THE EDITOR: Crime and more crime is the cry of the nation, be it the Trinidad and Tobago Chamber of Commerce, the American Chamber of Commerce, the Down Town Merchants Association, the social and religious bodies, the academics, the columnists in the print media et al. But neither of these entities have come up with any or any veritable solution to the problem.

Indeed everybody seems to call firstly, on the Government and secondly on the Commissioner of Police. But who is the Government? The Government in constitutional terms is a group of people elected by the electorate as servants or agents of the people to manage their affairs. But who are these people? The people elected are called politicians —whatever that means. And what are their qualifications or expertise! Indeed many if not most of them have not even managed a ‘coal shop’ or ‘a parlour’ let alone managing their own finances or domestic affairs. But they are usually elected to manage the affairs of the nation involving billions of dollars of the resources of the people.

Is it any surprise therefore, that they are unable to curb crime, let alone the putting an end to it. Take the case of the escalation of kidnapping that have been plaguing and devastating the nation within recent times. The only solution that the current Government come up with is the introduction of the kidnapping bill which they no doubt hold out as the magical wand to put an end to kidnapping. But when the bill was introduced in Parliament it bristled with a litany of errors. But that’s what politicians are all about — incompetence. However, to prove that they are not incompetent they sought to attribute their incompetence to the Opposition. The Bill, however, has received widespread criticism from many quarters and more particularly from those learned in the law as well as sociologists and senators.

The overriding question for consideration is will the passing of more laws  really reduce the rising crime rate in the country. Indeed history will give a negative answer to this question. The other agent of Government to which the people turn for protection from the criminals is the police. But here again the question that arises is how efficient and competent is the police. One only has to listen to the outpourings of the nation on their fear and trepidation of the police and how incompetent they are; that they are the protectors of the major drug lords; that every village or district is flourishing with petit drug dealers and traffickers but citizens dare not report any one of them to the police since instead of pursuing the drug dealers, the informant would himself be subject to arrest for meddling in the affairs of the police and the drug dealers.

It is well known that the police are never on the scenes of crimes. Indeed they only appear when informed of the commission of a crime. It is clear therefore, that without informants the police will be hopeless. However, since the community fear the police and since there is clearly a total absence of trust and confidence in the police, is it any wonder that neither the Government nor the police have been able to grapple with the escalation of crime. That there are rogue police officers in the police service is without doubt. However, each day we hear the call from the Commissioner of Police for more money to manage the police service; that there are no vehicles for use by the police; that the Commissioner must be given a separate fund to manage the police service. But that is not all.

The Commissioner has been advancing solutions upon solutions to the crime problem but clearly incapable of implementing them. He seems to have all the answers to curb crime except implementing them. His public pronouncements on crime sound very impressive but fall short of effectiveness or promoting the efficiency of the service. Millions of dollars have been spend and continue to be spent on the purchase of vehicles for the police but that notwithstanding, the crime rate continues to haunt the nation. Indeed those vehicles soon find themselves in the motor vehicle graveyard. Does it make economic sense to continue to submit to the demands of the police without any corresponding benefits. What the country needs now more than ever, is more effective and dynamic management of the police service.

Trinidad and Tobago is but a little island with a population of approximately 1.3 million people. The criminal elements of this country do not come from Goodwood Park, or Fairways or West Moorings or Cascade or Haleland Park. Indeed it is not difficult to trace the address of those who come before the courts on serious charges. Such persons could easily be closely monitored by a vigilant police service and be apprehended with speed and dispatch. On the other hand Government should take cognisance of the need to identify the areas prone to producing criminals and take remedial steps to reconfigure the environment so that children in the area would not be the new criminals of tomorrow.

ERROL JOSEPH
Diego Martin

THE EDITOR: We are inundated daily with news of “SARS,” not either a very contagious nor very lethal disease. So far it has cost 250 lives over the several weeks since its first outbreak. Daily, Malaria in Africa alone accounts for 3,000 lives. I repeat: daily! Tragically and lamentably most malaria victims are children five and under.

Let’s get things in perspective here…does the world’s news media ever focus on the scourge and menace of Malaria (it costs African Nations $12 billion in lost productivity)? Are SARS and AIDS more “newsworthy”? Amazingly the very best protection against malaria is an insecticide-treated mosquito net and the majority of African Governments, despite pleas to remove taxes and customs duties from this item, adamantly refuse to do so! Is this outrageous or what? Maybe, just maybe, this fact alone is actually, in fact, far more newsworthy than the fashionable, “in mode” SARS and AIDS.

GEOFF HUDSON
Port-of-Spain

The Editor: Several serious car accidents have occurred recently in the area between the Westmall traffic lights and the Diego Martin bridge. 

The guard rails are now exposed at several points due to the fact that many cars have crashed into them over the years and also because the supports are unbelievably of wood and have rotted away. These guard rails are of heavy steel and at the points where they have come loose leave them ready to impail cars and occupants that come into contact with them. I beg the authorities involved to quickly remove all the twisted and broken rails and their flimsy supports before more deaths are recorded.

John Gatcliffe
Goodwood Park

THE EDITOR: Do members of the taxpaying public have any ‘rights’ when it comes to alleged police roadblocks or are we at the total mercy of any armed man who yells ‘police’? How are members of the public who are not engaged in criminal activity supposed to respond when the men who accosted me: a) refused to identify themselves; b) were not in police uniform and c) had no police badge on their clothing? Is this the normal behaviour for the police when they carry out legitimate roadblocks? Isn’t there supposed to be at least one person in police uniform. I never saw any in front of Kay Donna at a recent roadblock. What were they looking for? Did they find it?

I hope you find this incident which I had experienced worthy of publication, if only to alert the public of Trinidad and Tobago as to the methods that the alleged ‘police’ are currently using.

L WILKES
St Joseph

The Editor: Carifta Games have now come and gone and just about nobody knew they were here. Hats off to the Athletic Association for apparently hiring the C.I.D or C.I.A to advertise it.

Unknowing to many persons it was a very competitive entertaining and affordable three days of the best vs the best of young track and field athletes in the Caribbean. Maybe next year when it’s being held in Bermuda we will know.

THE EDITOR: The style of governance adopted to introduce into Parliament current legislation geared to reign in the crime of kidnapping for ransom and other related offences is symptomatic of the creeping unilateralism that is dangerously assuming precedence over and replacing our culture of parliamentary democracy.

Both the Government and Opposition stand irresponsibly accused of failing to adhere to the requisite consultative/collaborative/in-the-national-interest approach on the Kidnapping Bill. This approach is conditional to effective governance in TT and constitutes the sine qua non to enacting all urgent constitutional rights infringing, three-fifths majority legislation, having regard to the current and future political configuration of the Lower House.

There is no need to inflict on TT out-dated, cheap, sterile and bankrupt politicking because we are not impressed. The Bill is a watered down, toothless version of an original Bill that was re-drafted to circumvent the Government having to mobilise the requisite special majority for passing those critical constitutional human rights infringing sections of the Bill. The original deterrent, no-bail provision that would have rendered it more effective in stemming the tide of kidnapping has regrettably been excised.

This Bill will not achieve its deterrent effects unless and until frequent arrests are made. We should be cautiously optimistic into believing that this Bill (i.e. the legislative approach) is the panacea to ridding TT of the menace of kidnapping or what should be more appropriately regarded as the illicit and inhumane trade in innocent but selected human lives.

The kidnapping menace is not only holding segments of our society under siege but is being conducted at a galloping pace without any let, respite or hindrance in sight. Sixty five have been committed with impunity so far and counting. This crime against our society has now targeted and encroached on the young and innocent (five children have been kidnapped so far this year out of a total of 65 kidnappings (27 in 2002) and 60 murders (171 in 2002)). The Police have laid kidnapping charges only in one of the 65 incidents although they boast of a 30 percent detection ratio. The kidnappers are collecting ransom ($1.7mn for 2003) money as if it were sou sou money. At least 100 telephone calls demanding ransoms would have been made, but none has been intercepted in the face of the $60m spent in acquiring Israeli-made spying/ surveillance/ monitoring communications technology.

This sordid development has serious long-term adverse consequences for the full flowering and mobilisation of the innate human resource enterprise and entrepreneurial spirit endemic in all our peoples.  If this trend escalates, we might well become the crime/kidnapping capital of the Caribbean, rather than a developed country by 2020. Kidnapping is taking place in the face of public disclosures reported recently in the media and attributed to the Police Commissioner, that he was fully aware of the cabal of underworld persons who were perpetrating the nefarious crime of kidnapping. On the other hand, and in a contradictory vein, we have had statements by the Honourable PM Manning linking kidnappings to political considerations. The latest explanation is that kidnapping is motivated by money considerations (AG Morean) and not ethnicity (meaning Indians) or both.

The misleading message being telegraphed is that only Indians have money in TT. What of the Chinese brothers as well as the mercantile French Creole,  the affluent Africans and the rich Syrian-Lebanese? Are they insulated from kidnappings by guns and guards? Not only is the Government unwilling to admit of an escalating crime problem but in the face of overwhelming statistical data ( more than 66 percent), it is reluctant to admit empirically and dispassionately that Indians first and foremost are being targeted for kidnappings. The Government has a moral duty to ask as well as to find out why? One must first recognise and admit of the existence of various  permutations/dimensions of the kidnapping problem at the initial  hypothetical level and then proceed to investigate it dispassionately. In  this regard it is critically important to determine whether the kidnapping  selection criteria are, inter alia, identical to the banditry/burglary  pandemic. Accordingly, one may wish to focus on the variables of ethnicity, prosperity, geography (locational theory), the culture of passivity (fight or flight), extra-specific non-aggression, the culture of ostentatiousness or wealth visibility, demographics (density and distribution) or low security awareness or consciousness.

The aforementioned contradictory explanations given at the highest levels for the spate of kidnappings must certainly leave the segmented kidnapped community deliberately confused, helpless and vulnerable as well as provide fodder for the kidnapping underworld.  What am I to make of the latest pronouncement that the police were doing their best to arrest the kidnapping menace and yet it is galloping out of control. Should the victims throw their hands in the air, surrender to the plunderers and the perpetrators of the law of the jungle or migrate from their homeland (the classical flight response)? On this important piece of legislation, i.e. The Kidnapping Bill, as well as others that may be geared to provide teeth to our statutes, both the  Government and Opposition are quite intent on scoring political points  “a.k.a kicksing”, cheap politicking, while Dharti Mai TT burns and the heart  and soul of our peoples, including our young darlings of democracy are being  traumatised and assaulted beyond rehabilitation.

STEPHEN KANGAL
East Croydon
England

The Editor: It is not very often that people say “Thank You” or show gratitude when gooddeeds are done for them.This is definitely not a good practice to be developed.

It is also said that we must lead by example so I take this opportunity to say “Thank You” to the sponsors that made our second Annual Marathon, Sports and Family Day a success on April 21 2003.The list is exhaustive, however. I must thank the following companies:
(1)  Bp TT LLC
(2)  Gulf Insurance Limited
(3)  Precision Fabricators Limited
(4)  Carib Brewery
(5)  The National Gas Company of TT Limited
(6)  Blue Waters
(7)  CAD Services Limited
(8)  Mahabirsingh Traders Limited
(9)  Trinidad Cement Limited
(10) Trinidad & Tobago Police Service Credit Union Co-operative Society Limited
(11) Seamen & Waterfront Workers Trade Union
These companies answered our call for sponsorhip of this event and we are extremely grateful for their assistance.
We look forward to the support of these companies in our future endeavours.

Gregory A Cooper
Secretary, Bois Jean Jean United
Community Organisation, (BJJUCO)