Why we need the CDMA in October

The Conference of Defence Ministers of the Americas (CDMA) in October is of prime importance.

TT is the most used of the transshipment routes for drugs, guns and human trafficking.

We attract the dregs of the Caribbean because TT is seen as Santa Claus’ home address. Well, Santa Claus wants to have a meeting.

In fact, Santa had better have this urgent meeting. If the cost is $9 million, that is less than the money being made in human trafficking these past years in central and south Trinidad under the guise of “hotel and restaurant” with slight entertainment.

These areas of our islands appear to have become the headquarters of some very clever money laundering.

I have a hobby. I read extensively.

Say that I am a crazy woman who indulges in make-believe conspiracy theories, but where have the most heads been cut off and bodies been burnt lately? The teenaged and barely 20-yearold bandits in Laventille/Morvant/ Beetham are scrambling around killing each other for customers and a few inches of turf and the real big “respectable money” is in bringing in dancing hostesses and enticing the unwary to spend considerable amounts of money.

Not that some of these “ladies of the night” do not understand what they are doing. Some must know.

But what of the innocents who have been trafficked? What is the point of talking to the local communities when the answer is trapping all perpetrators before they enter TT ? We urgently need to collaborate on where, when and how the drugs, guns and human cargo keep entering TT . Interested communities can be invited to send a representative to the CDMA in October.

Our acting Police Commissioner wasted 500 days of vacation leave and got nowhere. Who is fooling whom about the time-wasting with local communities at this 99th hour? Crime is rampant and the crime is global.

A human life is worth more that $9 million, especially when it is the life of an innocent bystander.

Lynette Joseph via e-mail