FIXING CRIME

 UNC politicians tend to treat it as an established fact: when PNM is in power crime rises; when UNC is in power crime falls, But party rule does not drive crime. Crime tends to rise when the economy is doing badly and falls when it is doing well.

This doesn't mean that PNM leadership drives crime per se nor does it necessarily lead to more crime. To put it another way, UNC politicians are misrepresenting our country's crime problem. That also doesn't mean that they are entirely wrong in what they are saying. It just means that focusing on crime by itself is showing a fundamental misunderstanding of the basic problem. And, I'll say it again, the basic problem is that the country's economy has tanked. Almost (but not quite) everybody is worse off today than they were at the beginning of the Rowley regime. 

The truth is that there are a few (very few) people who are better off today than they were eight years ago. The truth also is that crime worldwide tends to be higher in urban areas than in country areas and in the cities and towns there tends to be a greater African population than in Indian areas which are largely in the country areas. That is why the general perception that most of the criminal element is largely African rather than Indian. But that is not the whole story.

Poverty and race play a major part in crime. But also affecting the problem is access to guns - which, apparently, is very easy. I am aware that  not a few UNC supporters will read this post and think that I am making excuses for the PNM. Far from it. Crime is a complicated issue driven by the economy, social issues, personal disputes, drugs and almost every other issue. And while a few issues can make a big difference partisanship is not one of them, I believe that fixing the economy is THE major issue, just not the only one.

No. A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step, and the first step here is to define ALL of the problems and to put down clearly and succinctly the solutions to each one. If this has ever been done, I am unaware of it. Remember always: there is only one reason for politics - only one reason for Government: to make life better for the people! Full stop! There is no other reason.

P.S. Happy Independence Day

THE DUTIES OF NEWSPAPERS

 It is striking, to say the least, how the three daily newspapers are failing to describe to their readers - who count on them and often pay them - in clear eyed terms what is going on in the country and fail completely to remind their readers about what ought to be important to our democracy. Take, for example, what can loosely be described as the Brent Thomas affair.

The reported facts are that Mr. Thomas had been charged with dealing in arms and ammunition illegally. Now these are serious charges, especially given the high incidence of violent crime. However, there seems to have been no restriction on Mr. Thomas who was out on bail. Now, bail is a common law right based on the principle that unless and until a man is found guilty of a crime his freedom cannot or ought not to be restricted.

Mr. Thomas, however, was arrested in Barbados by a combination of Trinidadian and Barbadian police and brought back to Trinidad. The problem here is that there was no warrant of extradition and the Trinidadian police had obviously gone to great lengths to bring Mr. Thomas back. They had even commandeered a special plane owned by the State for this purpose. 

This raises the rather obvious question as to who made this order to have Mr. Thomas arrested and brought back and why were the proper channels (such as obtaining an extradition warrant) not complied with? The erstwhile Commissioner of Police promised that there would be an investigation into what happened and why and that a report would be made in two weeks. This promise was made on the 17th May - more than three months ago! And yet, there hasn't been a single solitary peep out of the media! Nada! Nothing! Its as though it never happened and that page has passed. And meanwhile?

And yet it did happen! Why is this important? Because the facts - which are probably very uncomfortable- need to be spelled out and exposed. Who ordered this illegal action? Who got the Barbadian authorities to comply? Who in Barbados participated in this illegal act? Is any politician involved either here, or in Barbados, or both? If so, who? Why has no report ever been made? Why has the media seemingly dropped this matter? Why can't we (the general public) know what happened here.

Either the country's media lack the understanding of how serious this matter is or they lack the spine to investigate this properly, or both. Neither of these options is particularly comforting given the current state of this country's politics. Ignoring uncomfortable truths affect our democracy  in all sorts of terrible ways. Put another way, the country is not being served very well by its media and our very democracy is at risk as a result. Unfortunately, there are many other examples of the newspapers not doing their job.

Perhaps the best way to describe the duties of a newspaper was written by a man called C.P. Scott who published the following in the Manchester Guardian on theb6th May, 19328:

           "The newspaper is of necessity something of a monopoly and its first duty is to shun the                 temptations of monopoly. Its primary office is the gathering of news. At the peril of its soul it must see that the supply is not tainted. Neither in what it gives, nor in what it does not give, nor in the mode of presentation, must the unclouded face of truth suffer wrong. Comment is free but facts are sacred."

QUESTIONS

 On May 17th 2023 the Commissioner of Police promised an investigation and a report on the Brent Thomas affair. Readers will recall that Mr. Thomas had been charged with possession of illegal firearms and had travelled to Barbados where he was arrested by Barbadian police and brought back to Trinidad by Trinidadian police on a plane especially hired/commandeered by Trinidadian police for the express purpose of carrying out this act. The problem was that the arrest in Barbados was done without a warrant. In other words, no Court whether here or in Barbados had given the police any authority to extradite Mr. Thomas.

Put another way, on the face of it the T&T police appear to have acted illegally.

Now, today marks exactly three months from the date when our erstwhile Commissioner of Police promised a report on this matter "within two weeks". Well, in most people's minds two weeks is  a lot shorter than three months. So? What could the reason (or reasons) be for this delay? Incompetence? That is possible. Indeed, that would probably be the kindest reason. Because it is not beyond the bounds of speculation that some senior person, either in the Police Force or in politics, has indicated that the matter be quietly swept under the carpet so that everybody will simply forget about it.

Assuming (though certainly not accepting) that this second possibility is the real reason that nothing has been done, that would be a most worrying conclusion as it would mean quite clearly that a certain person or persons  can act with complete impunity and break the law whenever he/she/they feel like it.

The fact that the print media has not followed up on this suggests that the affair might have political overtones. While this is by no means certain, assuming (though again not accepting) that this is so, then the question should be what politician had been so offended by Mr. Thomas that he/she would have wanted him to be so punished and humiliated? Alternatively, who in the police service might have had something to gain by this? There are too many questions arising out of this matter, and all the reasonable answers that one might think of relating to this are very ugly. Indeed, there are a lot more questions that could be asked that haven't been asked here, but the basic question is why? Why did the police do what they did?

T&T's BEST PRIME MINISTER?

 

I ran a very unscientific poll last week. I listed all of our Prime Ministers (including the present one) and asked several of my clients who did they think was the best. (I didn't ask why they thought so, though I should have). To my somewhat very mild surprise, Mr. Manning came in first followed extremely closely by Mr. Panday. (One point separated them.) Unsurprisingly (to me at least), Dr. Rowley was at the bottom of everybody's list. But that wasn't good news for Mrs. Persad Bissessar as she was not very far ahead of Dr. Rowley., though she did rank ahead of ANR Robinson who came in second to last.

For everyone's information here are the results of MY poll (which is MOST unscientific): Mr. Manning came first followed very closely by Mr. Panday; next came Dr. Williams then Mr. Chambers and then came Kamla followed by ANR Robinson and finally Dr. Rowley. I noticed that most people tended to put their ethnic differences aside when confronted with my poll. I tried to run it by trying to include as many ethnicities as possible in (very roughly) the same percentages as there exist in the general population. But I probably asked more genuinely independent voters than  really exist percentagewise. Just about everybody that I asked said almost immediately that Dr. Rowley was definitely the worst before they went on to list their preferences.

I was mildly surprised at how low Dr. Williams came relatively speaking. (He came third way behind Messrs. Manning and Panday). But I put that down to the fact that he was Prime Minister a long time ago and few people really remember him. I am very aware that I have no experience or knowledge in how to conduct a proper poll and don't offer my results  as any sort of definitive statement. But I thought that it was an interesting question and so decided to share it with you. So, the question is: who do YOU think was the best Prime Minister Trinidad and Tobago has ever had? I'm not asking why you think so, because I didn't ask it in my "poll". But why you come to your conclusion might be interesting, no?