The hidden realities of TT Carnival

THE EDITOR: For Carnival 2003, then CoP Everald Snaggs deployed 3,000 of his “officers” to protect and lock down the city of Port-of-Spain in an effort to please his baliser bosses as well as brag that it was a “safe” Carnival. In doing so, two girls were savagely murdered — one, a young pannist in the Couva area and another blossoming lady raped and killed in the forested area of Arima.

Now for Carnival 2005, enter new CoP Trevor Paul and he seems to be handicapped by the same baliser mandate to tell the population that the Carnival was safe. He seems to want to hide the chaos and violence that was Carnival 2005 behind a fig-leaf of chastising the media with stupidness about “sensationalism” and so on. He thinks the world didn’t see the arrest of 50 children on the Promenade, an assault of a journalist by the police who seemed to want to disrobe the woman in order to subdue her with indignity. He thinks we won’t believe the PoSGH statistics about the wave of stabbings, assaults, shootings and molestation.

Now, how is he going to console the family of the young woman who was shot in the mouth when a man pulled her in front of him to escape the random firings of a lunatic. A young woman enjoying J’ouvert was shot in the mouth whilst other members of her group were hit with stray bullets. She has subsequently died. As a parent I am really saddened by the death of this young woman, because only God knows the anguish of a parent who has to claim the body of his/her child.

In addition did Paul hear the wailing of the family of Halima Persad? Did he pass a copy of the newspaper which carried the wailings and cries of anguish. “Mr Manning said crime was down!” as well as “It’s only when it happens to your family, then you will know” to his friends Martin Joseph and the Prime Minister. We are now at 40 murders in 48 days and the most cruel irony of the day is that the Government has paid millions to have a bogus survey done to tell the nation that 66 percent of the population feels safe. Clearly, the value of life has withered to nil.

LYSTRA MAHARAJ
The Park
Glencoe