DESPERATE TIMES NEED DESPERATE ACTION

What value do we put on human life in this country? The all-time high of over 100 murders in the first four months of the year, as dubious a record as we could imagine, is a sad reflection on the society. Yesterday, even as we read these headlines a man was shot to death on the Brian Lara Promenade and a bystander wounded. And all this in broad daylight in the shadow of our financial institutions! And we believe that the level of crime will not affect investments? And as if adding to the nightmarish situation created by the unlawful killings was the figure of 52 road fatalities for the year. The road deaths, most of them avoidable were the clear result of an uncomfortable mixture of alcohol, speeding and/or dangerous driving and the absence of an effective mobile Police presence on the country’s highways and other main thoroughfares.

More of the killings have taken place in Laventille and other depressed areas of East Port-of-Spain than in any other part of the country, and the Police have been quick to describe them as either gang related or drug related or both. But although the Police have given the impression of being able to pinpoint the reasons for the escalating murder rate, and the special anti-crime measures and units established by the Ministry of National Security, the killings continue. No plan has worked. Today we are not interested in announcements of plans by the Government to “deal” with the situation. What we want is action. We want not only the murder rate but the levels of other serious and troubling crimes to be reduced and those, reportedly involved, to be brought to justice.

We wish to be able to feel safe while walking the streets of any part of Trinidad and Tobago, including the city’s main promenade. Instead of Government paying large sums of money to a foreign firm to announce that most of us feel safe in our country, we insist that the Government create instead a desperately needed climate of safety. Meanwhile, although the mere passage of the three Police Bills, which had been blocked by the Opposition United National Congress in the House of Representatives, will not by itself reduce crime, nonetheless a demonstration by the Government and the Opposition of a determined joint approach and desire to deal with crime must have a positive effect.

The President of Amchan, Nicholas Galt, is correct in calling on Government and Opposition to end the existing stalemate over police reform and to get together for the sake of all of us and deal with the problem in a firm and decisive way. The situation is above political games and there has to be for the sake of the population give and take on both sides. Over one hundred murders in four months is not a milestone, not something of which any country, particularly one as small as ours could be comfortable about. In fact it is disgraceful that in a country such as ours we have these executions taking place at will and the security forces virtually useless.

In addition to the lives lost and the trauma caused to families, friends and indeed all right thinking citizens this high level of serious crimes will act as a disincentive, first to domestic and regional investment and, ultimately, to foreign investment. A spin off is that potential opportunities for increased employment are affected adversely. We are tired of the police insistence that a large number of murders are either drug or gang related. If the police know who these gangs are why do they not do something and put down this menace? We are tired hearing that the Police know who the criminals and kidnappers are, that they know who the illegal drug traders are. Enforce the law, and put an end to this savagery.