TT’s enemy in all of us

THE REAL enemy threatening Trinidad and Tobago’s stability today dwells within the hearts and minds of every citizen,  and it is here the battle to reclaim the nation must be won. President George Maxwell Richards made this declaration when he addressed the TT Defence Force parade at the Queen’s Park Savannah on Thursday. Reflecting on all of the ills plaguing TT today, and training his sights on crime, the President told the assembled troops, “I am sure that if you are conscious of what is taking place around you, you would realise that in several ways, discipline is lacking in the population. Many of the ills that have beset us have their genesis in the absence of discipline. With such an attitude, our country cannot go forward.” Richards said members of the Defence Force must be “an outstanding example of discipline in this country.” He said soldiers’ behaviours must be exemplary whether they are in or out of uniform. “If we are not prepared or willing, then the Defence Force is not the place for us.

This is not simply a place of employment. It is a call to service and that is not just a form of words often said, but it is a mission. It is critical that the integrity of the Defence Force be beyond question,” Richards declared. Saying that TT was on “a war footing,” the President said the war was a mental conflict as much as it was a physical one. “You must move altogether as a juggernaut, crushing every undesirable object in your way, but as you advance relentlessly, you must also dazzle. The intensity of your light should also be a weapon against the nation’s enemy and at the same time a beacon that others must follow,” Richards declared. The President noted that the Defence Force was helping young people from disadvantaged sectors of the population to become involved in worthwhile self-improvement pursuits and urged it to intensify its assault on this front. “There are others who need this support which is critical and which represents another way of taking the fight to the enemy,” he said.

Richards observed that quasi-military entities, such as the Special Anti-Crime Unit, the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Military Led Youth Programme of Apprenticeship Training were making inroads into communities and impacting positively in the war against crime. He said the nation’s security forces must be united against the criminals, because “our combined effort will be effective, without regard to who did much or little, because every effort, based on one hundred percent commitment, will make the difference.” “We are not engaged in armed warfare, although we are most certainly prepared. Our engagement is of a different kind. This is a good time for each one of us to take stock and be sure that he or she is prepared to go the distance. If not, the better option is to withdraw. The way ahead may be stony and hard, and we must be careful not to misplace our security in the false comfort of numbers, though we need to be strengthened in that regard. It is the quality that counts,” the President declared.