The Road to Rock Bottom

Is not now people have been complaining of the underperformance of Dwayne Gibbs and Jack Ewatski. So by rights the lip synced announcement of PM Persad-Bissessar, her normal 20 minutes late to her public address, should be a cause for celebration. But there are many reasons why Trinis can’t celebrate their resignation. For the two years that Gibbs and Ewatski mismanaged our police force, they have been made accountable for nothing. Not the crime rate, not being absent when the SoE was called, not for wasting money on a crop duster, not for the unchecked murder toll, not for raids on media houses, not for the removal of crime stats off the police website…..not for a damn thing. To date all we know is that Dwayne and Jack came here, earned a hefty salary for two years for doing nothing, resigned….probably with a golden handshake, then left. The crime plan is yet to be unveiled…and in part of the public address that the PM seemed to be miming tonight we get to find out that Warner’s crime plan is still non existent. Wait for it…it coming.
And it is coming. After 2years of incompetence it took Jack Warner wielding his considerable influence to get the Canadians out.
Now Jack is free to put Dep CoP Stephen Williams in charge…and if all yuh feel was bobol before well is now self the vice go Cyah done. The police state not coming, it already here in subtle and not so subtle ways.
The police does not serve the public, it serves the policies of the government, that is a first sign. Look out for more public shows of force from both army and police. Look out too For the next COP being the Nat Sec Minister’s puppet.
In the upcoming months expect brute force, sudden raids, the breaching of our constitutional rights, and the pampered and selfish upper classes will praise the initiatives because it keeps them feeling secure while the average citizen will continue to be exposed to more violence and trauma.
Expect Jack’s PR machine to go into hyperdrive. Expect rumors of him being made PM while the next President may well be another person known for feting and drinking.
Don’t expect policing to improve.
Don’t expect that crime solution and detection will ever be a priority.
Don’t expect a coherent, well executed crime plan.
When you are detained without reason in a few months, don’t expect answers or a phone call.

Expect to see more threads to this story as Warner’s influence expands.
Expect the country to turn on itself.

De Vice Cyah Done!

Action Jack?

We all know the impression given in the media. Jack does make news every night. And the constant firing off his mouth at reporters makes Warner look like a busy can do minister. But how much has he rwally achieved?
Every new road and roundabout opened by Warner in his first year in office were the completion of projects of the previous regime.
Flooding is still a thing of the present despite his promises of May 2010.
The Uriah Butlet Interchange remains incomplete.
The Curepe Interchange never got off the ground.
The cable barriers cosy $17m and falling down.
The Chaguanas Traffic plan failed. So did the St James traffic plan…why as min of Nat Sec Jack is a part of that is beyond me.
As Nat Sec Minister crime stats have been removed from the public eye.
Murders continue.
The definition of what is a serious crime changes daily.
Jack remains undet a Fifa Corruption Cloud….this man is minister again why?

The Endangered List

I’ve been trying to put my finger on a particular feeling that has been gnawing at me for quite some time…since the SoE actually. And it hit me this morning. I feel endangered. Not oppressed or marginalised, but endangered.
You see, prior to the SoE I thought Kamla’s Small Goal Side was merely inept at governance and  similar to the average MTV Real World Media Whores. Happy to be in front of a camera even if they had nothing of value to say.
But as the months have passed I have begun to feel more and more that this government isnt simply inept, it is insidious and evil.
The first thing that bothered me about the SoE was its ad hoc implementation and punitive tenor. To date we dont know why it was called. Numerous reasons given and almost 8000 people detained, mostly Afrotrinbagonian. 9% of the black male population tossed in cells with no evidence or reason for their arrest. This SoE showed me that this govt was very comfortable relying on stereotypes to run the country. It also showed me that a significant portion of the population: members of the middle and upper classes, many of Indo or Euro origin were quite happy to believe that the crime problem was caused strictly by young, single-parent men who resemble John Sandy, and that crime and criminal behaviour had nothing to do with them.
As the months have passed since that SoE there have been numerous other onslaughts that have ethnic undertones. The firings in the public sector that have nothing to do with getting rid of redundant workers and everything to do with rewarding friends and family: none of them ever seem to resemble Sandy.
Within months of this govt getting into power we heard Nizam Mohammed call for ethnic parity in the police force. Not promotion on merit….but ethnic parity. As early as 2005, Kamla Persad-Bissessar had called for more Indians on the CCJ. A regional court in a Caribbean that is demographically 80% afro-descended, and her concern wasnt the calibre of judges, but their ethnicity. Clannish much?
It seems that this is a government interested only in the promotion of Indians, because make no mistake, whenever the comments about ethnic parity are raised it is only in relation to an imbalance or under representation of Indians. You nevet hear talk about not enough Chinese, Europeans, or Arab Trinbagonians: groups that are truly under-represented in the public sphere.
In the 2yrs and 2months that Kamla’s Small Goal Side have been in power they have shown us thst there is no equal place for every creed and race….just the one in power.
I had hoped that tribal politics and ethnic marginalisation wouldnt be a feature under this regime…unfortunately it’ s their only governance strategy. It’s reflected in the composition of state boards and the appointments to all the most influencial positions in the land.
When you speak out about this the stock response is, “Well it happen under the PNM…” Two wrongs make it right..the politics of retribution.
Now we have our country’s history being rewritten before our eyes. Eric Williams, whether you like him or not, was the architect of our Independ3nce, yet on our 50th Anniversary his contribution is being ignored….George Chambers, ANR Robinson’s, Basdeo Panday’s and Patrick Manning’s too. This govt is trying hard to promote itself as the genesis of Trinidad and Tobago. Nothing came before Kamla. Tassa is more indigenous than pan; Chutney more appropriate for celebrating our 50 years in song than the locally created calypso. They want to privatise The Mas without so much as a feasibility study or consensus gathering. Nothing indigenously created by the Creoles here sacred enough to survive.
And that is why i fraid for myself. I was created here. I dont identify as East Indian or Hindu or African or European. There is no Kamlaesque ethnic parity in me. I am a sum of all of the things that influence this space: indigenous and endangered.

De Vice Cyah Done!

Dear Patricia McIntosh….Warmest Regards, Tax Payer!

Dear Patricia McIntosh,

After reading the Sunday Express‘ account of your reaction to your constituent’s assessment of your performance as MP, I think you should apply to work for God instead of the people of Port of Spain North/St. Ann’s West. If, as you have said, “God knows what I have done”, then it seems to me that God should pay your salary, not me the tax payer.

It is unfortunate that the Leader of the Opposition is not in a position to reshuffle his Cabinet or MPs because if he could, there are a list of names I’d recommend he get rid of in order to make his Opposition in Parliament a much stronger one. And on that list would be people who publicly profess to not care about what their constituents had to say.

As MP, if even only one constituent is displeased with your performance, you are meant to return to the drawing board and see how best to improve yourself and the service you offer. Is not one and two piece of nonsense I have to put up with when the day come to earn the salary that is then taxed to pay yours. Up to now I am not sure where my tax money going, what it doing for me, and how my quality of life improving as my taxes increase. And yes, I know you pay taxes too, but Ms McIntosh, nobody put a gun to your head to be a MP, you made that choice yourself. You signed up for the job, now fulfil the job description.

When you say things like you don’t care what constituents have to say about you, you immediately remind me of PM Persad-Bissessar and her small goal squad. You also remind me of the many members of state boards who feel they are accountable to no one but the PM. And since the PM is accountable no one…EVER…and always mum, I am beginning to think that her leadership style might be informing yours.

In fact, after reading that account in the Express today, I start to say to myself, but these PNM MPs sounding just like UNC MPs. Like is the same khaki pants on both sides of the Parliament?

Ms McIntosh, if is God who know what you doing in your constituency, how do we, the tax payers, contact him to get a proper account of your progress and shortcomings. If, worse yet, we don’t believe in God, who we going to in order to get an update? If you don’t care what the constituents have to say, then who cares? Direct us to that person please so that we can ask them to give us back the salary that you collect in the last two years.

You feel because your constituents voted Balisier and you in a PNM stronghold and the UNC doing nonsense you safe? No, eh. Not at all.

My advice to you at this point in time is shape up or go and apply to God for a job in his constituency. Until then, try and care about what EVERY constituent have to say.Or come next elections you might get eh shock of your life.

 

Warmest Regards,

Tax Payer

Niggas R Us….Re-Righting History

Now while I leave many of you frothing at the mouth trying to figure out if the headline is pronounced nigger or niggah, I want to jump to a serious and pressing issue.

Kamla’s Panchayat has begun to reconfigure national history in much the same way she reconfigures Cabinet’s: in a dangerously ad hoc way. The murder toll, inaction and PR Stunts being pulled by Warnersingh in his first month as National Security Warrior is nothing in comparison to the destruction that is currently being waged on the national psyche, national history and general misinformation.

If you managed to miss it earlier this week, there was a picture circulating the web from Wesley Furlonge’s Top The Class In Comprehension Series, the edition for students in Standard Three. The picture depicts Kamla and Spiritual Baptist Mother, Barbara Burke next to an entry on Emancipation. To say that the picture and the entry are incongruous, is me being dainty. That text book entry is BULLSHIT, and the editors and the publishers of the books should be ashamed. In fact the book should be burned in its entirety. The picture shows Persad-Bissessar, decked off in African garb at a Shouter Baptist Liberation Day Celebration, at the very centre of the picture, attached to a simplified story of Emancipation. If this confusing image of a woman with Indian phenotypical features masquerading in African garb isn’t enough to confuse you and thousands of primary school children into thinking Indians were enslaved Africans as well, then the language for the story should cause some concern.

If what I just described doesn’t make sense, then try an imagine the story of Indenture with Jagdeo Warnersingh as the first man to step off the Fath Al Razack!

The text refers to a “great event” taking place 200 years ago, and then the sentence that follows it seems to imply that slavery….or the more politically correct term ENSLAVEMENT….was the great event. Enslavement is almost 500 years old. It is actually Emancipation that’s almost 200 years old, but whoever wrote that entry clearly faked a pass in FD10A or is an epic dunce!

While I don’t expect a Standard Three Book to explain the difference between slavery and enslavement, it wouldn’t hurt the already dunce writers of the entry to use the correct terms. Slavery is a system that exists in all cultures and into which people can enter into of their own choice depending on their circumstance. ENSLAVEMENT is what happens when you hunt down free people and force them to be your labour system. No African that ended up here before 1807 walked up to a European person and said, “Boss, sign me up for ah wuk in the Caribbean, nah!” Lots of other ethnic groups did that….all of them as indentured labour…..but no African before 1807. Yet, this text continues to use terms like slavery and slaves….almost as if the writer of the entry ignorant and dunce to the relevance and application of the terms and what their meanings imply.

Words like  they were “unhappy” about the treatment meted out to their loved ones leave me baffled. Really? Unhappy you say? Then, of course the perennial attempt to associate Africans with wining and entertainment, “There was then much rejoicing, singing and dancing  among the freed slaves.” Can you think of any ethnic group that wouldn’t be relieved that such a system was ended?

But the inaccuracies don’t end there.  While the Act to Abolish Enslavement was passed in 1834, it was only actually enacted in 1838.  So in truth and fact Emancipation for both domestic and field labourers only actually happened in 1838, and the Apprenticeship system from 1834-1838 might have continued until 1840 if planters weren’t afraid of riots.

The other discrepancy is that this article implies that Emancipation was a holiday for freed Africans from as far back as 1834….it only became a holiday in 1985!

Understand this, when people begin to re-write, reconfigure and re-structure the history of it’s country, you must become concerned. When that re-writing subtly changes the history of one group, or begins to privilege the history of one group over another it’s time to get angry….very angry.

Now while the text I am referring to belongs to Wesley Furlonge, there are current actions taking place here that point to government interference with national history and culture.  Recently I have heard that the Pan has East Indian origins. Government websites related to the promotion of our 50th Anniversary have privileged tassa and chutney musics over the musical instruments and artforms of EVERY other ethnic group here.

Re-writing the history of ethnic groups is nothing new. Europeans did it to justify enslavement, so they had scientists and historians create information that implied Africans had no culture, no history, and were in fact closer to primates than humans. In the Caribbean knowledge of Africa historically was surpressed. Now, when we can freely access it too few Afro-Trinbagonians care to read about it when there is FaceBook bacchanal to check and read.

Eric Williams understood well the importance of history in building a nation, and used that knowledge to his benefit. He often privileged Afro-Creole history over that of all other groups; and that perceived privileging of Afro-Trinbagonians over every one else got the PNM in trouble. Because Indians got pissed about it. They felt disenfranchised and marginalised…..and now an Indo-dominated government seems set on doing to Afro-Trinbagonians what they felt was done to them.

From Columbus to Kamla it is a politics of retribution in this Caribbean space. A politics of vengeance, of getting back a pound of flesh, of imposing clan values under the guise of ethnic superiority and insularity. In years to come Wesley Furlonge and others like him will have much to answer for.

In the meantime, I listen to the silence of the Emancipation Support Committee. When I saw the picture in this text book, I thought, now this is something for Shabaka Kambon to sink his teeth into and really play ah mas. But, alas, is not Sugar Aloes who write it, and complaining about this so close to Emancipation Day might mean no support from the public purse.

Kamla’s Panchayat will continue with their madness. Look out for more re-writing of the country’s history that privileges the Indian presence here over every other ethnic group….In fact, Colunbus wasn’t really Italian, his name was really Khemraj, is really an East Indian who sail West, and mistake the Caribbean for India and “discovered” the new world….watch and see if the story aint turn.

But let us not forget that it is not only African history that is being marginalised in this place. The Europeans, Chinese and Arabs who settled here hear precious little of their story being touted.

Every government here since the Spanish has been absolutely niggardly about its treatment of the other groups in the space. This vicious cycle of retribution politics will not end well.

De Vice Cyah Done!

Crime Clusterf@$k/ Political Pantomime (2 yrs,1mt, 22dys): Stock Taking!

All yuh realise is less than 2 months since the Eat Ah Food Fete….where Kamla read out all the accomplishments of the PPG from off a postage stamp and then spend the rest of her speech blaming the PNM, Blaming Manning and talking about past squandermania, but never once of course mentioning her sister? Or the nepotism or abuse of state funds etc?

All yuh realise that is less than a month since Cabinet get Re-shovelled on June 23rd, and up to now all Larry Howai do as Minister of Finance is collect a golden handshake…or platinum parachute for when his ass fail……we can’t hear a word about diversification of the economy, where the spending money coming from or where the money is going! We hearing talk of austerity measures but we not hearing if the government going to lead the way and stop the SQUANDERMANIA under Kamla!

 

All yuh realise that the new industry to get into these days is stateboards? All you need is to have friends or family members in the COP or UNC and bam! Yuh get ah job on a state board, could fuck the country over with your poor management skills, waste public funds, underperform and no one will question you or move you? And worse yet when the media asks you any questions you tell them you don’t have to answer to them, only to the PM!

All yuh notice like Kamla have a permanent case of laryngitis and cyah say eff all about any issue? think back…the last time Kamla make a statement on a scandal under her governance was Shopping Topping!

Not a word about the Highway Protesters Camp Demolition….none about the demolition of the turtles except to say she sad…..and I agree…Kamla is a sad representation of leadership anywhere in the world…regardless of her gender. If a man was this ineffective we’d label him all kinds of names. Kamla ineffective and people still saying give her a chance….like running a country is a damned lucky dip bran tub in a country fair!

All yuh notice that since Jagdeo Warnersingh get appointed Minister of National Security is more and more murders….like they trying to send him a message…..look out for a tsunami St. Jack!

All yuh notice that this government re-writing the nation’s history? All of a sudden in text books for schools we have the PM gallerying herself as the descendant of enslaved people for Emancipation Day! Wesley Furlonge yuh should shame!

All yuh hear that flushing sound?

Is the nation going down the drain!

De Vice Cyah Done!

A Gospel About St Jack.

And thus, in less than a month since his appointment to Mt Defence, Warner walked amongst the people and took pictures. In the hills and valleys, the towns and villages he visited the families of murder victims and robberies once they had the stamp of potential voter upon their foreheads. For, it is written, that in their hour of need, it is the business community that will support the People’s Partnership and fund their campaign back to power after a time and a half has turned. It is also written, and verily, verily I say unto thee, in the day that you are murdered, once you have a picture of St. Jack on your corpse and belong to this possible voting group your murder will be fast tracked for detection and solution.

It is also written that if you are Chinese St Jack will protect your community, Selah!

I will then lift up mine eyes unto the Hill and advise Laventille to become Chinese….Lee Kum Kee will suffice. And behold on the day that this is done a rushing sound will be heard, of a great toilet flushing at the shit Trinbagonians must put with from this government.

II

It had come to pass, that less than a month after ascending Mt Defence at least 35 murders have occurred.

St Jack saw this and thought it was good. He posed for pictures, made empty promises, saw every high profile murder as an opportunity for pictures and grand charging before the media, and yet no sound came forth from his lips that described or determined a crime plan. And when pressed for a possible solution or action the Minister could only point vaguely to foreign technology because good old-fashioned patrolling, crime scene investigation and questioning don’t work anymore.

De Vice Cyah Done!

Unsustainable Development People’s Panchayat Style

“Coming from the canefields and rough dwellings of Chaguanas, the Capildeo family led by Simbhoo had little idea what to do with their new domain, which had been sold to them cheap by the Maillards because it was unprofitable. To the dismay of the people in the local village, the area around the house became squalid, in its beautiful setting. ‘They did a kind of peasant agriculture,’ said Vido later, ‘burning own the hillsides and planting corn, maize and peas. They pillaged the oranges from the orange trees, took the avocadoes. They planted nothing. They were camping…It was all so improvised, all so dreadful. We were given a very low idea of human needs. I think without anybody knowing, this was coming from Mother India, from a beaten-down, broken-down people. Trees were uprooted and the house re-worked. A big, unfamiliar brick oven was taken apart, and the area beside it roofed over in corrugated iron and tree branches. The verandah was used to store crops and old bread, which Nanie would buy in bulk from a baker in Port of Spain. The indoor water closet with its European cistern and chain was dismantled, and an outdoor latrine built in the woods…the WC offended the Hindu sense of cleanliness and so it was destroyed. It became a room where people sewed…I am talking about people who were close to immemorial peasantry. An ornamental cherry tree by the tennis court on the side of the main drive was turned into logs. ‘There was no reason to chop it down. Where we come from ancestrally, there are no trees – they think spirits hide in trees. While the children watched in excitement, Uncle Simbhoo supervised the destruction of the electricity generator, the leaves of lead being melted in a large pot and tipped into Ovaltine tins; pipes were put between the tins and the molten metal hardened, creating dumb-bells for the Mausas [maternal uncles] to use for exercise.’I think they played with them for a while and then forgot them’. The house was lit by oil lamps now, like the Lion House. Vido’s retrospective cynicism was matched by the memory of Margaret Maillard, the granddaughter of the vendor, who visited. ‘It was a roomy house. The Capildeos were very gracious to us when we came but we were horrified by the way they had partitioned it.” – The World Is What It Is by Patrick French pp 33-34.

VS Naipaul, for all his cynicism, has been for me one of the most insightful critics of our society. If you want a concise analysis of local politics, read The Suffrage of Elvira. If you want to understand the inner workings of the dispossessed post-colonial or of Hindu families, well the ones that identify as Brahmin anyway, read A House for Mr Biswas; if you want to understand the ambitions and machinations of the average Trinbagonian to get ahead in this post-colonial space, read Mystic Masseur; of course, if you want to understand the ambition of every single Trinidadian (not I didn’t say Trinbagonian) read Miguel Street….everybody here is a charlatan, willing to do a little or a lot of bobol to get ahead. And to understand the ambitions of this lot that we currently have in our overly large parliament and on every state board, read Mimic Men.

Since 1995, at the start of each election season, I read Suffrage. Since Kamla became Prime Minister, Mystic Masseur is on the home page of my Kindle, because I are prutty, prutty certain that the PM being very suckastic in my pussonal with every move that she and her small goal team makes. But this small goal team is beginning to remind me more and more of a horde of locusts, hence the quote from Naipaul’s biography. The very first time I read the biography it struck me that here was this prominent family moving out of a rural area into the more urbane Diego Martin, a kind of country bookie-come-to-town scenario and Naipaul’s depiction of his family is almost cruel, but since it is his account to give, I must assume that he has been truthful. Not more than a year after first reading this passage I would meet Patrick French and talk about this excerpt, and subsequently met a member of the Maillard family as well, who confirmed the horror and incomprehension at the destruction of the house in Petit Valley by its new owners.

I think it is with a similar horror that I am looking on at the governance of Trinidad and Tobago. In the first six months of the PP’s reign I held my peace, wanting to give them a chance to prove the naysayers wrong. Although from within a month of them taking over ownership of the Cabinet and Parliament I’d had misgivings, my attitude was that the PNM had done a lot of nonsense with their last 8 years of tenure, let’s see if this coalition would at least make an effort to turn things around.
And for me, I didn’t need ambitious gestures from this government. My wishes were simple: Equity, Public Consultation and Transparency with policies and the public purse. I didn’t expect crime to disappear, but I didn’t expect to see a man with allegations of corruption surrounding him being in charge of my security, nor did I expect that all the crime initiatives of the previous regime would be so unceremoniously dismantled with nothing new or viable put in place. I also didn’t expect that the government’s crime initiatives would all be ethnically driven. Now we have Hoops for Life in predominantly black communities, because I guess in other neighbourhoods there is no need for crime initiatives or basketball courts, yes? And hotspots and Orange T-Shirts are only for economically depressed areas like Beetham and Laventille, while in other areas we give out Food Cards and CEPEP contracts. The country is now in the National Security latrine pit and Kamla couldn’t give a hoot.

I had hoped that this government would move away from welfare, and actually make good on its 7 Pillars of Sustainable Development. So I waited on the diversified economy, only to realise that tar sand from south Trinidad, and Tobago’s territorial waters are their new areas of exploitation. So screw the environment and eonomic diversification, we are still going for bust on a fuel economy. Interestingly enough, our non-fuel producing neighbours higher up the Caribbean are less and less interested in buying our fuel and have begun exploring water, wind and solar sources of energy for when it’s no longer economically viable to purchase fuel. Here in Triniad we wave beakers at the cameras and say “God is ah Trini”. We keep cutting down the trees around the estate with the hope that without replanting they will miraculously replenish themselves. Or maybe the current owners don’t really care about the future of the estate, so why bother to plant new trees, just migrate to a different estate…riiiight? And in the meantime, while we here, keep all the useful resources within the family.

Education and healthcare are two other areas in which we seem to be regressing, and I had thought we’d hit rock bottom under the previous owners of this estate, but the People’s Partnership have really surpassed my expectations. Where I had hoped to see a cleaning up of the inefficiencies of the education system: delinquent staff; cluttered and inefficient administrative system on Alexandra Street; a phasing out of SEA and better use of National Tests; technical and vocational programmes that cater to alternate intelligences; a wider implementation of teaching styles and equipment that will enable students with varied learning abilities, instead what we got was the wholesale giving away of laptops to an education system wherein neither the teachers nor the curriculum was adequately geared towards proper incorporation of the technology.
So while it sounds good to say every child has a laptop, how exactly is it being deployed and how effectively……and why are laptops being put in schools at the expense of text books?

Then you have a Minister of Health willing to scrap a nursing exam, instead of reviewing it, in order to allow more individuals to qualify as nurses. Now, with all of the concerns we have with our healthcare, all the casualties and tragedies for which no one is ever held accountable, add to that concoction nurses who don’t have to meet any criteria nationally to be allowed to give you medication, injections and patient care. Scared yet?

When you look at the present condition of the estate and the policies and attitudes of its owners, is it any wonder that we want to get rid of them? The question is, who to put in charge?

De Vice Cyah Done!

National Insecurity

I don’t know how many of us remember this, but the People’s Partnership came to power on a platform that campaigned against escalating crime and criminal activity. Both white collar and violent crime. If my recollection serves me well Prakash Ramadhar and Vernon de Lima were in the vanguard, acquiring birth certificates all the way from Malaysia to establish links between Calder Hart and Sunway Construction, and thus confirm for us that there were sinister links between the two. While my suspicions are that such may well be the case, there is no evidential material, beyond Sherrine Hart’s birth paper to substantiate anything, and so the party that once frothed at the mouth and chomped at the bit for Calder Hart, and by proxy, Patrick Manning’s head, have gone all but silent on Hart and white collar crime in general. Just look at the outcome of the extradition case for Galbaransingh and Ferguson or the imaginary inroads we are making into money laundering and drugs. Indeed, if we were to sit and examine their real actions where illegal activities are concerned, we’d understand what this government’s plan for our security really is.

Trinidad is a transshipment point between Latin America and North America. Let’s embrace that and move on. You’d think therefore that manning our borders, especially the ones that provide ease of access to the mainland would be a key priority under any regime. You’d also think that aerial surveillance would complement maritime border patrol. Well, under this government you’d be absolutely wrong. Because early initiatives by this government stopped the purchase of offshore patrol vessels, sold the ever controversial blimp and to date the air guard seems to be stalled. At least I don’t hear about them being a part of any crime initiative.

The appointment of the lady formerly known as Reshmi Ramnarine was yet another stage in the country’s crime plan. Get your friends to watch your back I expect. But it told me clearly that this government wasn’t remotely interested in securing the country, but is entirely interested in promoting and protecting themselves and their friends.

The appointment of Dwaynne Gibbs and Jack Ewatski as CoP and Deputy CoP respectively also seems to have helped secure this government’s ridiculous and untenable position when it comes to crime. Because of the contracts this government has signed with both men, it seems almost impossible to get rid of them lest the state face another law suit. And therein lies the rub. There is clear underperformance from Gibbs, Ewatski and the police force that the top men should be held accountable for but we can’t make them answer for anything or call for their heads the way we could a local CoP. Gibbs’s breached state laws when he spent $.9m on renting a crop duster. It appears that the probe into that has stalled and with the change in National Security Minister I seriously doubt that we’ll ever get any resolution. Further, the nation has never been told exactly how this light air craft was meant to fit into a larger crime plan. What we do know is that Jack Ewatski likes to fly. So my guess is that when the fecal matter hit the fan in January of this year, the efficient thing to do was claim the aircraft was being considered for national security purposes.

I’m also thinking too that the phrase “sting operation” must be a foreign word to Canadian crime officials. Consider how many busts you hear of where it’s only the drugs and ammunition that are seized, but never the owners. On an island as small as ours, where it’s less than six degrees of separation, there is apparently no way to figure who owns containers with frozen chicken and marijuana, or gun caches or marijuana fields. Everything owns itself here.

 

But perhaps the biggest blow to national insecurity has been the appointment of Jack Warner. A man with allegations of corruption hanging over his head, whose first act in his new ministry was to breach laws. It’s pretty clear in my mind that Warner had no authority to issue orders to the Chief of Defence Staff, because he’s not the commander of the Defence Force, the President is; and Max Richards has been suspiciously mum on Warner’s role in the Highway Re-Route demolition. Further, it’s the responsibility of the state land agencies here to issue eviction notices. Personnel in Lands and Surveys will tell you that it is virtually impossible to use force to evict squatters off land here. Yet Minister Warner was able to deploy both police and army, and unless my eyes have gone bad, we’ve got pictures in the public domain of soldiers, not police officers, arresting Kublalsingh. Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj must be doing cartwheels. But this has me wondering what exactly is going through the heads of our defence and crime detection personnel here when they start breaking their own rules under the directives of politicians. Surely CDS Maharaj knows better. Surely the soldiers on that demolition site knew better as well. So then why flout the laws? Using soldiers to quell a protest implies that the protesters are a threat to the state. So if citizens of the country are a threat to the country’s security, did we have a coup a few weeks ago? Is it that Warner, in his first act as MoNS, quelled an uprising? Or did he take advantage of a group of villagers and environmentalists? And why is that highway so crucial that a show of force was necessary?

Warner’s apparent abuse of state laws isn’t the first time the state, or rather this government, has turned against the state. Let’s not ignore the 2011 State of Emergency. To date we have received multiple reasons for its calling. A clear and present danger from Columbia, then from imaginary diesel bunkers in the Beetham, then twice Robocop was bold enough to want to assassinate the Prime Minister. In fact, Robocop was so silly that the first time he was caught with pictures of the PM, the AG and a few other ministers with their faces crossed off. Who wrote this script, Michael Bay? The second time around, to make their selected villains appear more heinous they made them literate. Brand new copies of Sun Tzu’s Art of War featured in the police raids. The entire assassination plot, felt like a poorly conceptualised, cliched Hollywood movie.

In fact, the more I think about our security policies and crime initiatives to date, I’m beginning to wonder if it’s not just a really bad piece of slapstick we’re caught in. Friends are hired to run high powered agencies like the SSA and FIU, air and ocean surveillance are non-existent, the top cops are accountable to no one,  men with checkered reputations responsible for our security , and the guns and drugs got here on their own steam. The difference for us though is Hollywood movies have happy endings.

Turtle Gate! Or Here’s Turtle Egg In Your Face

The law that no one wants to refer to because it was broken

I want to start this piece with that picture above of the poster that reiterates the laws about turtles and their eggs in this country. If you observe the poster well enough you’ll see that the act was amended several times and is many decades old. In short, our laws as regards protection of leatherback turtles and their eggs are nothing new. Further you’d expect people like the Environmental Agency and the Ministry of the Environment to know these laws amd do their best to enforce them, yes? So as of now Joth and Ganga Singh, please move to the back of the class. And for the other members of the press release writing public please get ready to join them.

The Caribbean Institute of Environmental Sustainability also weighed in on the matter insisting that foreign press was sensationalising the issue and that the excavation works was a good thing because it saved turtle eggs from fresh water inundation. Now let me pause to let you digest this. The area of the beach that was under threat from the river is the Western end…..the area dug up to protect beach front property was the eastern end. Now hear me out, it’s a well known fact that there are more nests on the western beach front than the eastern beach front. And as i said earlier the area dug up on the eastern end is larger than the area that was under threat by the river. So it seems to me that the on-the-spot decision taken by the EMA, ministry of Environment and Local Govt was to sacrifice the eastern end of the beach to save the western end. The argument of fresh water inundation baffles me though. On a beach that’s more than 2km in length the river and erosion was affecting about 400m of beach. Which means that nests and eggs in that area were already destroyed or under threat. So you come and destroy another 4-500m metres of beach in the opposite direction to save what was possibly already dead? What was clear to me as i walked the beach in Grande Riviere is that the excavation work done was done to benefit properties and humans, not the turtles. Greenleaf’s protestations may have scientific and environmental relevance, but why wait for the height of the rainy season to re-direct a river to protect eggs from fresh water inundation and erosion that has been happening more than 6 weeks now? Why not re-direct during the dry season and before nesting starts to prevent it? It sounds to me like Greenleaf and his NGO singing for their supper and a handout….Can I have some more?

Work continues at the site, and on the far eastern end of the beach, covered by forest sits the machinery that is being used for the work. The entire eastern half of the beach is still covered in their tire tracks.

In talking to a few villagers that i have regular contact with in Grande Riviere they pointed out that tourism from leatherback turtles is how many villagers make a living seasonally. As the third largest nesting site in the world, and as a village that takes conservation seriously, they had manage to build up a good reputation internationally. The state’s action in this matter wasnt a good thing. They fear that fewer turtles will nest here next year as a result of the disturbed nests and destroyed eggs. They fear too that there will also be fewer visitors for the rest of the season and an obvious drop in the incomes earned. A visit to the beach shows you immediatelt that it’s not a few hundred eggs that have been destroyed. It’s closer to tens of thousands. The mounds of sand on either side of the new river mouth are littered with eggshells. There are white specs everywhere and many corbeaux and dogs feasting away. One wonders why after 50 years we still cant plan for a rainy season. Is not like it catches us unawares.

In the midst of all their fears and the reality of what was done to the beach a few things stand out for me:
* This government has no environmental policy.
* This government does not know the meaning of the words planning or consultation.
* This government does not uphold the laws of the land.
* This government believes that PR and spin are actual policies for running a country and will deploy every well-placed stooge in every organisation and agency they have to support their missteps and mishaps.
* This government is under developing Trinidad and Tobago while pretending otherwise.
* This government is sinister and evil.

1. If the point of the excavation was to protect turtle eggs from fresh water inundation the state apparati were 6 weeks too late.
2. If the point of the excavation was to protect properties from coastal erosion the state apparati were 6 weeks too late.
What happened this weekend was not and cannot be considered conservation.
They were saving their asses…not eggs.

De Vice Cyah Done!