hall, that unless the local Pablo Escobars are identified and expurgated from our midst in order to protect the society, the crime situation will only worsen, identifying for those assembled the corrupting influence that the drug trade, and its companion — money laundering, has on the police force, the judiciary, politicians and parliament, and the banking and business community. Among those assembled on that day was the then police commissioner. From then till now, the police continue to focus attention on the minor players. Don’t be sidetracked by the Dole Chadee gambit. There has to be much bigger, more powerful though less identifiable — particularly to those who would turn a blind eye, players in the narcotic trade. To what extent have all the major institutions of the State been corrupted is difficult to say. But if your ears are to the ground, the sounds that are picked up makes one shudder. So Mr Giuliani, share with us your insights and perspectives on how to develop a root and branch solution to the drug menace in a situation where the authorities seem committed to pruning away leaves and branches while leaving the root intact.

In your context, how did you handle the criminals of the Upper East Side in contrast to those on the Lower West Side or those of Long Island and Queens compared to those of Bed-Sty and Brunswick? Was your solution of the root and branch variety or was it the pruning of leaves and branches. I can assure you that all crime plans put forward thus far by the current administration, and every past one as well is of the leaf and branch variety. In this regard, I doubt there is anything new you can tell us. We are expert at appearing to fight crime. Creating great distraction at one of the crime continuum while leaving the criminals on the opposite end free to carry on with impunity and secure in the knowledge that their criminal enterprises would be untouched. Sure, they may lose few runners and bagmen but that’s just part of the cost of doing this business. We would appreciate hearing from you Mr Giuliani with respect to how you dealt with corruption within the New York police force, how you dealt with corrupt judicial officials within your jurisdiction.

Let me give you a hypothetical case for the purpose of illustration. Suppose you had a situation in which senior judicial officers removed a junior, acknowledged as competent and known to prefer justice to favours, from presiding over a case involving high profile New Yorkers. How would you handle such a situation? Here is another scenario. Imagine that you had an instance in which a senior judicial officer was found by the competent authority, to have perverted the course of justice. Would you fire, demote, or leave him alone? Answers to questions like these would help to guide our responses if such situations were actually to ever arise here. Further, how did you deal with those corrupt individuals who weaved together a web of legitimate and illegal businesses? Your answers to these questions will certainly help to define the leadership perspective required for these difficult times and perhaps we may benefit from your visit here. That however does not necessarily mean positive change in the short or medium term. I look forward to hearing from you.
Respectfully,

LINCOLN MYERS
Port-of-Spain