Work of sick and misguided mind

“Statistics are like alienists — they will testify for either side”: Fiorello la Guardia, May, 1933, published in Liberty. A recent statement by United States Ambassador Roy Austin that criminal deportees from the United States do not “contribute significantly to increasing crime rates in Trinidad and Tobago” is arrogantly dismissive. Austin was, of course, merely putting across the US State Department’s official position. But official position or not what Austin has ignored is that while deportees may or may not have been directly involved in the committing of crimes, yet some may have planned and masterminded many more than the “official data” he produced. Incidentally, who provided him with this “official data?”

The deportees concerned may have held themselves aloof from the day-to-day criminal operations, allowing others to do the proverbial dirty work for them. So that the involvement of the criminal deportees, who may have lapsed, would have been far greater than that provided by Austin’s “official data.” This should not be surprising. I ask the question and not rhetorically: What percentage of the country’s importers of cocaine and/or heroin have been charged by the Police to date for importing the drugs? Are we to believe, should we be persuaded to go by official statistics with respect to arrests and convictions, that almost all of these major drug importers are faultless? Under British law, and United States law as well, a man is presumed innocent until proven guilty. At the time of writing only two major drug importers have been held. One was arrested, charged, tried, convicted and imprisoned and his estate, which had been held to have been gained from the illicit drug dealing, seized. The other was hanged after he was convicted of murders which had flowed out of drug dealing. Are we to say then that Trinidad and Tobago had only one major drug importer since only one was convicted in connection with that specific offence? Clearly, this would be an unreasonable position to adopt, and in much the same way that it would be absurd to say that criminal deportees were not involved in the commission of crimes because they had not been arrested for them or could not be linked to them. I wish to make clear that I am not stating that all criminal deportees have been involved in crimes here.

Ambassador Austin has advanced, employing “official data,” that 1,112 criminals have been deported from the United States during the period January 1, 1997 to September 30, 2002. These represented approximately .00855 percent of Trinidad and Tobago’s population of 1.3 million. Yet within that .00855 percent of the population, represented by the criminal deportees, two percent of the crimes reported in 2000 and 2001 had been committed! This is clearly cause for concern, and many have been reportedly involved in extremely serious crimes. Their participation in criminal activity, that is those who continued to fall by the wayside, must be viewed as frighteningly large in relation to their percentage of the population. In turn, while the representative of the United States of America has offered the two percent figure, he has not pinpointed, as part of his “official data,” what percentage of the murders, rapes and other serious crimes had been committed by these “graduates” from the USA’s highly advanced “schools of crime.” He has commented, however, that the “official data” in his possession has shown that the contribution of deportees to crime in this country was miniscule, and added that only one kidnapping was attributed to deportees during the period 1999 to 2002. A senior Cabinet Minister, Ken Valley, has since insisted that they were involved in several kidnappings. It would be interesting to find out what was the contribution, if any, of criminal deportees from the good old USA to the soaring murder rate in the Caribbean, which was published in Monday’s issue of Newsday.

I switch gears. The recent threat on the life of Speaker of the House of Representatives, Barry Sinanan, must be viewed seriously. Clearly, the work of a sick and misguided mind, is it possible that the individual may have been persuaded to carry out his threat as a result of repeated tasteless statements on race made by some of the country’s leading politicians? I have pointed out on several occasions in this column that “race is not an ideology.” It is unfortunate, indeed regrettable, that the country’s two major political parties continue to draw their strength largely, one from persons of West African descent, and the other from persons of East Indian descent. Ironically, each party, however, enjoys not insubstantial support from persons from the other major ethnic group, and from other ethnic groups. Interestingly, only on Sunday at a media conference hosted by the ruling People’s National Movement, all of the three spokespersons for the party, seated at the head table, including the chairman of the PNM, were of Indian descent! In turn, the chairman of the leading opposition party, the United National Congress, is of West African descent. Meanwhile, there is cross ethnic participation in the festivals of both major ethnic groups, whether Hosay, Carnival, Divali, Panorama or Phagwa. In addition, there has been inter-marrying among not simply the two major ethnic groups, but among all of the races.

Men and youths of African descent beat the drums at Hosay, while women of Indian descent form a not inconsiderable portion of leading Carnival bands, while three prominent exponents of steelband music have been Jit Samaroo, Bobby Mohammed and Steve Achaiba. Attempts to create and/or encourage ethnic divisions in the society have tended to be for short-sighted political gain, and it is time to cry halt. I switch gears once more. The death over the weekend of Senator Arnim Smith, former head of Pan Trinbago, brought an end to the career of one of the most colourful grassroots persons this country has produced. Involved in the steelband movement from its heady days, he remained committed to it to the end. A supporter of the People’s National Movement as a young man, he would later change political horses, and link up with the United National Congress, because he did not believe that the PNM had been doing as much for the steelband movement and the East-West Corridor as he held it could and should have done. Few, if any, would have questioned his right to do this. Pan aficianado, Peter Aleong, recalled that when Phase II, unsponsored, was in need of pan instruments in its early days, Arnim Smith had been approached for assistance. Jewel 22, a steel orchestra Smith had managed, had been disbanded, and Aleong and others had approached Smith with an offer to purchase the band’s instruments and its rhythm racks and what have you. Senator Smith would have none of this talk of Jewel 22’s equipment being sold to Phase II, and instead presented them to the relatively new band without charge. He secured employment for steelband musicians, and sponsorship, partial or otherwise, for bands and remained committed to the movement within and without the context of politics.