Violent crime politically motivated? Nonsense!

THE EDITOR: Kindly permit me the space in the Newsday to respond to an article entitled “Antigua and Trinidad: Uncanny Crime Patterns” written by one Ray Weston of Tacarigua on August 24. Mr Weston, in his letter, points to an uncontrollable rise in crime in both Antigua and Trinidad, following changes in political administration. Let me firstly congratulate Mr Weston on stating the obvious with his observations that (1) like Antigua, Trinidad’s “crime situation has reached boiling point” and (2) like Antigua, “the government seems unable to quell the rise in violent crimes — murders, rapes and robberies.” While Mr Weston’s comparison, to this point, seems fair, the conclusions he goes on to draw from this scenario are spurious, to say the least. Crime did not suddenly descend upon a paradisiacal TT. Take a look at the statistics. Trinidad was no paradise between 1991-1995. Read newspaper clippings from the run-up to the 1995 elections and you will notice that a spiralling crime rate (minus the new trend of kidnappings for ransom) was on the front burner of public opinion.

In fact, it was perhaps the Achilles heel of an administration already beset by various bumblings (firing by fax, establishing a state of emergency to put an individual under house arrest, etc). During the post-1995 years till recently, violent crimes decreased almost in proportion, dare I say, to the increase in police vehicles, police station makeovers and new police stations. Get my point? Now, even if we were to consider your implication that violent crime is politically motivated and intended to destabilise the country, we come up against a few interesting barriers. Firstly, how do several criminals, supposedly organised with a political agenda in mind totally run roughshod over an entire police force? Why is it that a police force that was given a morale boost and well-equipped with state-of-the-art vehicles should now regress to responses of an earlier time: “We have no vehicles. We have no manpower.” Is he saying that the police are also in on this massive political conspiracy to destabilise the country through crime?

Now, Mr Weston, given the ethnic make-up of the police force and the implications of who most of them are likely to support politically (if we are to assume that voting occurs mainly along racial lines), you will see how your statement is as ludicrous as the spiralling crime rate itself. Secondly, the victims of the crime spree (especially the kidnappings) seem to emerge mainly from one ethnic sector of the population who are probably less likely to support our present government (if we still operate under the assumption that voting occurs mainly along racial lines). What good would this do the Opposition if their voting base is now fleeing the country in droves? How does this benefit them? It certainly does not bode well for them come next election. Stop hiding your heads in the sand and looking for excuses, all you Mr Westons out there. This is clearly a case of mismanagement of the police service, leading, once again like 1991-1995, to a sense of stagnation and worse, incompetence at dealing with a Hydra’s heads of a crime rate!

VERA WISSE
Port-of-Spain