Drugs fund Al Qaeda in TT

Not only is Trinidad and Tobago at the heart of the international trade in illegal narcotics, but local transhipments are being controlled by this society’s elites and are being used to fund a local cell of the Al Qaeda terrorist network. This claim came from local author/academic/lecturer, Daurius Figueira, who upstaged Canadian forensic investigator, Bob Lindquist, at a conference on “International Crime and Terrorism: Implications for Business and Caribbean Economies” yesterday at the Hilton Trinidad.  Calling Trinidad and Tobago a narco-democracy, he said the drug trade had influenced every institution of the State and was run by supposedly respectable local businessmen.

He said that Al Qaeda was likely to try to ignite tanker-ships transporting LNG to the United States to use it as a weapon of mass destruction.  Figueira said that the drug trade was also destroying Trinidad and Tobago, saying the drug-traffickers were also importing guns into the country. Not only were rival drug gangs engaging in a drug war but by their proliferation of weapons, they were also encouraging banditry. Lamenting that this was all occurring under successive political regimes and that the drug-trade had involved certain politicians, Figueira said: “Sometimes you get tired of being a crusader.”

Figueira’s contribution was markedly contrasted to that of Lindquist who had spoken before, and had said he was optimistic that societies could in fact control high-level criminality. Given a theme of “Effects of International Crime and Terrorism on Business”, Lindquist actually gave a prescription for good company management, saying: “The challenge isn’t international crime or terrorism, but to continue to develop their vision for their business, to translate that vision for all employees, and to create good governance.” Attorney General, Glenda Morean, in what might be seen by some as a criticism of stringent new security measures in the United States, said that  country had recently shown a “disturbing trend” in using anti-terrorist laws to tackle lesser offences. She said: “Enormous and unwarranted powers are to be used against citizens, unchecked by judicial review”. In contrast, she said, Trinidad and Tobago protected itself from terrorism by measures in accordance with its Constitution and the law. She said the Chief State Solicitor was currently reviewing our terrorism/crime laws to draft new anti-terrorism laws.