HOLD STRAIN!

The murder of Allan Seepersad in Penal last week struck a raw nerve in my body. Maybe it was the grief-stricken pictures of his niece Mohanie and his daughter Sally.

Then, there was the one with his wife Deera. Pain permanently etched onto her weary face, she gnashed her teeth, pulled her hair and bawled.

I held my own head and screamed when I realised that kidnapping for ransom has not disappeared, as a UWI student was abducted and released upon the payment of a ransom last week.

People do not expect the police to ever catch the criminals who did this. The level of public expectation and confidence is low when it comes to police detection and investigation.

The UK travel advisory, in the wake of the murder of an elderly Swedish couple, was carefully drafted. It was not the murder per se that prompted the warning.

It was, instead, the fact that the police have been unable to arrest and prosecute the perpetrators of serious crime. The promises from the Government regarding the escalation in crime have amounted to mere political rhetoric and no more.

Three years ago, the then AG, Senator John Jeremie, told Parliament that “the Government would not allow a small group of criminals to threaten the safety, security and well-being of our nation…We will not allow those criminals to ruin or compromise this nation’s inexorable drive to Vision 2020.”

2004 survey

This was when the public was subjected to a relentless avalanche of advertisements that admonished the public. Remember the slogan, “Fix the ‘me’ in criME first?”

What about the polls that informed government strategy and tried to convince us that we were all going mad by pretending and making up things to make the Government “look bad?” A few years ago, the Government-sponsored poll told us that everything was peaceful and hunky-dory, and we all felt safe.

In the face of an unprecedented murder and kidnapping rate, the results of the survey conducted by a United Kingdom research firm on contract to the Government showed that 88 per cent of the population felt safe—66 per cent “very safe” and 22 per cent “fairly safe.”

I understand a new poll is on its way to make the Government look good again and persuade us that we are making a big deal over nothing.

The findings also stated that 75 per cent of the population continued to feel safe in their homes, while they were alone at home after dark, and 60 per cent while walking alone after dark.

The findings suggested that the poll was a sham, designed to reach conclusions in keeping with the lie that the Government wants to present, despite the terrorising reality of the situation on the ground for frightened citizens. The results of the survey were published by the Ministry of Public Administration and Information in its Opinion Leaders 2004 newsletter, and had the temerity to suggest that people in Trinidad and Tobago are safer than those in the United Kingdom.

What a joke!

‘Look dotish’

It was the results of this poll that probably caused Martin Joseph to upbraid unpatriotic citizens for exaggerating the crime problem. He said (Guardian, 27/04/05) the situation was not as bad as it was being made out to be, and praised the police, observing that “If I beat up on the police every day, this is the same organisation, notwithstanding their limitations, they are the ones who are going out on the front line.....If I do that, I will be dotish, and I not dotish, I may look dotish.” (Some convincingly argue that this last sentence was, perhaps, a defining moment of self-realisation for the minister.)

PM Manning is the man with all the answers, though. In the midst of the unprecedented bombings in Port-of-Spain, he confidently boasted that he knew who “Mr Big” was, and hinted at an early arrest. To date, not even a house fly has been arrested.

More recently, he boasted that he saved Kamla from making a jail for accessing confidential information from the Integrity Commission. And the latest casualty was Dr Rowley, who was, until last week, allegedly being protected by Manning because $10 million was missing from a housing project.

As crime engulfs and consumes us, many of us have nowhere to run to. PM Manning is too busy spending our money to buy luxury cars and furnishing his palace to be bothered with the cries of the young ghosts that cry out as they take an early departure from young lifeless, bullet-riddled bodies.

Blood and tears are flowing like water, and the soul of our nation has been ruptured. We must not protest.

Just “hold strain,” until you die in silence.

By Anand Ramlogan 2008-10-19

Site Admin Note: