ROBBERY OF DIPLOMAT

The storming of the Cuban Ambassador’s residence on Friday by three armed bandits, who proceeded to burglarise his home, rob him of US dollars and his car was a particularly disgraceful act which is likely to do some hurt to this country’s international image. Every conceivable effort must be made by the Police to track down and arrest the bandits. Even as we urge this we question the security arrangements in place for Heads and other members of diplomatic Missions in Trinidad and Tobago. Foreign diplomats have always felt safe in this country, and should be entitled to continue to do so. Hopefully, by this time, the Government of Trinidad and Tobago has issued an apology to the Cuban Government. The armed robbers may not have appreciated it but their action, apart from being criminal, was a violation of international norms.        

And if, as the Police are reported to believe, the men who staged the robbery had been briefed by a third party that the Ambassador for Cuba, Felix Raul Rojas, had withdrawn a quantity of United States dollars earlier in the day, then the bandits knew in advance that their intended victim was the Head of the Cuban diplomatic Mission. Meanwhile, the Police should bring their suspicions to the attention of the relevant institution so that needed action could be intitiated against the individual, and measures adopted to tighten security. There have been too many reports within recent years of confidential information being leaked to bandits, who then went on to rob and/or kidnap persons. Two disturbing facts emerge from Friday’s incident. One is that advice on withdrawals of money which (the advice) is supposed to be confidential has been passed on to gangsters. The other is that whoever supplied the information to the bandits must have known that the person withdrawing the money was the Ambassador for Cuba.

We wish to emphasise that we regard all criminal activities, whether robberies, kidnappings, murders, incest, rapes, corruption and housebreakings as things to be deplored. Nonetheless, an act of banditry against the Cuban Ambassador or indeed against any Ambassador or other Head of a diplomatic Mission or any other diplomat accredited to Trinidad and Tobago takes on a special significance. What the bandits have done, apart from a crude dismissal of long established courtesies to diplomats, including the principle that they should be tacitly immune from any social ills of the country to which they have been accredited, was to encourage, possibly, a bad international Press.

Trinidad and Tobago has a special social and economic relationship with Cuba, and has sourced through Government to Government contacts Cuban doctors, nurses and other medical personnel to assist with the operation of its hospitals, health centres etc. In turn, Trinidad and Tobago along with other Caricom countries signed a Trade and Economic Co-operation Agreement in July to enable improved access to Cuba’s more than US$2 billion import market. But while these are important, what is critical at this stage is that this country should seek to assure Cuba that Friday’s robbery of its Ambassador by armed bandits is not representative of Trinidad and Tobago’s attitude to Cuba and its Embassy, nor indeed to any of the several Embassies, High Commissions and Consulates here and their representatives. Our Ministry of Foreign Affairs should seek with dispatch to mend fences, and the Ministry of National Security to apprehend the bandits and their accomplice.