Crime held centre stage in Tobago

THE past year in Tobago was quite an eventful one in almost every sphere on the news circuit, from crime to politics to health, education, traffic accidents and other tragic occurrences.  Crime, sadly, held the spotlight. Tobago was rocked by the murder of school-teacher Evelyn James, a mother of two, who was reportedly stabbed to death in front of her students at the Montgomery Government Primary School, Bethel, on February 19; and the island community literally reeled in shock and mourning. Jeffrey Guy, 38, of Bethel, has been charged with her murder. Four months later, murder was again in the news when the nude body of a 40-year-old Trinidadian construction worker, Anthony Chandler, of Morne Diablo, was found in a Lowlands apartment on July 29. A woman said to be his wife has been charged with Chandler’s murder. Murder again hit the headlines  two weeks later, when, on August 15, Trevor Romeo was brutally chopped to death at Belle Garden, east Tobago.

Keith “Mad Max” Andrews, 40, of the same district, has been charged with this murder. The tragedy syndrome would continue; on August 29 Tobago-born Uwaine Anthony, who was a sailor aboard the MF Panorama, was crushed to death in a freak accident when a cable snapped and the vehicle ramp crashed down upon him as the ferry was preparing to leave the Scarborough Port. A spate of traffic accidents, most of them along the Claude Noel Highway, and several of them fatal, occupied the attention of the authorities. Portia Victor, a 24-year-old SWAT security guard of Arima, was killed on November 20 while crossing the highway near the Auchenskeoch junction. Two months earlier, in September, 17-year-old Michael George was killed when he was struck by a car while cycling along the Northside Road at Moriah.

Meantime, crime remained in the headlines with a series of daring robberies in Scarborough and environs during a one-week period, which began on June 29 with a $12,000 robbery at the NP Service Station at Carnbee, on the western outskirts of the capital, by two gun-toting men in broad daylight. Later that day, a woman at Milford Court, Bon Accord, was held up and robbed of cash by armed men. Two days later, on July 1, armed bandits struck again — taking just over $11,000 and bottles of liquor from Busy Foods Supermarket at Glen Road in Scarborough. A couple weeks later, four Trinidadians appeared in court charged in connection with the robberies. Lawmen thereafter reported a halt to the spate of robberies. In July, two bodies were discovered within as many days at Buccoo and neighbouring Mt Irvine. Both bodies - the male found at Buccoo on July 12, and a female at Back Bay, Mt Irvine, on July 14 - remain unidentified to date. Police have ruled out any connection between them. In the political and administrative scheme of things, the operations of the health sector came under fire throughout 2003.

The burning issues included outstanding arrears to the doctors, who fell ill en masse on several occasions plunging the island’s lone hospital into “chaos”; managerial problems and staffing assignments at the hospital; as well as the long-standing problems with the incinerator which was at the background of media reports which proclaimed that body parts from the hospital were being dumped at the Studley Park landfill site. With the sector now under the full glare of the media, THA Deputy Chief Secretary and Secretary of Health, Cynthia Alfred ordered an investigation which confirmed that “infectious hospital waste, including body organs, but not limbs, laboratory waste etc” were indeed for several years being dumped at Studley Park without being incinerated as stipulated by international standards,  according to a report on the investigation which was carried exclusively in Sunday Newsday. The education sector also came under much criticism, even threat of protest action by TTUTA, with respect to such issues as arrears to teachers, classroom conditions in some cases, the delayed opening of Scarborough Secondary for the new school year, among other problems. On the plus side, two secondary schools came on stream, and for the first time there were more school places than (SEA) students.

Financially, the THA got its largest allocation to date from the central government when it was given $1.3 Billion, comprised of $900 million in actual funds and approval to borrow $400 million for capital (development) expenditure. Meantime, the THA passed a Bill in November for the proposed establishment of an Assembly Police Service - a move which was totally rejected by the ‘opposition’ (minority) in the House, with Minority Leader Hochoy Charles labelling it a “mongoose gang”. The long-standing Pigeon Point issue remained on the boil with barbs flying between the THA and the property owners until the THA initiated moves for compulsory acquisition of Pigeon Point. The owners responded by filing a constitutional motion which was subsequently thrown out by the High Court in October. The court action continues.

The alarming HIV/AIDS situation in Tobago stayed in the news, with the THA committing itself to the battle and announcing in October the collaboration, publicly for the first time, of the island’s churches. Politically, the Tobago NAR disintegrated into the revived Democratic Action Congress (DAC), officially executed in January, led by Hochoy Charles with one faction, and the other faction led by former party deputy chairman Christo Gift remaining as NAR. Charles, in a surprise move, would later fire NAR Councillor Alex Browne, who did not make the switch to DAC.