Who runs this place?

One could be forgiven for seeing, in our Trini paradise, a modern day parallel in the behaviour of many of our citizens. We see murder, abuse, corruption, and drug dealing, yet we are afraid to report what we have seen. We see dangerous and aggressive driving, aloof or downright hostile civil servants, crooked police or prison officers, apathetic teachers, lazy utility and government workers idling on the job, we say and do nothing.

Why is this? Are we not our brothers’ keepers, do we not have a common interest in a lawful and well-run country, whatever our race, class, or politics?

If the answer is fear, then we are no better than any of the many examples of tin-pot dictatorships that have dotted our hemisphere over the years, except that our fear is not of the dictator, but of “us.” We are trapped in a dictatorship of the unlawful.

The fact that in all the examples given, the “dictators” are probably a distinct minority, does not reduce the severe impact they have on the rest of us. As a result, murder, drug activity, abuse, and general lawlessness and indiscipline go unchecked.

To the public it would appear that a large number of seemingly “iron-clad” cases fall apart in court, either because the witness disappears, or “is disappeared,” or the police make a hash of their end of it, or a legal loophole is exposed at a critical time.

What sensible and right thinking person would expose themselves to all the risk, time wasting, and general hassle, when the accused is going to be out and about, unrestrained, and probably heavily armed in two shakes of a ducks tail?

Even if they are jailed, it seems to be all too easy to find and engage a “hired gun.”

The very real fear of becoming involved because of the probable repercussions, whether direct or indirect, physical or otherwise, is something that needs to be addressed by those in power in a quick and decisive manner.

At present the system apparently encourages criminals to threaten or bribe witnesses, police or judges, or directly eliminate witnesses, as the number of surprising legal escapes continues to impress the populace.

The act of attempting to threaten or bribe anyone in relation to a legal matter should be treated with the utmost seriousness, to the point where a criminal would not even fleetingly contemplate it. For nine days we will rail, and rant, and rave, about “those animals,” but it will soon be back to business as usual. The murderers, abusers, drug lords, and other dictators, will lie low for ten days, and then go back to their old tricks. After all, next year’s Carnival is going to be bigger and better than ever. Wha ban yuh playin in?

Until radical changes are made, the unlawful will continue to dictate the running of our paradise, and we seem to like it so.