N Touch

Union with small-islanders for votes, not growth

THE EDITOR: Prime Minister Patrick Manning, in a previous incarnation (1991-95), floated the idea of a political union with TT, Barbados and Guyana. No one embraced this political vision of Mr Manning’s. Now our Prime Minister insists that TT must form a new political union with St Vincent and Grenada. He views this new federation as a necessary condition for economic growth in the poor islands north of Trinidad.

He has found enthusiastic support from Ralph Gonzales, Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines. His predecessor James “Son” Mitchell and Eugenia Charles, who was Prime Minister of Dominica, were the darlings of the US State Department under the Ronald Regan presidency and had little use for TT. But after 9/11 and the Gulf War, tourism and banana are dead so they now invoke Caribbean friendship and solidarity. TT dollars are now in demand by those who once laughed at us.

Close scrutiny of Mr Manning’s political project which his opponents dub a Forbes Burnham form of voter padding, shows that its economic cover is fatally flawed. Caricom was the economic arrangement to promote trade and economic integration of the entire Caribbean Basin area including Guyana, Suriname, Belize, Haiti and Santo Domingo. Mr Manning must study the reasons why Caribbean States have failed to implement their own decisions which is the main reason the economic benefits of Caricom have not been realised. Prime Minister Owen Arthur of Barbados realised this niand says of Mr Manning’s dream of a new political federation: “It is a sweet melody without lyrics.” That is the Bajan way of politely saying Mr Manning is talking nonsense. Prime Minister PJ Patterson of Jamaica dismisses abruptly Mr Manning’s dream: “Jamaica has absolutely no interest in any political federation.”

Mr Manning defends his dream of political union by saying that Dominica, St Lucia and those little islands buy products and manufactured goods from Trinidad. He argues that as their economies collapse they cannot buy from Trinidad. This is a very deceptive argument because those islands have nothing to offer Trinidad. Why is Mr Manning not offering to have a political federation with Canada? The small islands reject our TT dollar. We can’t use our dollar in Barbados or anywhere in the EC area. Yet Mr Manning promises money to bail out LIAT while saying BWIA must make its own way or go bankrupt.

Dominica cannot pay public servants. A senior Caribbean economist warned that paying all public servants in a federation between TT and the Eastern Caribbean will bankrupt TT. Is Mr Manning proposing to give VSEP to the public servants and bureaucrats who draw fat salaries in those islands for doing nothing? Mr Manning’s mind must address our squatting problem which will explode when those islanders can just take a boat and land on the coast in Trinidad.

The union of Trinidad with Tobago is not settled. Tobago stays with Trinidad only because of a massive annual subsidy. Tobago has less people than County Caroni. Yet Tobago gets more than $1 billion a year to spend as the Tobago House of Assembly wishes. A political union with Grenada and St Vincent will only vastly increase the economic burden because those small islands are worse off than Tobago. Towards the end of the last century, there was a move in many regions of the world to promote economic growth through trade and the linking of capital markets. Many of these succeeded. But none of these groups sought to promote political union or federation.. The record is very clear that there is absolutely no need for political union in order to promote economic growth.

The population of TT is an immigrant population. Our Afro-Trinidadian population is almost 100 percent descended from immigrants from the islands. From Grenada and St Vincent they came in waves when the oil industry was being developed.  There was also a wave during World War II. And they are still coming! Politically the voting pattern of these immigrants and their children is very stark. All the areas around Point Fortin and in the East-West Corridor are dominated by immigrants or their descendants who vote the present ruling party. This seems to be the basis for the devotion to the ideas of political federation. Votes is the issue. Not economic growth.

SATNARAYAN MAHARAJ
Secretary General
Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha

Forge ahead with Carnival advertisements

THE EDITOR: A quote from a local newspaper “Caribana is historically the largest street festival in the Western Hemisphere”.

If this is so then we have standing in line before us the Nottinghill Carnival, Brooklyn Mas/Carnival and a number of Carnivals that have sprung up over the world with their genesis in Trinidad Carnival/Steelband but have eclipsed or are about to eclipse our local show in terms of management and administration, attendance and revenue earning and, of course, benefits for the merchants and other persons who are downstream benefactors and the citizens, and City/State. On the other hand there has not been a significant improvement in Carnival in Trinidad and Tobago for as long as I can remember.

Let’s face it. For every step forward we have taken two steps backward. We have the same old venue; same old band gridlock; same old idea — bankrupt administrators; same old deficit — (increasing); same old confusion arising out of the warring factions ie, carnival band leaders/steelband and other carnival interest groups; same old fat bellied men and women jumping up with insipid grins on their faces. The only persons who benefit are the mega band leaders/organisers who will sell you a thong for $5-600. Multiply that by 5-6000 per band and you notice the tax-free millions of dollars made by these people. This money goes into their pockets and then possibly to foreign bank accounts. The numerous all inclusive fetes to whom millions of tax free dollars go into the pockets of those organisers.

How does Joe and John Public benefit from Carnival? You play mas, you get drunk, you look stupid, you wine and grind, you play the ass, and then look forward to Carnival 2004 — “The Greatest Show on Earth”. How does Trinidad and Tobago benefit? Forking out millions of dollars every year with negative revenue returns, is not a benefit. TIDCO or whatever it was called before could take some lessons from Grenada about advertising their country. TIDCO is light years behind Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, in terms of advertising our country, its festivals and the benefits of visiting Trinidad and Tobago. When I lived in Canada there were always ads in the major newspapers advertising the countries just mentioned above. Trinidad and Tobago had not yet dreamed of this concept. When last did you see a TT/TIDCO ad in the Sunday Edition of the New York Times or the Toronto Star or the Observer or Daily Mirror (London)?

When last did you see a TT/TIDCO ad on ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC or any of our cable channels? I know that there are no such ads on Canadian TV channels but I am sure that you have seen ads for other Caribbean countries on the above mentioned stations. I have seen ads for Grenada, Jamaica and Barbados on our local TV channels. However, I have been to Jamaica, Barbados and Grenada, if there were TIDCO/TT ads on their TV stations when I have been there perhaps I have missed them. Advertising TT to the world brings so many benefits to our country. Additionally there are so many branches of tourism available here.

There is eco-tourism, medical tourism, sports tourism and I am sure that innovative persons and persons with vision can find ways and means to expand tourism to bring more benefits to this country. Unfortunately, myopic narrow minded and utterly stupid leaders have over the years brought this country almost to its knees economically and socially and daily we see in TT such a breakdown and deterioration of behaviour and standards that it boggles the mind. After 40 years of Independence there is less production, less discipline and even less tolerance in our country. But a friend of mine observes “What can you expect when the first word in our National Anthem is “Forged”. It is because I am a Trini that I am very concerned of what is happening to my country.

M HOTIN
Port-of-Spain

Tit for tat battle

THE EDITOR: We the citizenry of our twin-island State have always enjoyed the benefits of a free society. Our democratic freedom has never been threatened. We boast of being a very liberal society where true democracy and freedom prevail. However, the word freedom carries a lot of connotations eg we cannot be free to infringe the rights of other persons. So therefore, there must be limitations to the degree of freedom civil society enjoys — freedom cannot be absolute.

What has been occurring in our nation state today is that we have allowed that liberalism to degenerate into licentiousness where there is now a complete breakdown in law and order from top to bottom; oiur moral standard has gone in shambles; our society can be said to be in a state of ‘anomie’ ie, there is no longer any set standard by which anyone can regulate their behaviour.

There is a breakdown in the home and family values; there is a conspicious absence of discipline amongst students in the nation’s schools; our teachers are now ocmplaining of being threatened with violence by their students and now the crininals seem to have the coutnry under siege carrying out their nefarious activities with impunity. As observed, even language that was once felt to be too coarse for polite conversation has now become the main stream vernacular. As a nation, our internal stability has been severely weakened.

Therefore the question must now be asked: How did our nation reach this perilous position? There is an old dictum which says: “Man is an event that cannot judge itself, but for better or worse, is left to the judgement of others.” The problems that face our society today did not come overnight. It has long been in the making.

The warning signals were always there but we paid no heed. It was always business as usual. We must now admit that most of the problems in our contemporary society today, are self created. As a people, we need to re-examine ourselves. Permissive progressivism simply means that there is too much permissiveness in our society — we have taken too much for granted.

Our leaders have failed to grapple with the urgent political, economic and social problems that challenge the stability of the country. Now the stresses and tensions are about to overstrain the body politic. Government and Opposition are now locked in a “tit for tat battle”: you must give me this, if I am to give you that. While all this is taking place, the country is left to the whims and fancies of the lawless in our society — Rome is on fire while the fiddling goes on.

VICTOR ARCHIE
Trincity

Teaching civic duties beats exams

THE EDITOR: It is gratifying that my major criticism of the SEA, that it segregates students into different “ability” classes by formal exams, seems also shared by the PNM government. Such educational segregation puts a ceiling on a student’s aspirations and achievements. If focuses on what students cannot do at an arbitrary point of time, not on what they might be able to do later; a focus on deficits rather than on strengths.

I call this the Naipaulian perspective (which generally reflects our national perspective) “seeing the glass half-empty rather than seeing it half-full.” It is a perspective rooted in our historical insecurities, reflected in our tendency to blame, criticise, and punish rather than empathise with, support, and encourage. All students have strengths of one sort or another, and learn at different speeds. good educational system will strive to maximise the development of these strengths over a period of time, in the interest both of the student and of society. Hopefully, the retired principal who declared that “some of them (students) will be labourers” will remain retired: such an archaic view reflects a lack of awareness of current educational ideas and developments. In particular, our further economic progress must depend on home-grown talent and skills, not on high-paid foreigners.

A related focus is governmental encouragement of micro-business. Government can arrange the provision of encouragement, grants, and business advice to individuals who wish to open their own small business. “Feed a person a fish and you feed him/her for only one day; but teach her/him to fish and he can feed himself.” This is a governmental investment worth considering. Hopefully, the Social Studies component of the curriculum will include an exploration of the institutional structure of our nation as well as the civic responsibilities of each citizen. Law, government, family and adolescence and social problems must be at the heart of our Social Studies. Briefly, we must encourage students to determine what it means to be a citizen in Trinidad and Tobago, and the ways in which they can make positive contributions to others and to society generally.

KENNETH  AQUAN-ASSEE
Port-of-Spain

Abortion and attitudes

THE EDITOR: I must thank Mr Eldon Warner for making such a clear case of the relationship between abortion and attitudes (Newsday, March 3).

He is correct, the huge decline in abortions in Russia is due to the far greater availability of modern contraceptives. These are the very same contraceptives that a foreign anti-choice organisation recently discouraged in our country. As in Russia, such action would only undermine FPATT’s magnificent service and result in many more abortions.

The evidence Mr Warner presents simply proves that women choose abortion as a last resort — regardless of the law. Where modern methods of fertility control are available, we use them. The widely held notion that an “abortion culture” existed in Russia because of legal abortion was proved false once contraceptives became available. Women’s attitudes were more important once they had a choice of methods of fertility control.

There is little evidence that making abortion more widely legal radically affects the numbers of actual abortions. Attitudes matter more than the law. Over the short term numbers increase. Over the long term they tend to decrease, often dramatically. This has bene the experience in Italy, Canada, Tunisia, Korea and as Mr Warner admits in Russia. The enduring and dramatic impact of legalising abortion is a radical improvement in maternal health. This occurs because there is a dramatic reduction in unsafe abortions. The real beneficiaries are typically poor women and poor families. The law seldom affects rich women who already have access to safe abortions regardless of the state of the law. That is why changing a restrictive abortion law is such a struggle. It does not affect the rich and the powerful.

JACQUIE BURGESS
ASPIRE

SHAPES OF FREEDOM

“To return that great country to its own people…”
George W Bush: Operation Iraqi Freedom


The photo-journalists tell us,
The world, of that great country
Iraq;
Wind-swept deserts, installations
Camels and convoys pursue their solitary routes
Fixed, separate
Sometimes a clump of palms, oases
And those other
Lifelines from these living sands
Oil for food
Wonderful programme of exchange.


Ancient land of ancient rivers
Tigris
Euphrates
Resplendent histories of so many tribes
Abram of Chaldean Ur
Summer
Babylon
Assyrian Nineveh
Sands rich with myriad peoples’ lore


Tonight the lights are out
Baghdad is dark
Some gather, city-centre
But today
Our photo-images:


Worn old farmhouse, family portrait
Tender child with uplifted arms
Siblings alike
Father prostrate, averted eyes
Within a darkened room a mother prays
The soldier has entered her sanctuary
An overcrowded truck now
Inspection time
Silenced the heart-beat of the children’s eyes


This
A hospital
War’s horror comfort-zone


Somewhere along the roadway
Smart missiles mate their targets
Mothers’ guts seed the ancestral soil
Strewn their children
“Failed to stop at check-point.”


Tonight
The lights are out
Baghdad,
Baghdad!

A KHAN
St Joseph’s Village
San Fernando

NOT B-WEE AGAIN!

WHATEVER the Government does on the BWIA West Indies Airways Limited issue, one thing it should not do is acquire, for the second time in just under 42 years, a controlling interest in the regional airline. And certainly not since BWIA’s financial position, as has been the case with so many international airline majors, has been badly bruised by the downturn in the United States economy and the marked slide in air passenger travel, as a result of September 11, 2001, and all that went with the United States invasion of Iraq.

The paranoia, encouraged by economic insecurity, along with the trauma of September 11, Afghanistan and the ongoing United States war on Iraq, in defiance of the United Nations, has seen the collapse of several international airlines, and the scaling back of flights by yet more, desperately trying to keep airborne. It would be economically unwise for Government to acquire majority shareholding interest in the cash-strapped airline, and politically incorrect to do so, even as it seeks to rid itself of the burden of its social and economic involvement in the sugar industry. It cannot in one breath articulate the need to restructure Caroni (1975) Limited, for long a multi-billion dollar burden to Trinidad and Tobago taxpayers, and in the same breath argue the need to once again control the airline it had divested only as short a time ago as February 12, 1995.

Had it done so in 2000, on the heels of BWIA’s Chief Executive Officer, Conrad Aleong’s earlier announcements of heartening net profits for the airline of US$9.1 million in 1998 and US$3.7 million the following year, Government could have been excused on the ground that a shareholder friendly BWIA, could have been held up as being, potentially at least, equally taxpayer friendly. But Government [read taxpayers] with the stark reality of far more powerful international airlines being in a tailspin, would be committing itself and the taxpayers to mollycoddling an airline, whose fleet renewal, involving six new Boeing 737-800 Next Generation aircraft, which began a mere three years ago, would mean an uncomfortable increase in the new majority shareholder’s debt burden.

The late 1990s were a repeat of the early 1940s, when BWIA, then also turning profits, even though somewhat modestly, expanded its fleet. Later, BWIA would be owned by the former British Overseas Airways Corporation, from which Government would purchase a 90 percent shareholding in December of 1961. The puzzling thing with respect to BWIA, is that although it has been saluted as making a remarkable contribution to Caribbean development, and saw itself as the regional airline, and providing badly needed schedules and routes to the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and throughout the Region for Caribbean people, failed to attract investors from any Caribbean country other than Trinidad and Tobago.

The only outstanding exception to this was a Barbados-based company in 2000. But no Caribbean government ever invested in the airline save our own. Yet, should BWIA become another victim of the slide in the US economy, 9-11 and now the war on Iraq, Eastern Caribbean residents, specifically, would lose the flexibility of schedules BWIA now affords them. Trinidad and Tobago taxpayers should not be called upon to subsidise travel to and from the Caribbean for the benefit of other CARICOM people, whose gratitude is matched by their lack of investment in the airline. In turn, BWIA has not demonstrated, indeed how could it, that given the adverse conditions besetting airlines today, it is in a position to attract needed additional passengers, freight and revenue to make it a viable proposition to taxpayers.

‘IS THERE A MOUSE IN THE HOUSE?’


“The whole world can’t be wrong,” my friend remarked, as we marvelled at the scale of the global protest against the US-led War on Iraq.

Such an argument against the War might have had a simplistic ring to many seasoned commentators and analysts. However, it appeared to me, the most concise, convincing, one I had heard for the past few weeks. “I do not know if the whole world is wrong,” I replied. “However, I am certain it is confused. Perplexed at the twists and turns that have brought it to these images we are watching now of a bombed Baghdad.” If we tried to make sense of it, I added, many of us would trace the  commencement of combat to the morning of September 11, 2001 when we saw New York’s Twin Towers collapse.

We knew from the moment the first plane crashed into the first Tower that the hunt would start for Osama bin Laden. We comprehended that the Taliban’s days were over. We grasped the US thirst for revenge, the Old Testament Eye for an Eye. We watched the search for Osama on TV, encapsulated in the catchy sound byte for the American viewer, “War on Terrorism,” and we were not too worried. The only thing that baffled us was the daring and the insanity of the terrorist act.

However, not long, after the US began its attempt to catch Osama, to claim its biblical eye, the American President, George W Bush started talking about an axis of evil. And, before we could ask what in hell he meant by that, we were told Saddam was funding terrorism. No sooner, were we trying to connect the dots between Saddam and September 11, Bush was warning us about piles of weapons of mass destruction, that the Iraqis were deceiving the United Nations inspectors.

It was at that moment many of us held our heads. We were now more than ever confused about what September 11 had become. But, we were sure about one thing. We, the junior citizens of the world were being led by the noses, by our Big Brother to another inevitable Gulf war. We could hear the call to arms in the Texas twang of Bush, and in Donald Rumsfeld’s midwestern bark. Then just as we thought that we sort of understood how terrorism translated into weapons of mass destruction, Bush shifted gears on us again. Saddam and his regime were villains from whom the Iraqis had to be liberated. The War on Terrorism and on Osama became the War on the Saddam Regime aka Operation Iraqi Freedom. The US was removing Saddam from power, bringing democracy to the people of Iraq.

Lord, have mercy! It was sheer madness. We didn’t like Saddam. However, we did not understand how one day the US was in Afghanistan, then the next, invading Iraq. We could not see the reasoning, no matter what Bush, Dick Cheney, Ari Fleischer and the ever-offensive Rumsfeld and their coalition hangers-on were saying. No matter how many arguments for this war they were advancing. Or perhaps it was precisely because of all the US leaders saying that we surmised that  less than half the story had been told to us; that we concluded this military campaign was more about the preserving of the US way of life.

The explanations the Americans were giving for the invasion kept changing so often, we wanted to shout “Ref, blow the whistle. The Yankees are shifting the goal posts. And Ref, they think no one is noticing.” The world wanted the war to cease because we didn’t understand the game. We wanted badly to grasp what was going on, but US prophecies and reasoning made comprehension more difficult. For example, where were the thousands of Saddam’s elite fighters, the US warned us about? Why didn’t the Iraqi badjohn set all the oil fields on fire, launch chemical weapons at the US troops? Why was it more or less plain sailing to Baghdad? Why were we only seeing images of ragged Iraqi troops — conveniently disarmed by the UN — being decimated from the air and surrendering en masse? Why were marines becoming so ecstatic over the discovery of arms that looked as if they had long passed their shelf life? We had so many questions and so few true answers were forthcoming.

Sure, Saddam probably had a weapon or two, but nothing worth this onslaught. Yes, we were also witnessing on TV the detritus of three decades of Saddam’s rule in the torture cells and graves of Iraq. Though we did not rejoice in their discovery, we knew these were the usual signs of a dictator’s passing. And, those of us old enough to recall anything at all also knew about other images of other dictators who were on the best of terms with the USA. Those such as the men who ran Apartheid South Africa, a racist, savage system that had the full backing of the US and Britain.

“Divest now!” was the petition to the two nations for years both from peoples around the world. It was a cry for their companies to pull out of South Africa and force the end of the cruel regime. Both countries ignored the world for decades. Back then, my friend would have said of Apartheid, “the world cannot be wrong.” And he would have been right. We could only hope that today my friend was wrong and the whole world with him. We could only pray that one day this war would make sense to us, instead of making us feel we were smelling a 21st century rat that was far too cunning and much too powerful for any Millennium Piped Piper to catch. Columnist’s note: This political/parliamentary column will be entitled “No Red House for Manning” until TT’s Prime Minister’s period of insanity is over.


Suzanne Mills is the Editor of the daily Newsday.

Of fires and floods

IN THE wet season, it’s flooding; in the dry season, it’s bush fires and a threat to our water supply. The problem with these perennial problems is that, while we cannot control the changes in the seasons and the weather, there is a lot we can do to avoid the danger and the damage caused by these recurring agonies. Right now Trinidad and Tobago is at the height of the annual dry season and, once again, bush fires are proliferating across the country and our resevoirs are running low.

Yesterday we published the picture of a huge bush fire which blazed across the Cocorite hill at the entrance to Diego Martin. Several motorists stopped along the way to watch the conflagration as it lit up the night sky. We have no idea how the fire started, but we reported that calls to the Four Roads Fire Station proved fruitless. In driving by the station, it was observed that no tenders were there. The truth was that the Four Roads fireman had been called out earlier to another fire. Obviously, this is the busiest time of the year for our firemen. Although the Cocorite fire presented no real danger to the blocks of NHA apartments at Powder Magazine, the damage it will do is common to all hillside fires, creating a problem which the entire country should be aware of by now.

The fire will denude the hillside of its stabilising vegetation and leave the earth dry and loose. And, when the rains come, the flowing water will wash away the topsoil to cause problems below. This is how the fires of the dry season set the stage for the flooding of the wet, because in many areas of Trinidad the silt brought down by the torrents wash into the rivers and streams, flling them up and reducing their capacity to drain low lying areas. This is an almost timeless phenomenon of our country. The warnings we have issued and the appeals we have made to our people about it, over the years, have become a painful ritual.

Large tracts of land on hillsides of the Northern Range have been bared of their natural vegetation by fires caused mostly by slash and burn farmers, sometimes by hikers dropping lighted cigarettes on the parched floor of the forest and also by natural combustion in the heat of the noon-day sun. The fires that consume the bush along our highways are caused for the most part by motorists and their passengers tossing lighted cigarette butts out of the window. These are adults who should know better, but the fires continue.

The seasons come and go and they teach their lessons, that the woes the bring are largely of our own making, but we do not seem to be learning. In spite of the long history of rainy season flooding, last year was an exceptionally disastrous one as the inundating waters not only swamped large areas of the Caroni basin but also invaded places along the East West Corridor as well. What we wonder will be the result when the rains come in the next few months? We must prepare for the wet during the dry, and we can only hope that the drainage programme promised after last year’s floods are being undertaken now when the weather permits. Flooding is a perennial nuisance to our lives, causing considerable loss to farmers, households and even business enterprises and seriously disrupting road communication. If we do nothing about the fires, at least we can attempt to save those vulnerable areas from the damage and agony of the flooding menace.

UNFORGIVABLE TO PLAY POLITICS WITH CRIME


I cannot imagine any person of sound mind who would be prepared to excuse or forgive any politician who “plays politics” with the safety and welfare of our people in these extremely dangerous and frightening times of criminal activity…Crime Bills before the House should not be unduly obstructed.

I know it may be difficult for politicians (because of the very nature of who they are) to keep politics out of certain matters in the running of our nation. Nevertheless, being able to do this, distinguishes the men from the boys in politics. It mirrors the difference between the responsible and the irresponsible.

It is in instances like these that the true heart and agenda of a politician is revealed. The quality of the behaviour exposes whether or not there is a genuine concern for the good of the people, or if the motives are ulterior. This is especially so in cases where matters affect a nation and its people in a particularly critical way. A case in point is our current crime situation. We understand the place of prayer, and all the sociological and psychological intricacies which are factored into the issue, for whatever reason. However, the perpetrators of crime primarily take their cue from the attitude of the law enforcement agencies, and the politicians whose decisions directly affect national security.

Say what you like, because of the political influence allowed by the system of our democracy, the standard of national security, health services, the economy or any other area of our nation’s operations, can be either raised or ruined by “political interference.” So the conduct of politicians in this respect must be closely monitored by the people whom they are elected to represent. This column has on occasions, in the recent past, addressed the major role politicians play in this context. The last piece which appeared on 11/01/03 carried the caption “Crime Much Too Serious For Games, Mr PM.” Among other things, that article criticised Prime Minister Patrick Manning for retaining Mr Howard Chin Lee as Minister of National Security, while he continued to insist that the Minister was “doing a great job” despite the fact that everything was going downhill faster than the speed of light. I had also predicted that if Mr Manning and his authorities responsible for national security did not radically alter their leadership / management style and attitude, the crime situation would grow increasingly worse — something we now witness. But we must give Jack his jacket and treat with each issue based upon its merits.

While the Manning administration certainly appears to be bungling badly in the day-to-day handling of crime, its anti-crime initiatives in terms of the Bills before the House must be commended. Whatever the “technicalities” involved in Government-Opposition debate over the Bill, we need to appreciate an initiative of this kind and do all in our power to ensure that there is no unnecessary obstruction to the process. Aspects of the law, as they now stand, are making a laughing stock of areas of our law enforcement system — the kidnapping item perhaps being the worst. For any politician to play games in such an extremely serious (indeed, life-and-death) scenario, would be a crime worse than all of those being perpetrated by the criminals whom we are battling at present.

When a Bill (as obtains in the present case) comes before the House, it actually removes the responsibility for the management of the relevant problem from upon the shoulders of the Government alone. The Opposition now becomes directly responsible, along with the Government. If anything hinders the passage of such a Bill, the resultant sufferings brought upon the nation will be a serious indictment against the party responsible for the Bill’s failure. I can’t imagine any human being of sound mind, at this point in our nation, who would be prepared to excuse or forgive any politician (Govt or Opposition) who “plays politics” with the safety and welfare of our people in these extremely dangerous and frightening times of unprecedentedly bold and vicious criminal activity. May I caution though, that we must not think that the absence of the legislation being sought by the anti-crime Bills, is responsible for the bulk of our present crime problem.

It is clear that, in many ways, we currently have what it takes to quite effectively handle our crime situation and compel the criminal elements to respect the law. The near-ideal example is the virtual crime-free Carnival of this year. If there is any atmosphere that poses the toughest challenge to national security /protective services it’s TT Carnival. If this could be handled impeccably, then we simply don’t have any big problem.

Why we haven’t seen the continuity of the Carnival effectiveness, remains a costly mystery. I’ll hate to think that the powers that be, value and revere Carnival so highly that they believe this festival deserves the best of the country’s protective capabilities, and that the bandits are therefore free to enjoy open season in the non-Carnival periods of the year. Or is it that the foreigners who visit for Carnival deserve the “real security”, while locals “are not that important”? Let’s get serious now. Playing politics, at any level, is playing with poison. Maybe we should just heed the words of Police Commissioner Hilton Guy when he says, “We cannot leave the business of national security up to politicians.”