OF PALACE COUPS AND INTRIGUE

Okay. Here's what we know: Prime Minister Keith Rowley has slammed the Americans twice in the last year. The first time was when he publicly blasted the American Ambassador effectively telling him to mind his own business over T&T's relations with Venezuela and the second was more recently when he blasted the US State Department over its listing T&T as a two tier country in terms of human trafficking. (It didn't matter to our Prime Minister that there is a lot of trafficking especially of young girls and women going on). On both occasions the American response was muted, but on this last time the Masters of Marli Street went out of their way to praise the erstwhile Minister of Everything and National Security, Stewart Young.


Now, here's the rumour: certain persons inside the PNM are reporting that the Americans are not at all pleased with Dr. Rowley. Well, no surprise there. But they go on that they  (the Americans) would like to see the back of Dr. Rowley, but  apparently don't want to see Kamla back in the saddle. In the circumstances, the rumour is that the Americans are seriously considering how to organize something of a 'palace coup' replacing Dr. Rowley with Mr. Young, with whom they feel much more comfortable.


Question: where is Mr. Young in all this palace intrigue? Is he actively stoking the proverbial fires of 'revolution', or is he just sitting back and letting events take their course? Or, is he actively trying to stamp out this particular fire? What is clear is that if there is any glimmer of truth in these rumours we will be in for interesting times as the PNM and the country gear up for the looming general elections. Dr. Rowley will be looking very carefully at what his Minister is doing and who he is talking to!


PNM has successfully positioned itself to be seen as the country's "default party", much like the Republican party in the United States. In other words, the country can experiment from time to time with other political parties, but the PNM will always be there to "pick up the slack" whenever needed. At least, that is part of the myth that the PNM has built for itself over the years, and as Hitler (and now Trump) found out, the bigger the lie and the more often it is repeated the more people will believe it.  So it doesn't matter whether that is true or not, or even if the PNM of today is the same (or not) of the PNM of 1956. All that matters is that the average person believes that the PNM can be counted on to save the country when times get rough. Perception, in other words, is always reality ... especially in politics!


So, the lesson is that if you want to control the country, control the party, i.e., the PNM! And that is why we should pay attention to these rumours. While it is true that as John F. Kennedy once said 'where there is smoke there's a smoke making machine', more often than not the old adage about 'where there's smoke there's fire' is often more accurate. And if the rumour has any semblance of truth in it then we will soon see some subtle moves at the top as the players reposition themselves. We should all pay close attention. It's going to be interesting.

THE MIGRANT CRISIS: A SOLUTION

If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times: if you want to fix a problem, you have to go back to basics. Now, we have a serious problem in good old T&T, and that is the fact that we are being overrun by Venezuelan immigrants fleeing Maburro's murderous and incompetent regime. Look, we have a small population. Nobody seems to know exactly what the size of our population is, but most people (including me) seem to think that it is in the region of about 1.5 million people, so let's assume (though not necessarily accept) that this is a correct figure.  Now, Venezuela has (or had) a population of about 30 million people.


At the beginning of this year it was estimated that about 3 million people had left ... migrated ... from Venezuela, with the majority going to other Latin American countries like Colombia. Some had come here. But as the situation in Venezuela has continued to deteriorate that migration has picked up steam so that it is now estimated that some 3.7 million people have left that unfortunate country and that before the end of this year there will be an estimated 4 million migrants! Put anther way, that will be some 4 million people who are so desperate that they have left everything behind to start life anew in another country. And those coming here can't even speak the language! Can you imagine how desperate they must be?!  How bad the situation is for them to leave everything behind to come here?


And here is where we come in. With registration of Venezuelan migrants closing tomorrow (Friday 14th June, 2019) there is now a sudden rush to register. There are also unconfirmed reports that the number of boat loads of migrants from the mainland have increased substantially over the last week as thousands of Venezuelans are rushing to get some sort of legal permission to stay in Trinidad.


Now, nobody knows exactly how many Venezuelans there are here right now. And certainly, by Friday night, it is not unreasonable to  presume that only a very small percentage of those actually over here will be registered. So? How many do you think are actually here? Fiftty thousand? A hundred thousand?


You realize that it is quite possible that there could be around 75,000 Venezuelans over here (taking a middle number of between 50,000 and 100,000)!? In other words, very roughly, our population has increased by about 5 percent this year! Now, do you see the problem? The United States (which is far wealthier than we are) has a population of about 300 million. Five percent of that figure would be 15 million! But their migrant problem is not even a million ... and yet there are many (starting with their idiot of a President) who complain!


My point here is that it is crystal clear that we simply cannot cope with this level of migration and as much as any and every God fearing and fair minded person would want to help, we simply haven't got the resources to do so. And sending them back is inhumane. It is a little like your neighbor is beating his wife and children so badly that they flee to your house for protection. They have no money and no means of supporting themselves so you can't turn them out onto the street and you can't send them back home because the husband will literally beat them to death. But You can't afford to feed them! So? What in the name of heaven do you do?


Remember how I started this post about going back to basics? In the example given above, the best solution would be to go to Court and get an Order putting the husband out of the house and an Order that he is not to go anywhere near the wife and children. Well, this is my point with the migrants: the root cause of this problem is Maburro and his devastating policies and thievery  that have not only ruined his country but are now causing ours to be ruined. He must be made to go ... NOW!!  This migrant problem will only get worse if we don't help the Venezuelans to fix THEIR problem NOW! Because, not fixing their problem is only going to create multiple problems for US!!! And Venezuela can't fix with the Donkey and his cronies in power over there!


P.S.  Astute readers will note that I have deliberately not gone into the 'blame game' and how I think that this problem could/might have been avoided in the first place. That is a luxury that we can all debate later. In the meantime, let's fix the present problem now.

WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?

According to a newspaper report this morning (Tuesday 4th June, 2019) some 2,500 Venezuelans have registered under the TT Government's amnesty/registration program. According also to newspaper reports the Government appears to be quite pleased with the exercise currently going on. So? If all the reports are true, then we should all sit back and pat the Government on its proverbial back, shouldn't we?


Here's where I say 'hold it sheriff, she's heading for the strawberry patch'! You see, the government has said that it will hold this registration exercise over a 14 day period. Now, the exercise started last Friday, 4 days ago (not counting today). In other words, an average of 625 Venezuelans were registered every day for the last 4 days. So, if we extrapolate those numbers out we get 8,750 (14 x 8,750). In other words we can expect a little less than 10,000 Venezuelans to register.


So? Question: assuming that there is no big rush at the end of the registration period and the average daily registration climbs to, say, 700 per day, that number (9,800) still comes to less than 10,000. Does this mean (a) that the majority of Venezuelans here are not registering, or (b) the reports of TT being swamped by illegal immigration are woefully inaccurate, or (c) a bit of both? My personal bet (with absolutely nothing to back it up except my gut) is that the answer is (c).


So, assuming (but not accepting) that my gut is right, then the question is 'why'? Why are the majority of Venezuelans not registering? Why are the reports inaccurate?


In answer to the first 'why' I think that the reason that the majority are not registering is a simple one: a lack of trust. Frankly, given all the past actions and statements of "jefes" in the TT Government, would you trust them NOT to turn you over to Maburro & Co. if you had fled that murderous regime fearing for your life ... literally? I'm not sure that I would.


Then, onto item (b) ... the inaccurate reporting of the immigration problem. Again, let me be clear: I have nothing to go on but my gut in this. To the best of my knowledge there are no reasonably accurate reports as to the extent of the problem. But I do believe (my gut again) that we are indeed being swamped by illegal immigration. What I don't know is how bad is it? How much of a problem do we have?


It seems that (unsurprisingly) the problem is much more acute in the South than anywhere else. But neither the authorities nor the main stream media (who you might think both  have the resources to answer these type of questions) have apparently not  bothered to get any hard data on this.


Let's understand something clearly: assuming that our population figures from the Central Statistical Office are reasonably accurate, we are a nation of approximately 1.4 million souls. Now, assuming that we have somewhere around 100,000 legal or illegal Venezuelans coming over here that means that we have an almost 10 percent increase in our population overnight! No nation on this planet can suffer such an increase in its population in such a short space of time and not have disastrous consequences. 


But our Government's solutions seem to be deflect, deflect and deflect. The root cause of our problem is the murderous, narco driven dictatorship of Messrs. Maburro & Co. For crying out loud, when are we going to wake up and smell the coffee? Until then, you know exactly what's wrong with this picture!