Save your tales for the fishes

I’m standing in front of my house watching a spectacle so absurdly idiosyncratic of this land I am convinced that Trinidad and Tobago will  never possess 2020 vision. This is not a real country. It never will be. On St Lucien Road, Diego Martin, is stationed a huge concrete pump truck, idling noisily as it waits to manoeuvre into a narrow side street called Vale View Terrace and to climb a steep slope to a construction site high on the hills above. The flow of traffic is so obstructed by the monster that cars going in both directions are at a virtual standstill. The vehicles trying to get to their various destinations within Diego Martin on this Friday afternoon are backed up way down the road and my eyes cannot espy the end of their line. The only thing that is fluid on the surface of St Lucien Road is water, which springs eternally from an unknown underground source, probably a WASA pipe, water which has formed a mini duck pond on one side of the road and which has cracked the sidewalk. Car drivers are pressing furiously on their horns for the cement truck to move. Some are also shouting expletives at the truck’s driver who ignores both them and the incessant, discordant orchestra of tooting, as if he were not responsible for the chaos around him. And thus, the bedlam continues.

Indeed, it is this very pandemonium, which has taken me away from my writing and onto the street. It will not be the first time for the day, or the week, or the month that traffic anarchy will be brought to this part of the route by trucks seeking to enter and/or exit Vale View Terrace. Such obstruction of the flow of traffic has been going on for almost a year unchecked by the police and unmonitored by the Diego Martin Regional Corporation, the EMA and the Ministry of Works, despite complaints from residents, numerous newspaper reports and letters to the Editor. And it will continue for as long as the construction project lasts. I have come outside with my camera and I start shooting photos of the unreasonable use of the road as a holding bay for trucks. Immediately, a man runs down the road from the construction site to tell the truck driver to enter Vale View at once. He stands in the middle of the road, arms extended as if he were a policeman on duty and signals to the truck driver to start his manoeuvres. This brings only more madness because the colossal, cement-bearing vehicle now has to move back and forth across St Lucien Road, as the entrance to Vale View is little more than 15 feet wide. The noise of car horns grows louder. More shouting. The truck driver is told by the man in the road to drive on and forget entering Vale View. But I know it will return minutes later and the entire chaotic scene will begin all over again.

Why am I raising a seemingly insignificant incident following a week that brought news to our doorsteps of Haiti’s President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s forced flight from his native land? Or after hearing of an amount of money too large for any of us to imagine siphoned off the Piarco Project and stashed in offshore accounts? Because Friday’s mad scene is well indicative of the TT we are: a land where the powerful are able to do what they want, a country in which the law is principally enforced — most times inflicted — on the poor, defenceless or marginalised. Money and might entitles you to more rights in this country, a nation that some say is en route to a Haiti. A sterling example of the might and right rule is to be found in the manner in which those accused of major theft of the public purse have been treated. They have not been arrested on warrants, but have been issued summons to present themselves to the police accompanied by their lawyers. Such a courtesy is never extended to anyone from communities like Laventille. I ask myself though, as I watch the craziness on St Lucien Road, where Mr Snaggs’ brave men and women are today? Where are the increased patrols? Why haven’t the police informed the constructor that he, his drivers and his workers have no authority or permission to bring traffic on St Lucien Road to a standstill as many times a day as they wish?

Is it because traffic violations are of no consequence in this country even though Government talks about restoring law and order to TT? Or are the police intimidated by the project’s “big man?” Or perhaps, they are only capable of enforcing the law when it involves a cursing school girl, a man smoking a spliff, or a ‘piper’ stealing some fruit. It is this sort of discretionary and arbitrary enforcement of the law, which makes people in TT so frustrated and which incensed them so much when Housing Minister Dr Keith Rowley ordered bulldozers to tear down squatters’ homes in Cashew Gardens and in Wallerfield. The citizenry well knows squatting is illegal, but they are simply tired of seeing the full weight of the law applied over and over to those lowest down on the food and social chain. The nation didn’t enjoy viewing the police stand watch over the destruction of the shacks either, for their presence at Cashew Gardens and Wallerfield was another glaring sign of the force they seem to reserve only for the ‘small man’. Dr Rowley should also know that he appeared heartless to many, because when he was responding to questions about his decision to evict the squatters, his biggest preoccupation seemed to be how to sink balls on a golf course in Tobago. In Cashew Gardens and in Wallerfield, the evicted squatters were meanwhile, trying to figure out where to rest their heads. The Minister also hurt his cause by saying that alternative accommodation would eventually be sought for those who legitimately needed it because the obvious rejoinder to this defence was why didn’t you do that before you put women and children out in the cold?

Neither did his indignant declaration that his Government does not tolerate lawlessness hold much water. Dr Rowley can tell that story to the Integrity Commission, which is still waiting to receive declarations of his assets and liabilities. He can tell his yarn to the residents of Diego Martin who are forced to come to a halt on St Lucien Road every occasion a large truck wants to enter or exit Vale View. He can also tell his bedtime story to the Tobagonian policemen who were instructed by a Cabinet Minister not to offer any evidence in the case against the Bajan fishermen caught in Tobago’s waters. Better yet, he can  recount his myth of law and order to the Tobago flying fish entangled in Bajan nets. They’ve already heard so many disparate legal fairytales, they won’t know the difference.

Suzanne Mills is the Editor of Newsday