US cannot do our investigations

THE EDITOR: I grieve for the loss of a young woman, Ms Ceasar-Nyack, who came home to relatives on holiday, and was murdered. I grieve for the country, and what outsiders must think of what happens here on a daily basis. Suffice it to say that thousands come home for Carnival and Christmas annually and leave safely, to come again and again. My niece is one of them. She has introduced her foreign husband to playing mas, and they had themselves a ball. They all were in TT, in Arima, at Christmas, to celebrate the ninetieth birthday of her grandmother on her father’s side. They all left safely. Others, including Ms Ceasar-Nyack, were not so lucky.

What bothers me about this whole thing though, are the remarks of her grieving mother that on her return to New York, she will ask the Department of Homeland Security to look into her daughter’s death. What can American Homeland Security do in such a case? Trinidad and Tobago is a sovereign state. They cannot come in to investigate a murder on foreign soil. If the young woman was a member of the US Armed Services, in combat attire, in a foreign place, that may have been a different story. If she was murdered because she was an American, that too would be different. People who travel take risks. A wealthy American socialite died at the foot of Mt Kilimanjaro a few years ago under mysterious circumstances. The Kenyan police investigated. Consular officials abroad can assist in arrangements to ship the body back to the US mainland, if the family so wishes, but they cannot interfere in internal police matters unless they are asked by the government of that sovereign state.

In the light of what happened in Haiti, and the current outcry about the alleged kidnapping of the President of that country, I hope the grieving parent of this beautiful young woman would take back her remarks. American Homeland Security has its hands full with security in the USA. People who travel of their own free will to other sovereign nations need to be aware of this. I am not an official of either country, nor a formal student of International Relations, just a person with some common sense. When it becomes necessary for civilians travelling abroad to want the Homeland Security agencies of their own countries to guarantee their safety, it is time to vacation at home in front of the TV watching a video of the place you wanted to visit.

LINDA EDWARDS
Port-of-Spain