Will TT become another Israel?

THE EDITOR: One has to view with horror the antics of our Prime Minister who in utter panic and like “Chicken Little” is running around shouting “Licks for dem! Lock down the country!” and other statements only befitting persons paralysed with panic, paranoia and self-pity. So many of us have written the Government’s rush to introduce extreme measures after as a result of gross negligence it has allowed remediable situations to deteriorate to chaos and confusion. Are we going to have tanks and armoured personnel carriers in our streets, machine gun turrets on top buildings and attack helicopters flying around and turning parts of Trinidad and Tobago into concentration camps, similar to those found in Palestine?

The Prime Minister is going to dash off to get Israeli help. Help from the same Israelis who shoot down and exterminate Palestinians like stray dogs. If South Africa were still in the grip of apartheid, would our Prime Minister take the same principled moralistic stand and buy arms, ammunition and spy equipment from that country which was criticised by most non-hypocritical persons as a nation that treated with contempt the binding resolutions and orders of the United Nations? Today, Israel is in that position. Persons have been relegated to Hypocrites Heaven for much less.

There are enough jurists, sociologists, psychologists, criminologists and persons with sufficient experience both in and out of Trinidad and Tobago to permit us to hold an emergency conference/enquiry into reasons why we have landed in such a mess, and to make recommendations that should take effect immediately to address/redress this serious problem. I am sure that heads will roll and fingers of disgrace will be pointed in the right direction but our country’s future is at stake. America or Canada won’t take our “refugees.” The EU wants Europeans not our kind. Australia will ship us to concentration camps at Woomera (in the Australian desert) or Nauru (a little rock in the Pacific). So we can’t run and we can’t hide. With all our oil wealth and abundant natural resources we cannot manage an “animal farm.” We try to close the gate after the animals have bolted.

M  HOTIN
St James