RECENTLY appointed alderman of the Princes Town Regional Corporation (PTRC), Zaniffa Fakira, 60, has reported threats to her life to police after her home was shot at and she received a death-threat letter, which included a live round of .38 calibre ammunition. Fakira told Newsday her Princes Town home was shot at on Monday night, mere hours before she was to be elected and sworn in as an alderwoman at the PTRC.  Last week, the frightened woman said she found a threatening letter in her mailbox along with a live round of ammunition, which was wrapped in toilet paper. Fakira, a retired school teacher, would only disclose that the note warned her to “decide the future of you and your family or else.” Police told Newsday the bullet was a .38 calibre. The alderman said she did not know the reason behind the attacks but her husband, Fyzool Fakira, said he believed they were politcally motivated since they began after she made the decision to join the Regional Corporation.

Monday night’s shooting at Fakira’s home occurred around 11.45 pm after she and her family had retired to bed. She recalled hearing “a loud sound” and when she and her daughter investigated, they found the front glass door shattered and a spent shell lying on the floor of the gallery. “We didn’t touch anything. We just called the police,” Fakira told Newsday. Minutes after the shot, Fakira’s husband said they received three calls but the caller did not say anything on the line. MP for Princes Town Subhas Panday said he has pledged his support to Fakira, saying no one was taking the incidents lightly. “We are asking the police to keep an eye on her. We don’t want them (Fakira’s attackers) to feel they can get away with this. They can’t just put a bullet with her name on it,” Panday told Newsday. The alderman July 29, 2003 said while the attacks have scared her, she is comforted by the support she has received from the PTRC and MP Panday. Princes Town Police are continuing investigations.

BRAZIL-BORN Jefferson Van Sertima, 22, the country’s first reported malaria victim in three years, told Newsday from his Ward 9 bedside at the San Fernando General Hospital yesterday, he believed he had contracted the disease while in Guyana en route to Brazil. Van Sertima, a printer, said he returned to Trinidad to visit his mother, a resident of Freeport. He said after almost dying from the disease and effecting a full recovery while in Guyana, he had “relapsed” after returning to this country and had been checked into hospital by his relatives. Van Sertima has been at the hospital for the past seven days and sleeps under a mosquito net in the hospital ward where he underwent full treatment for the disease, including drips and a full course of antibiotics. “Right now I just looking forward to coming out of here and rejoining my family,” Sertima said, adding that he may return to Brazil to enlist in the Brazilian Armed Services. However, he expressed trepidation at returning to Guyana saying that the disease had also affeceted one of his cousins in Guyana.

Meanwhile, SWRHA communications officer, Zenobia Nanan, while confirming that Van Sertima had the disease, pointed out that the case was “imported” into the country. She said that the young man had also undergone the full malaria treatment, while samples of his blood had been sent for further testing. However, she could not say when he would be released and referred all questions about the country’s state of preparedness for malaria to the Ministry of Health. Malaria is a serious disease caused by a parasite. It is contracted through the bite of an infected female Anopheles mosquito. Symptoms include fever and flu-like illness including chills, headaches and muscle aches.

THE 79-year-old grandmother of murdered victim Maurice Preston Phillip yesterday said she warned him about staying at the home of a man, who is now in police custody in connection with his killing and the attempted killing of the suspect’s former lover, Brenda DeSilva. Yvonne Jones, who turns 80 on September 10, told Newsday from her home at Cocorite Terrace, Cocorite, that the suspect called her home and told her not to let Phillip in his domain at Kavy Crescent, Pioneer Drive, Petit Valley. “I spoke to him (Phillip) on several occasions, but he loved the girl and she loved him.  He didn’t want to hear.  He is big enough to have sense,” Jones said. Describing Phillip as a loving child, Jones said her grandson only knew DeSilva for about three months, but that he was “in deep love”. The elderly woman said she last saw Phillip on Saturday and told Newsday that he had been living with her since he was two years old. Phillip and DeSilva, both 28, were shot Monday afternoon by a 31-year-old man at a wooden house at Kavy Crescent, allegedly over Phillip’s presence at the house. They were employed with the CEPEP programme at Sierra Leone in Diego Martin.

Phillip later died at the Port-of-Spain General Hospital (PoSGH) while DeSilva was up to last evening recovering in Ward 23 of the same institution, her sister, Crystal DeSilva told Newsday yesterday. Crystal did not want to comment further, saying she did not know “what to say again” and that her sister is in a stable condition and is “trying to talk”. Crystal told Newsday that the bullets have been removed from her sister and that she is now in the healing process.  She said her sister managed to ask relatives for her three children and cried when she saw their photographs in the newspapers. DeSilva is the mother of three children, Amanda, 11, Shawnee, 9, and Brandon, 7.  Yesterday they were seen playing in the road near their grandmother’s house on Kavy Crescent and also chatting with neighbours. After the shooting, the suspect reportedly led officers of the Western Division to the murder weapon, a .38 pistol found in the hills of Kavy Crescent.  The gun is said to have been bought from a woman in Tunapuna.  Up to late evening police said they had not traced the weapon.

Senior police officers said they are to consult with Acting Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Carla Brown-Antoine for directions. The man may appear before a Port-of-Spain Magistrate today, police said. CEPEP contractor for Diego Martin Central, Martin Pantin said as a contractor, he spoke to DeSilva and Phillip last week about the seriousness of a recent incident and advised them to deal with their personal problems. The next day, Pantin said, both DeSilva and Phillip came to him and said everything was alright and that they had gone to the police. “I told them that everything could not be alright,” Pantin said. Cpl Rivas of the West End Police Station is continuing investigations.

 

HAD it not been for some last minute help provided by members of the Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force  the Emancipation Support Committee (ESC) would have been unable to open the Lidj Yasu Omowale Village located in the Paddock area of the Grand Stand, Queen’s Park Savannah, Port-of-Spain, last Monday night. Addressing the large crowd gathered for the occasion, chairman of the ESC Khafra Kambon said the committee would have faced “total embarrassment” had the Defence Force not responded to its plea for assistance, on Monday afternoon, in getting the venue prepared. “A concert titled ‘Colours’ held here last Saturday prevented us from getting access to this area as early as we had planned,” he said. “We got the grounds last Monday, and despite members of the committee and supporters working round-the-clock for the past seven days, we still found it difficult to complete the job ourselves, so had to call on the Defence Force for assistance this afternoon in order to have the venue ready for you tonight.” Evidence of the rush for completion was apparent, as at the programme’s advertised starting time of 7.30 pm, and with the majority of the audience already seated, workmen were still scurrying about the stage making last-minute adjustments to the lighting and decor.

Proceedings eventually started shortly before 8 pm with the arrival of President Maxwell Richards and his wife Jean. In attendance, as well, were Ministers in the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Pennelope Beckles and Eddie Hart, together with Minister of State in the Ministry of Culture and Gender Affairs, Eulalie James. The theme of this year’s Emancipation celebrations is “Protecting the Legacy,” and according to Kambon: “We are talking about a legacy to build on and to disentangle from confusion a legacy that started but did not end in Africa. Within our psyches we embrace a complex legacy, a legacy of glory, of pain, of pride, of repression and rebellion, of suppression and assertion. It is Africa, it is the Caribbean and the Diaspora.” In addition, celebrations this year pay special reverence to Haiti, he said, adding: “Two hundred years ago our brothers and sisters in Haiti liberated their society from the enslavers. They struck a blow for freedom. In so doing they gave us the right to proclaim who we are, to invoke the legacy of Africa and our African heritage in the Caribbean, to re-assert our humanity. On January 1 2004, Haitians, Africans all over the world, and all peoples who cherish the meaning of the Haitian revolution, will observe that landmark in our history, in world history, the bicentennial of Haiti’s declaration of  Independence. In that context we observe our own emancipation by reclaiming our legacy. We observe emancipation by ensuring that our youth know and protect that legacy, We say thanks to Haiti.”

A contingent from Senegal is here to experience this year’s celebration. As a token of its appreciation, the ESC made a presentation of the Henry Sylvester Williams Award to the President of Senegal, which was accepted on his behalf by that country’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Cheiqh Tidiane Gadio. Henry Sylvester Williams was a Trinidadian who in 1900 organised the first Pan African Conference in the world. The award is presented to persons who have made outstanding contributions to Pan African unity. Before declaring the Village open, Minister of Culture and Tourism Pennelope Beckles, in an address, said despite the stark, criminal realities of slavery, it should not be allowed to be a legacy of emancipation. “Emancipation has left us a much richer, nobler and more profoundly positive legacy,” she said. “Emancipation invites us all to connect to and celebrate that rich African heritage.” She contended that “protecting our African legacy can only be accomplished if we teach and educate our children, if we involve them in the many cultural expressions of our African legacy; if we live it every day in loving, caring relationships with one another.” Entertainment on the programme was provided by Sekou Suso, a Kora player and griot from the Gambia who is on the cast of “Carnival Messiah” now playing at Queen’s Hall in St Ann’s; Regeneration Now; Mike Boothman and Kaiso Fusion; Cocorite Ujamma Dancers; and Renegades Youth Steel Orchestra. Show hosts were Dara Healy and Shabaca Kambon.

Breast cancer may be the leading cancer among women in TT, but cervical cancer is also very high. Recent screening by the mobile unit of the TT Cancer Society found that of 1,000 women screened, abnormalities showed in approximately ten percent. Speaking to the media at a luncheon at Trotters, Dr George Laquis yesterday said cervical cancer was detected in women 44 and 45 years old. It was the first time they had a pap smear. He said the cancer has a long latency period and it could have started 20 years ago. Cervical cancer is caused by the Human Papilloma virus. He said screening should target specific high-risk groups in society and treatment should be available. “People with the highest risk of cervical cancer are the poor and they cannot afford a pap smear.” Commenting on the Society’s anti-smoking campaign, Laquis said the focus is on getting people not to start smoking. Calling nicotine the most addictive drug known to man, he said the Society may again attempt a class action law suit against the tobacco industry.

Attempts a few years ago to raise $1 million dollars for this purpose failed. He said financial support for HIV/AIDS was 1,000 times what is given to cancer although more people have died from breast cancer than all the people who have died from AIDS. “Cancer does not have as strong a lobby,” he said. The TT Cancer Society will host “A Gift Love” at 4.30 pm on Sunday at the ballroom of the Cascadia Hotel and Conference Centre, Ariapita Road, St Ann’s. At the event, five people will be honoured for their promotion of cancer awareness in TT — patron of the Society Emmanuel Carter, Henry Phillip, Sally Moutett, Keith De Freitas and the late Doreen Beaubrun. Laquis said they were selected because of their unselfish and untiring efforts to assist cancer patients in TT over the years. A fund will be launched to build a hospice for terminally ill cancer patients.

Fire destroyed an abandoned house at the corner of French Street and Wrightson Road, Port-of-Spain, around midday yesterday. Reports revealed that around midday, Matthew Star, who lives in an apartment located near the abandoned house, was at his home when he was awakened by smoke fumes coming from the abandoned house. Star made a check and discovered the abandoned wooden building engulfed in flames. Officers of the Wrightson Road Fire Department were contacted and they went to the scene.

By the time officers arrived, the flames had already spread to the entire building. Fire officers were able to contain the fire from spreading to other nearby buildings. Staff at Navarro’s Brokerage Limited and United Parcels evacuated the building and looked on at the burning wooden structure. Newsday learned that the wooden structure was occupied by vagrants. Residents had complained to the Port-of-Spain City Corporation about this situation but to no avail. Investigations are continuing.