Last week, I made the point that the murder statistics should not be viewed in isolation. The social ramifications were endless. When you want to know how many people have been murdered, look at the homicide statistics; when you want to know how many potential new criminals this murder created check the number of young victims who will have to fend for themselves and face the world without parent(s).
When a father or mother is murdered or maimed, the children are oftentimes left to their own devices. The temporary charity and sympathy of friends and family quickly dissipates. Life has to go on for everyone. They drift aimlessly and vacillate, invisible to the rest of us and oblivious to the diminishing sense of humanity.
A tsunami of young criminals is gathering because more and more fatherless and motherless children are being fed into the whirlpool of criminal activity. This is why I have been lobbying the government to develop a social-economic safety net specially designed to cater for the young victims of crime. At present, there is none.
Osmond Baboolal was just 13 when the Dole Chadee gang murdered his parents and siblings. He witnessed the massacre. He and his sister Hematie (then 7) were the sole survivors.
Whilst Hematie was adopted, little Osmond was left to grieve and suffer in silence. He roamed the streets, muttering to himself, trying to understand what happened and why. Like so many others, it drove him insane.
Traumatized and emotionally scarred for life, he was reduced to a non-entity whose only claim to human attention was the frequent pointing finger of curiosity that accompanied the melodramatic inquiry “Dat is de boy who murder and fadder Dole Chadee dem kill?”
The State has failed the thousands of Osmonds who have been deprived of parental love, support and guidance because of crime. These children are forgotten after the media lens close.
Numb with grief and brutalized by the uncaring nature of our society, they inevitably lose all respect for human life (including their own). Their traumatized robotic existence and resulting insanity is a lethal combination. They became easy prey for hardened criminals who are always on the lookout for new recruits.
A life of crime provides a unique opportunity to gain respect and attention. They can take revenge against a world that robbed them of their innocence and parents and then abandoned them. They gain acceptance into a new family (gang) and mistake the embrace of the gang leader for love.
Osmond’s testimony helped convict the Dole Chadee gang. He was left with the spiralling myriad of images of the brutal murder and flashes of hate and anger. The image of helplessness - of watching but not being able to ‘help’- leads to emotional paralysis.
It’s therefore no surprise that Osmond was twice convicted in 2000 – for threatening a group of schoolchildren and beating an Uncle. No intervention by the State to save him from himself. At the tender age of 13, he was used and abused by the State to secure a conviction against Dole and his henchmen and then discarded.
How does the State expect these children to survive? The stigma of the crime that took their parents makes people view them as “a blight”. No one will hire them. They drop out of school and off the social radar.
Crime has escalated under the PNM to such an extent that a clear policy is needed to assist the surviving victims. Osmond almost murdered innocent Shereena (14) and Brandon (12) by viciously chopping them on the head and body. They just happened to be at that wrong time at the wrong place.
It is unlikely that Osmond would mind going to St. Ann’s or jail. It will save him the hassle of survival. What he did to these children is horrifying but what the State and society did to him is equally horrific. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
The tsunami of young criminals that I have been warning about is building. I see the evidence of it in the school violence, the Magistrates Court and the growing iconic status of the rude boy and bad boy.
The government must assist the surviving children. Endless money is being spent on ridiculous luxuries such as huge flags, the Tarouba Stadium, skyscrapers and arts centres while an entire army of Osmonds are ready to explode. Time is running out for our sweet paradise.
By Anand Ramlogan