A symposium on courage to act needed

I see the most important decision made at the level of Caricom is that we need to talk about crime in an upcoming symposium.

A survey posted to the Media Association of T&T (MATT) chat group placed Trinidad as the sixth most ‘criminal’ country in the world (The World of Statistics).

In order of criminal countries: Venezuela, Papua New Guinea, Afghanistan, South Africa, Honduras, and Trinidad. Following T&T, its Guyana, Syria, Somalia and Jamaica. We can’t nitpick.

Last year (2022) was ‘our most murderous’ with 600 homicides.

Symposium people, we know that much right? For decades we’ve seen the numbers rise. It’s all we’ve talked about. All we read when we open the newspapers. You will read about it in this and all the other papers today.

Another violent death. What will the symposium tell us that we don’t know already?

Homicide reporting is as normal to us as the northern range, as familiar as cricket and Carnival, its rise as predictable as the tides, its continuity as sure as poui and exam season. It’s sadly part of who we are.

Maybe it began with Randolph Burroughs in the ’80s (the infamous CoP, dubbed ‘the fox’ who ran the lethal flying squad).

Journalist Darren Bahaw recalled that time for Newsday in an article on November 8, 2020.

“Back then, the man who sat in the commissioner’s chair, the Kojak-style Randolph Burroughs, was identified as the mastermind behind a criminal enterprise which unleashed the scourge of cocaine from Colombian cartels on the streets and safe trafficking routes for marijuana growers.

“Witnesses, including police who testified in secret before the commission of enquiry established in April 1984, claimed Burroughs, together with a band of untouchables, aptly named the Flying Squad, were linked to drug barons Dole Chadee, Naim Naya Ali, Chaitran Gayah, Adella Moses, Teddy “Mice” Khan, Hosein “Betalal” Alladin and other violent drug traffickers, as well as corrupt judicial officers.

“They were protected by the CoP, and rivals were silenced as cocaine crept through the corridor of power and even the nostrils of government ministers.

“All of them are now dead, some were murdered, executed by the State, and missing at sea, but the stains of corruption in the police service remained and seem to have infiltrated the ranks of the defence force.”

Brilliant reporting.

During that time, a Commission of Enquiry produced the Scott Drug Report. That report was key because it took us to the land of no return.

Maybe it began there, but it’s grown so huge that no CoP has been able to curb the cancer of this bloated blood-sucking monster unleashed in Burroughs time.

The drug trade had already metastasised into the corridors of power. CoP after CoP struggled even as we became entrenched as a transshipment point for drugs.

Jules Bernard, Noor Mohammed, Hilton Guy, Everald Snaggs, Trevor Paul, James Philbert, Dwayne Gibbs, Stephen Williams, Gary Griffith, and McDonald Jacob tried.

And now we’ve pinned our hopes on a woman—Erla Harewood-Christopher —thinking she would do what the men haven’t been able to do, curb crime.

But sadly, as much as I am in her corner, she won’t be able to. We know the problem. It’s untouchable because to go too close to it is to court a bullet to the skull. It’s international and bigger than our tiny village island state.

How is our CoP, as wonderful as she is, to stop Europe and the US from using us as a safe harbour to transport drugs in exchange for the arms they send to us in abundance? Our National Security Minister tells us 12,000 illegal guns are at large (87 per cent of murders are due to firearms).

How do successive governments, knowing that illegal arms are in the hands of gangs (now an estimated army of 40,000), stop the Cepep handouts knowing that gang leaders can order a shoot-up anytime in the middle of town? Who bells the local financiers? Can our Government and Opposition work together for anti-gang legislation? Not happening.

Can our Judiciary get its act together? Scant sign of that.

We face a crime monster with this lethal cocktail of neo-colonial arms and drugs exploitation by the West, incompetent governments, selfish oppositions, and an opaque police force.

We’ve talked about crime to death. A symposium on courage to act is required.