Dear Editor:
I am a Trinidadian-Lucian, so I can say this without fear or favour: Trinidad and Tobago is a country reeling under crime and criminal activity.
Several years ago, I moved to Saint Lucia and the biggest relief was that I no longer had to watch over my back every minute. But lately, things have started to change and I get the most unwanted and worrying sense of déjà vu, because I am seeing developments in Saint Lucia that remind me of what happened in Trinidad 20 or 30 years ago, and if we are not careful here, then there will be hell to pay later on.
Nothing has ruined my amazing birth country the way crime has destroyed it. When you are in Trinidad and Tobago, even if you are smart and try to avoid the places and things that can place you in harm’s way, you still live with a heavy cloud on your shoulders, not knowing when or where the next criminal will strike.
Armed robberies, assassinations, public shoot-outs are all now fabric of the society of my birth country. My Facebook Page is still populated with a lot of Trini news, and daily you see the scourge of crime claiming lives and devastating people’s sense of being and security.
I am not trying to bad mouth Trinidad, believe me I’m not, but how would I help anyone by plastering over the truth? Just talk to any Trini, and see if they don’t verify all I’ve said. Trinidad failed to chop-off the head of the snake when it was just emerging, and now they have lost control. The criminals wantonly and brazenly roam the island, and woe be unto anyone in their way.
Well let me tell you, the snake is starting to raise its head in Saint Lucia, and the future of this beautiful island and its people will rest squarely on the shoulders of the current government and what it does in this crucial hour, the legacy of our fair island will be determined by their actions today.
The most recent and worrying development was the shooting death of police officer Nathan Timaitre and the wounding of his colleague Isaac Calvin, done during an armed robbery no less, where all the assailants were carrying firearms. This follows a disturbing trend of gun violence; imagine, you have men hiding in the bush near the Landings in Pigeon Island (a tourist hot spot) to shoot after a motorcyclist.
The Prime Minister has declared to the criminals that ‘this behavior will not be tolerated’, and while all credit to him for saying something, if strong words could have fixed crime, then Trinidad would have been a paradise.
Human Rights advocate Felicia Dujon has it right when she demands to know how the administration intends to strategically manage the upsurge in gun violence. The fact is that the guns are coming from somewhere through somewhere, and if it is like it is in Trinidad, then it is directly connected to the drug trade.
In a recent interview Ms Dujon observed that gang leaders have upgraded their recruitment of young citizens by offering them food, water, shelter and a sustainable form of employment. In other words, the gangs have capitalised on the economic fallout driven by COVID and lockdowns. Don’t you remember the warnings of the storm in the teacup after all these COVID lockdowns – well I hope the experts pushing for lockdowns then can now advise us how to stop the surge in crime and gun violence!
It’s like watching a bad movie, one that I already saw played in Trinidad, and one that is starting to debut in Saint Lucia.
I want to urge the government and Royal Saint Lucia Police Force that if they do not act now, then our children will reap the whirlwind. Some 500 people, many young men, are slaughtered in Trinidad almost annually. Do we want that to be our legacy?
Please, please, please, take the hard action now, you can still save our lovely Fair Helen, the hour is not yet so late. But to do so you must do what the politicians of Trinidad failed to do, have the political will and bravery to go after the criminals, clean out the bad apples in the police service because this is the steroid on which crime grows and expands, and lay down a zero-tolerance policy on crime.
Let’s not fool ourselves, most people ‘in the loop’ (including the police) already know who the Bad Boys are and who commits the crime – and this was just as true in Trinidad. But no one wants to put in the hard work to deal with them, and in fact you have police officers who call them friends. You have high-standing individuals in society who are part of the problem, and who everyone is afraid to touch. There is no good ending to such a story.
Don’t fool yourselves either into thinking that crime thrives in only ‘certain areas’, because we made that same mistake in Trinidad, and we left places like Laventille, Morvant and the Beetham to simmer until the pot overflowed, and now there is not a single community in Trinidad that can’t be considered a ‘hot spot’. The same can happen here too.
The Prime Minister has declared that he will give the police resources to fight crime – I hope he does and spares no expense either, because it will cost more later on. In fact, I can share with you that the government was forced to give the Ministry of National Security in Trinidad one of the highest allocations in the budget to try and deal with crime, because if you don’t, everything suffers; your safety, your society; business and your country’s reputation. Who wants to travel to a country where they don’t feel safe? That is money that could have gone to health care, to social relief programmes and so much more.
And let me just end by saying that taking care of your officers is not just giving them guns and cars, it’s about treating them like people.
I heard a police officer call in a radio programme after the shooting of Nathan and lament how their medical has not been paid since November of last year. If this is indeed so, I hope the government fixes it, because you cannot ask your police officers to be soldiers on the front line, but treat them like second class citizens.
(Joseph Parnum)