Perverse obstruction

THE KIDNAPPING and murder of Ashmead Baksh, son of Naparima MP Nizam Baksh, has again produced an urgent and widespread call for the Opposition UNC to support the Government’s anti-crime bills languishing in Parliament for more than 15 months. The victim’s uncle, Shaheed Baksh made an impassioned plea for UNC cooperation during the funeral on Monday while residents of Barrackpore lined the road leading to the Baksh’s home bearing placards calling for peace and for the killings to stop. “I am making a special appeal for both sides of the House to put their differences aside and get together and solve the crime situation,” said Shaheed Baksh.

In expressing their condolences, the Chamber of Industry and Commerce renewed their call for both the Government and Opposition to come together to pass legislation to deal with criminal activity, saying, “Not one more life must be allowed to be lost to this type of barbarism and senseless violence.” We feel certain that these sentiments reflect the feeling of the vast majority of TT’s law abiding citizens who would also have been shocked by the abduction and apparently senseless killing of the 30-year-old mechanical engineer. It seems, however, that not even such a weight of public opinion is coercive enough to persuade the UNC into changing its obstructive stand on the revolutionary anti-crime bills. In our view, something must be seriously wrong with a political party which is prepared to ignore, indeed steadfastly defy, the wishes of a major proportion of the national population for either capricious reasons or in order to pursue its own partisan agenda. What, for example, is the response of the UNC to these appeals? Here is leader Basdeo Panday’s reply: “Cooperate with what? They want us to cooperate with the PNM and join with the criminals. I can’t do that.”

Haven’t we had enough of Mr Panday and his recalcitrance? What benefit does he expect his party to derive from this kind of nonsense? Whom does he hope to influence or convince by seeking to demonise the governing party, equating them with the criminal element? As the former Prime Minister, it seems necessary to remind Mr Panday that he and his party should first examine their own record in office and question their own credibility before self-righteously declaring such a wholesale condemnation of the PNM. In our view, the obstruction of the UNC to these anti-crime bills has become almost perverse, having regard to the fact that they had their genesis during the UNC’s term in office, emerging as they did from the recommendations of the crime committee appointed by Mr Panday’s government and headed by Sir Ellis Clarke. As far as we can recall, in fact, there was an agreement between the two parties before the last elections that, whatever the results, they would both support the bills in parliament. As he had done so many times before, the UNC leader is now singing a different song.

The real tragedy of this situation, however, lies in the fact that the bills are designed to address, by a range of almost revolutionary measures, the most critical issue facing our society, that is the intolerable level of violent crime. Among their provisions, the bills would restructure and upgrade the Police Service, making officers and the Commissioner fare more accountable than they are now. Also, the ineffective Police Complaints Authority would be replaced by an independent body having the authority to investigate serious police misconduct, corruption, and criminal offences and to refer its findings to the DPP, the new Police Management Authority or the Commissioner “for appropriate action.” Is there any point in appealing to the UNC in the nation’s interest?