THE BREAKING POINT: AN OPEN LETTER TO TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO

From the Trinidad & Tobago Guardian, July 24, 2019
We've known for some time now that Trinidad and To­ba­go was a coun­try spi­ralling out of con­trol. Peo­ple were be­ing killed and robbed at record rates, weapons made for war flood­ed our streets and every­one seemed to be liv­ing in fear of los­ing their life.
If you think our na­tion­al night­mare couldn't get worse, just re­flect on the events of the last few weeks. In broad day­light, there were dead­ly gun bat­tles in the streets of Port-of-Spain at least 24 peo­ple in dif­fer­ent parts of the coun­try were killed last week alone. No place seemed safe from the scourge of vi­o­lent crime—from an evening jaunt for fried chick­en in West­moor­ings to a chil­dren's birth­day par­ty in cen­tral Trinidad.
From the time you step out of your door, you're tak­ing your life in your own hands. On­ly two days ago, a busi­ness­man get­ting ready to drop his wife off to work was shot dead in a dri­ve-by shoot­ing.
Crim­i­nal gangs have got­ten more brazen. They re­spect no one. Moth­ers and chil­dren are of­ten col­lat­er­al dam­age, caught in the cross­fire of bloody gang wars. Se­nior cit­i­zens are be­ing tar­get­ed and killed by armed home in­vaders. The spike in rapes of women is now at­trib­uted to roam­ing bands of se­r­i­al rapists.
Some crime scenes in our coun­try re­sem­ble the world's dead­liest war zones. We are well past the point of pa­tience and tol­er­ance. We do not have the lux­u­ry of time. We de­mand ur­gent and im­me­di­ate ac­tion. The lead­ers of our gov­ern­ment and op­po­si­tion par­ties have failed to de­liv­er. They need to set aside their dif­fer­ences and con­front our na­tion­al cri­sis head-on.
1. It starts at the top. That means you, Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley. When you cam­paigned for of­fice five years ago, you pre­dict­ed that out-of-con­trol crime would top­ple the UNC-led gov­ern­ment. Ap­peal­ing for sup­port at the polls, you told us that we were "vir­tu­al­ly vot­ing to save (our) life." Vot­ers put their trust in you.
Our lives have nev­er been in greater dan­ger.
The first and ut­most re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of any gov­ern­ment is to pro­tect its cit­i­zens and pro­vide safe­ty of law and or­der. On that score, your gov­ern­ment gets an F.
Crime has soared since you took of­fice, sur­pass­ing by far the du­bi­ous records of your po­lit­i­cal ri­vals, whom you ap­pro­pri­ate­ly lam­bast­ed for their own fail­ings in fight­ing crime.
When Barack Oba­ma be­came pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States in 2008, he quick­ly ac­cept­ed the role of con­sol­er-in-chief to com­fort his na­tion af­ter mass shoot­ings and oth­er pe­ri­ods of na­tion­al grief. In our na­tion, there is a deaf­en­ing si­lence from the top when moth­ers wail af­ter the blood of their chil­dren flows in the street. We can do bet­ter.
Ask ran­dom peo­ple in Trinidad and To­ba­go to list close fam­i­ly mem­bers and loved ones who have been mur­dered in the last decade and it is not un­usu­al for the num­ber to ex­ceed 20.
You, Dr Row­ley, have felt your own vis­cer­al agony of los­ing loved ones to crime. In ear­ly May, your for­mer high school class­mate John "Jok­er" Mills and his com­mon-law wife, Eu­lyn John, were bru­tal­ly killed by an in­trud­er in the bed­room of their To­ba­go home. Their hands and feet were bound, their mouths gagged and mul­ti­ple stab wounds cov­ered their bod­ies. In your Face­book post, you asked: "What have we be­come? What are we pro­duc­ing as the next gen­er­a­tion?"
As head of gov­ern­ment, you can help save our next gen­er­a­tion, Dr Row­ley. Even though it took three years for you to in­stall per­ma­nent lead­er­ship in the po­lice ser­vice, it was on­ly a start. The li­on's share of the work is yet to be done.
One of the first tasks should be en­sur­ing that po­lice have all the tools to do their job. It didn't help that Guardian Me­dia re­ports re­cent­ly dis­closed that our gov­ern­ment used mil­lions of dol­lars in tax­pay­ers' mon­ey to sup­port gang boss­es and crim­i­nal net­works fu­elling crime. It is in­dis­putable that these crim­i­nals take our mon­ey, buy big­ger and more men­ac­ing guns, fund their il­lic­it ac­tiv­i­ties, then fight each oth­er for the gov­ern­ment largesse. Many civil­ians be­come their in­no­cent rob­bery and mur­der vic­tims.
(The UNC-led gov­ern­ment does not have clean hands in this mat­ter, as it has al­so fund­ed "com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers", al­so known as gang boss­es).
But now, Dr Row­ley, your wear the jack­et. How can the com­mis­sion­er and his rank-and-file do their jobs when your gov­ern­ment is fund­ing the gangs? Don't take our word for it. Lis­ten to what Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith said last week: "It is ab­solute mad­ness that any­body that holds a po­si­tion of au­thor­i­ty could feel that by giv­ing crim­i­nal el­e­ments funds and mon­ey…. [then] throw blame on the po­lice ser­vice. I will not have any­one throw blame…when they are not do­ing their job."
This is the time, Dr Row­ley, for you to stand up and make bold de­ci­sions for all the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go. One should not pon­der if starv­ing the crim­i­nal net­works of tax­pay­ers' mon­ey will re­sult in elec­toral con­se­quences.
Here's an­oth­er way you can make a dif­fer­ence, Dr Row­ley. Un­der­take a mas­sive re­struc­tur­ing of the na­tion's le­gal sys­tem.
In the PNM's 2015 man­i­festo, you promised: "The PNM will en­gage the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem stake­hold­ers to re-en­gi­neer the struc­ture to pro­vide an ef­fi­cient and le­git­i­mate crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem as the foun­da­tion for crime pre­ven­tion, law en­force­ment and the pro­tec­tion of hu­man rights."
Every­one agrees that our jus­tice sys­tem needs a mas­sive over­haul. Crim­i­nal cas­es still take up to 15 years to come to tri­al—with no guar­an­tee of res­o­lu­tion. (One fraud case in­volv­ing a lawyer who tam­pered with wit­ness­es end­ed last week af­ter 24 years.) Many cas­es lan­guish be­fore mag­is­trates and judges, some of whom, for var­i­ous rea­sons, lack any ur­gency to clear their dock­ets.
The ju­di­cia­ry owns part of the crime prob­lem. If you can­not have a fair jus­tice sys­tem, you can­not fair­ly pros­e­cute crim­i­nals re­spon­si­ble for the crime spree.
Dr Row­ley, the ques­tion is: do you have the will to ful­fil your promise?
Many peo­ple—em­i­nent le­gal schol­ars and cit­i­zens alike—were dis­mayed last week when you de­cid­ed to leave Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie in his job. He faced mis­con­duct al­le­ga­tions in­volv­ing his as­so­ci­a­tion with two con­vict­ed fraud­sters. Over the last few years, his col­leagues on the bench, the le­gal com­mu­ni­ty and the pub­lic have lost con­fi­dence in Archie and, by ex­ten­sion, the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice.
If Archie ap­pears to be com­pro­mised, how could he be ex­pect­ed to help you trans­form the jus­tice sys­tem?
Fight­ing crime should be the Gov­ern­ment's top pri­or­i­ty. That is why we can­not un­der­stand how Stu­art Young, your hard­est work­ing min­is­ter in gov­ern­ment busi­ness, can be min­is­ter of com­mu­ni­ca­tion, min­is­ter of le­gal af­fairs, min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter and min­is­ter of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.
No won­der, the over­bur­dened Mr Young some­times takes a hands-off ap­proach when pressed on crime. "At the end of the day the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and the men and women of the Po­lice Ser­vice are the ones con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly who have the pow­ers of ar­rest. I can't go and ar­rest any­one," he said in a re­cent re­but­tal.
At­tack­ing our na­tion­al cri­sis is a full-time job. Here's a rad­i­cal pro­pos­al: re­duce Mr Young's port­fo­lio to on­ly min­is­ter of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty or ap­point some­one who can fo­cus every minute of the day on our na­tion­al cri­sis.
2. Fel­low cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go, the heinous na­ture and fre­quen­cy of the crime you see every­day is not nor­mal. We are los­ing a gen­er­a­tion of young men—and young women.
If you fol­low so­cial me­dia sites cov­er­ing our car­nage, you'll re­ceive a dai­ly blast of dri­ve-by killings, rob­beries and vi­cious fights—of­ten with guns, cut­lass­es and any­thing peo­ple can get their hands on. In oth­er videos, women and chil­dren con­front and even re­pel po­lice who en­ter neigh­bour­hoods to ar­rest sus­pect­ed gang­sters. This is not nor­mal.
The crim­i­nals keep get­ting younger and younger. With the glee of chil­dren play­ing video games, a group of boys who seemed no old­er than ten-years-old bran­dished guns and bragged in a re­cent video about their crim­i­nal and sex­u­al ex­ploits. No won­der that many peo­ple, af­ter see­ing or hear­ing about grotesque crime, say in ex­as­per­a­tion: "Trinidad is not a re­al place."
Last week came an­oth­er shock­er: young women flash­ing big grins and what ap­peared to be se­mi-au­to­mat­ic weapons.
Many of our young peo­ple have lost their in­no­cence. It is no sur­prise that in many schools, teach­ers are no longer in charge and dis­ci­pline holds no sway. Some young­sters have lit­tle or no re­gard for au­thor­i­ty be­cause they feel that kind of be­hav­iour is em­pow­er­ing and has cur­ren­cy.
It seems like every day the lives of our na­tion's youths are be­ing snuffed out as killers show no mer­cy. We all re­mem­ber how 13-year-old Videsh Sub­ar, while await­ing his SEA re­sult, was bru­tal­ly mur­dered. The school­boy and his neigh­bour, in whose care he was left, were found in her Mal­abar home tied up and their throats slashed.
In Laven­tille, where vi­o­lent gang wars re­flect the hor­rors of ur­ban war­fare, chil­dren are of­ten in­no­cent vic­tims.
About two weeks ago, Fitzger­ald Hinds, min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, dis­closed that in the last decade, more than 1,300 peo­ple in Laven­tille alone had been mur­dered, some 93 per cent by gun­fire.
Hear Mr Hinds: "We have a cri­sis in Laven­tille. Be­cause you know bet­ter than me that to­mor­row, this evening, your chil­dren are at risk. They could be in the wrong place at the wrong time. And you know you too are at risk. Be­cause if you on­ly pro­voke some­body now, tell them some­thing, watch them too hard, bounce them as you pass­ing by the shop, they want to go for their 'lass, they want to go for their gun. That is the lev­el of ig­no­rance."
Hinds seemed baf­fled that chil­dren in Laven­tille would suf­fer the same dire plight of chil­dren in Mid­dle East­ern con­flicts. "This is no war zone," he said of Laven­tille.
When you hear de­spair in a gov­ern­ment min­is­ter's voice, you know we're in trou­ble.
3. This is a call to all de­cent peo­ple. All the good cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go who val­ue law and or­der over law­less­ness must come for­ward in num­bers greater than the crim­i­nals to re­claim our coun­try, to help make our neigh­bour­hoods safe again and work with what should be a re­vamped and pro­fes­sion­al po­lice ser­vice.
Let us chan­nel our col­lec­tive out­rage over two decades of record-set­ting blood­let­ting to let our lead­ers know that we don't like it so. De­mand that they work to­geth­er to solve the cri­sis.
We need to de­vel­op and ral­ly around a well-ar­tic­u­lat­ed na­tion­al crime pre­ven­tion strat­e­gy. The Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion should em­brace civ­il so­ci­ety groups and the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty to de­vel­op this plan, with ap­pro­pri­ate con­tri­bu­tions from peo­ple across the na­tion.
Be­fore that hap­pens, the Gov­ern­ment should be hon­est and trans­par­ent about the scope of the prob­lem.
But first, the Gov­ern­ment and the po­lice should con­sid­er tak­ing in­ter­im steps to re­store pub­lic trust in the po­lice and ju­di­cia­ry.
We must ac­knowl­edge that re­cent ex­am­ples of peo­ple who have stood stood up against crim­i­nals haven't gone so well. Just pon­der how many state wit­ness­es have been killed while they were in pro­tec­tive cus­tody.
Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith would ac­knowl­edge that many cor­rupt cops would dis­close the names of in­for­mants to crim­i­nals. Grif­fith needs to be giv­en the tools to clean up rogue el­e­ments to build con­fi­dence in po­lice ser­vice.
Any ef­fort to ad­dress crime must con­front the tough­est ques­tions. For in­stance, if the mur­der toll in Trinidad and To­ba­go is large­ly fu­elled by turf bat­tles over drugs, is it time for a whole­sale re­view of our ex­ist­ing drug laws? How do we pre­vent weapons of war from en­ter­ing the coun­try through our ports? How do we pro­vide jobs—in the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors—and hope to im­pov­er­ished com­mu­ni­ties? And how do we ral­ly the na­tion to be­come part of the so­lu­tion?
Guardian Me­dia re­mains com­mit­ted to ad­dress­ing these press­ing is­sues. In the next few weeks, we will show how our dire crime sit­u­a­tion is rip­ping apart the fab­ric of our na­tion—and what we all need to do to be safer in our homes, our neigh­bour­hoods and our coun­try.
To chan­nel Stal­in, the bard from Mara­bel­la: Our coun­try faces its dark­est hour. This is a time to de­mand that our lead­ers put coun­try be­fore par­ty.
Find­ing so­lu­tions will not be easy. They will re­quire our best minds, sac­ri­fice and col­lab­o­ra­tion to en­sure that Trinidad and To­ba­go does not be­come a failed state.
Stay­ing the course or do­ing noth­ing is not an op­tion. Our beloved na­tion's very sur­vival is at stake.