Port-of-Spain – The call was made last Saturday that Minister of National Security Stuart Young present evidence to the Joint Select Committee on National Security to support what Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Moonilal described as “outlandish and reckless” claims.
Moonilal and Senator Saddam Hosein called for an urgent meeting of the Joint Select Committee on National Security, and for Young to be summoned and account for his recent statements. Young also has to provide evidence to substantiate his claim certain people are promoting random shootings across the East-West Corridor, and inciting criminal activity in order to create panic, fear, and mayhem.
“We needed to provide information on the basis on which he is making such outlandish statements, time and time again,” Moonilal said.
In a letter signed by Moonilal and Hosein, who are also JSC members, dated January 17, and addressed to JSC chairman Fitzgerald Hinds, both men said: “Given the recent statements made by the Minister of National Security, we are concerned that the central policymaker of the government appears to be at a loss as to what exactly is happening, and seeks to cast blame and aspersions on private citizens rather than assume responsibility for the calamity that engulfs our republic.”
It added: “In light of the alarming statements and conclusions of Minister Young, members may wish to secure his attendance before our full committee for him to explain himself by way of examination. The minister must account to the JSC on National Security.”
The letter also suggested the JSC could not wait until Friday this week when the Red House reopens as the seat of the Parliament.
Moonilal said: “A JSC can meet anywhere. They have met in the Regional Corporation building in City Hall, in a courthouse. Given the crisis we face with runaway crime and given the outlandish statements made by the minister that have solicited widespread condemnation, the committee should meet urgently, before Friday.”
He added there was no better place for Young to explain his statements.
Said Moonilal: “We understand the administrative difficulty as it relates to the relocation of the Parliament from the International Waterfront Complex to the Red House. However, we are of the view that it is settled practice that a meeting of a Joint Select Committee is not required to be held in the same building that houses the Parliament.”
Additionally, the JSC letter stated, “Previously, meetings of joint select committees have been held outside of the Parliament building, therefore, there is no doubt, having regard to the seriousness and urgency of this matter, that suitable accommodation can be made available for this meeting.”
Moonilal recalled in June last year, during debate on a private motion in the Senate, Young said by December 2019, there would be a “big fish” in custody and that would have been a turning point in dealing with crime.
“In January 2020, he is still fishing, and I think the frustration has gotten to him. I think there are serious concerns now about whether he is burning out. But I believe that the ascendency of the UNC has driven him mad, and he is reacting to the political environment. There is a Hindi term called ‘pagal’ (mad).”
Moonilal said Young reminded him of one of the characters in the Pink Panther movies, the bungling Inspector Jacques Clouseau. Young was “more hapless than (former minister of national security) Martin Joseph”, Moonilal declared.
He said in another part of the world, Young’s statements could have triggered a war. However, Trinidad and Tobago is now involved in events relating to Carnival and so, nationals were not fazed by Young’s statements.
Said Moonilal: “His statements are divisive and could create instability. Crime is on the rise, and you are seeing the burnout effect on ministers, whether it is Minister Young or the Attorney General’s recent clash with TV6 Morning Edition host Fazeer Mohammed. Dr Rowley has no choice now but to dissolve the Parliament and call fresh elections, and allow another team to deal with this national crisis.”

Port-of-Spain – The Downtown Owners and Merchants Association (DOMA) last week called for immediate joint patrols with police and Defence Force in Port-of-Spain. It also called on those in authority to set aside “politics and race”, and to act swiftly on the nation’s safety.
DOMA’s call followed last Wednesday’s drive-by shooting on Queen Street that left two men dead. It was the second incident of public shooting in the capital city, the first taking place on December 31 on the North Coast Road taxi stand on George Street. This shooting killed an innocent bystander, a mother of two, as she awaited transport home.
Last week DOMA president businessman Gregory Aboud said the trend of a “roaming threat” must be stopped now, and does not bode well for the future of Port-of-Spain, and the country at large.
“Irreparable harm is being done to the lives of the people who live in communities that are being subjected to the terrorism of drive-by shootings and indiscriminate killings. Particular damage is being done to the future of the children, who are being brought up in an atmosphere of savagery and death,” Aboud said.
He added damage was also being done to the image of Port-of-Spain, “as our nation’s capital, and as a place, which is struggling to survive commercially”.
Aboud said the nation was suffocating under a barrage of gruesome and barbaric killings that was unheard of in this country’s history, and called on the relevant authorities to act.
Said Aboud: “Finger pointing and preposterous stories, in which we use politics and race to try to explain the constant decline in law and order, only add to the hopelessness that citizens feel, and points to the impotence of successive political parties in implementing a single policy that would confront bold-faced criminals who are, by and large, free to do what they want, without being held to account.”
It was now difficult at times “to recognise Trinidad and Tobago as the country of our birth”, he lamented.
Aboud noted gang violence “disease”, namely gang activity and reprisal killings, had now arrived in downtown Port-of-Spain, and it was a self-feeding cycle. He said it must be clear when members in a gang are killed, and associates of the victims know there will be no arrests or convictions, they take it upon themselves to impose revenge-style justice.
This was a key feature of the “violence disease” not being addressed by successive ministers, commissioners of police, and governments, he said.
“Unless the murderers are held, they will continue to kill, and the associates of the victims will continue to kill in reply, and it is not going to end,” Aboud said. He added this trend “has the tragic likelihood of changing the course of the future of our country, destroying the fabric of our society, and permanently damaging the investment climate.”
Aboud warned Trinidad and Tobago would be on course to becoming “a hollow nation”, and an irresolvable problem.
Said Aboud: “It is now a question of whether or not the government of day can manage and motivate the services, which are designed to protect citizens from this madness. In many ways, we are drowning in very shallow water because we have all of the tools, and all of the manpower to stand up in ankle-deep water, which is suffocating us.”
Aboud said the Police Service must start making arrests that lead to convictions, but also called for the “upliftment” of police officers.
He said interrupting the importation and trade in illegal weapons will not entirely solve crime, but it would “most definitely have tremendous effect on the runaway horror of multiple people being killed in broad daylight”.
He added: “The crime problem of community versus community and gang versus gang is starting to become a roaming threat that is affecting people in their homes, their businesses, people going to the grocery and the gas station... and is capable of collapsing our sense of belief in our everyday lives.”

Port-of-Spain – The statements made by National Security Minister Stuart Young last week, where he claimed acts of terror were being deliberately orchestrated to destablilise Trinidad and Tobago, were deflection and unhelpful rhetoric, UWI political scientist Dr Bishnu Ragoonath has said.
According to Ragoonath, Young’s “[recent] rhetoric and deflection on the part of the National Security Minister is not helpful and borders on propaganda…” He was commenting on Young’s statements about acts of terror being deliberately orchestrated by criminals. Ragoonath is also Chairman of the Committee for Responsible Political Behaviour.
According to Ragoonath, rather than engaging in propaganda, the government needs to start delivering some real results from its various anti-crime strategies.
He noted the public is growing restless as it waits to see whether the government’s various anti-crime strategies would bear fruit.
Young’s “deflection” last week did not engender confidence in citizens indicating the government is on top of the crime situation.
Said Ragoonath: “The majority of citizens in Trinidad and Tobago state clearly and categorically that we have too many bad boys hanging around, and the police cannot simply deal with them… [We] need to find a mechanism to deal with them… at least remove the gangs and remove the guns.”
Additionally, “We’ve been waiting a long time for the police to step up on their game, and they have not yet done so, particularly in curbing the murder rate. If every day we lose another life, that won’t help.”
Ragoonath also noted since ministers and their families have special security protection, many citizens are re-thinking remaining in Trinidad and Tobago, that it appears the government does not care about the painful impact of violent crime on the ordinary man.
Said Ragoonath: “If the police commissioner can send his wife and family abroad for their own safety, does that not apply to the rest of the citizenry? And where can they go, if they don't have those kinds of resources?”
He said while the government is doing a balancing act between implementing its plans and satisfying citizens’ needs for safety, the crime situation seems to be worsening. With such an escalation, Ragoonath said crime may become a hot topic on the hustings in the 2020 elections.
“There is that whole issue of ethnicity, and race and ethnicity, that is going to play a part in the politics. But the question is whether or not crime will become one the major issues. If the government cannot get a handle on it, definitely, it will be a major issue,” he asserts.
The national security minister stated recently that Government won’t activate a national State of Emergency, at this time, to deal with the worsening crime cri-sis.
The UWI political scientist observes that Government may have left the door open to reverse its position on the issue, by making that conditional statement.

Port-of-Spain – The murder toll in Trinidad and Tobago jumped by three more over this past weekend, in the first month of 2020. Two men were gunned down in Clax­ton Bay and Mara­bel­la while the decomposing body of a head­less, charred corpse was found in a forested area in San­ta Flo­ra.
Two hunters on Saturday night, stum­bled up­on the charred re­mains of a man. The remains ap­peared to have been set on fire. The body was clad a blue cov­er­all and the head was miss­ing. Po­lice could not say how the man was killed as the body was in a an advanced state of decomposition.
These murders continue to engage the attention of police as the country continues to be shocked by the brazen actions of the criminals.
In another in­ci­dent, police received a call around 9 am that a man had been shot be­tween Enid Street and Bayshore Line, Mara­bel­la. An anony­mous caller reported that he was at home when he heard two men ar­gu­ing, fol­lowed by the sounds of gun­fire. When he looked out he saw the victim, later identified as Kevon King, 37, ly­ing on the ground with mul­ti­ple gun­shot wounds to the up­per body.
In the third mur­der reported last weekend, 32-year-old Akim Mc Don­ald was gunned down near the Union Clax­ton Bay School in St Mar­garets on Sunday.

Port-of-Spain – The last thing a country traumatised by an escalating murder rate wants to hear from Minister of National Security Stuart Young is that “certain people” in the country are trying to “create a sense of fear and panic about runaway crime”, political analyst and economist Dr Indera Sagewan said last week. Additionally, nationals fed-up with runaway crime do not want to hear Young complaining there are people “promoting the criminal element to go out and harm society”.
Sagewan’s response came in the wake of Young’s surprising statements following the traumatising escalation of crime in Trinidad and Tobago at the start of the new year. She declared the buck stops with the government, and it was the job of both the Minister of National Security, and the Commissioner of Police, to get crime under control.
She added if Young had evidence of the destabilisation he described, then he should bring it to the attention of the police, and both should act on it together.
“This is a traumatised country at this point in time. We are a traumatised people; we live in constant fear. A fear that every time we think it can’t get worse, it does get worse,” she said.
Additionally, “[With] the government of the day – the Minister of National Security, the Police Commissioner – the buck stops with them in terms of making the country safe. It is not the kind of response that one expects from the Minister of National Security.”
Said Sagewan: “What we want to hear from a Minister of National Security at this point in time are words that give us a sense of comfort that he has things under control.”

She added: “Let us not forget that the Ministry of National Security gets the largest bite out of the national budget, not just this year or the year before, but this has been going on for as long as I remember. So we are spending billions of dollars on national security, supposedly to protect us, but the result has been that our sense of security has continued to worsen. So the buck stops with the minister, and this is not the kind of response that a country that is traumatised expects from the Minister of National Security.”
Also in the wake of Young’s statements, the Opposition UNC called for his resignation.
“Judging from the content of the media briefing, the nation is left to wonder if the members of Cabinet spend their time engaged in gossip and fear-mongering. We wish to remind Young, et al, that the post-Cabinet briefing ought to have been used to tell the nation what they are doing in the face of the mayhem we are witnessing; instead we got dangerous political propaganda showing Young is not fit to hold any office. The entire nation is fed up of this brand of politics,” stated the UNC.
The UNC noted crime has spiralled out of control during Young’s tenure as National Security Minister. It stated rather than do the “dignified and respectable” thing and resign, instead he has opted for “scandal and propaganda’.
On January 16, Young told the nation there were “certain people” involved in pushing the crime wave “because they want to create a sense of fear and panic about runaway crime”. He asked who had a vested interest in creating this environment, as well as panic and fear, among the general population, and “in promoting the criminal element to go out and harm society”.
Young added the police were pursuing investigations along these lines, and had been making progress.
Despite coming under fire from the Opposition, and calls for evidence by political analysts to back up his claims, late last week Young doubled down, saying he stands by his statement there is a conspiracy to destabilise the country. Additionally, he declared “no one is above the law’.
In a statement posted to social media on Saturday, Young said the information was provided to him by the “authorities”, and the public would be informed at the appropriate time. Young said he called no names and shared only what was told to him by the authorities.
“I am always very careful about what I say, especially with respect to matters of National Security. I was particularly careful in all that I said at the post-Cabinet media conference [last] Thursday... In my position, one must balance the right to inform and give context without losing the intelligence advantage of our security services,” he said.
Additionally, “As I stated, all of the information I shared, without calling a single name, was provided to me by the ‘authorities’. I went further to state that I expect that investigations are taking place and at the appropriate time, I would expect the authorities to inform the public. Having not called any names, the public will note with interest those who jumped out defensively and also who have remained silent.” Young said he had no interest in politicising crime.

Port-of-Spain – The shoot-out between police and suspected gang members on the Eastern Main Road in Laventille last Wednesday was a watershed event that revealed criminals are now operating with new, sophisticated, and highly-organised guerilla-type tactics. So said crime researcher Daurius Figueira, while issuing a warning to police to prepare for the worst in any shoot-out with criminals.
Figueira said the criminals in the latest shoot-out were “no ordinary gang-bangers” given the level of organisation and discipline that was displayed. Also, he noted evidence of a new recklessness, where the criminals did not “care about collateral damage”. It was quite evident, he said, the gunmen did not care whether other people were killed in pursuit of the target.
It was a “very troubling and complex development” that started in December last year, and has continued into this month.
Said Figueira: “It started with the shooting on the North Coast taxi stand in Port-of-Spain last year, and continued with the shooting on Queen Street [last] week.”
He also noted in the shoot-out in Port of Spain on December 31, in which criminals fired on a group of people, killing mother of three Lystra Hernandez-Patterson, all the gunmen were killed by the police near the crime scene.
However, he noted during last week’s incident, the gunmen had covering fire from outside while they engaged the police. None of the gunmen were detained by police.
In the Queen Street shooting last week, video footage shows a white Nissan Tiida stopping on the busy street, and two armed men exiting the vehicle and opening fire on a group of people. The gunmen then returned to the vehicle and drove off.
However, about ten minutes later, the vehicle encountered police on the Eastern Main Road, with a shoot-out taking place. During this shootout, the gunmen were provided covering fire that came out of the residential area to the north. It helped the gunmen escape.
Said Figueira: “We have always had instances in the past of gang-banging where you pull up on a block and shoot people. You now have to brace for the worst. [This] was a watershed event, indicating an entirely new trend in Trinidad now.”
He added: “The individuals involved in the shooting on the North Coast taxi stand all died in the fire-fight close to the market. Not a single individual that was in the Tiida in the latest incident died on the scene. All escaped because of the effectiveness of the covering fire they received from the north, and their own ability to engage with the police. It was a classic action, like guerillas. You were engaging, you had covering fire, and you slipped away.”
Figueira noted: “The impact of it was clear that these are no ordinary gang-bangers. This is a new development. It was done by people who are organised, people with training.”