TRINIDAD'S CRIME CHALLENGE
Editorial
Guyana Chronicle
July 20, 2003
REPRESENTATIVE organizations and institutions of Guyana can readily empathize with the current pouring of outrage in Trinidad and Tobago over the spate of killings, kidnappings and criminal violence that continue to afflict that neighbouring state of our Caribbean Community.
Having had to cope with the trauma of the criminal rampage that rocked this nation for a sustained terrifying 15-month period, Guyanese, of all walks of life would know something of the agonies to which the criminals have subjected the law abiding people of Trinidad and Tobago.
By last weekend a sophisticated network of kidnappers, apparently emboldened by terrified families who quickly delivered negotiated ransom payments, had recorded 112 victims of armed abduction, among them teenagers and even small children going home from school.
The security forces, whose resources have been severely taxed in efforts to curb the criminal rampage, have been coming under criticisms from various segments of the society.
This is reminiscent of the scenario in Guyana during the worse features of criminality along the East Coast Demerara in particular.
There are also repeated calls for the Minister of National Security, Senator Howard Chin Lee, to be dismissed by Prime Minister Patrick Manning---calls that the Minister of Home Affairs, Ronald Gajraj, had to also face amid the systematic killings, kidnappings and armed robberies.
"Fear and Evil"
Prime Minister Manning has been resisting the calls for Chin Lee's resignation that have also been made by sections of the country's leading media. At the same time, the Prime Minister is aware that as the Trinidad and Tobago Chamber of Commerce has declared, increasingly citizens are crying, "enough is enough".
As the Chamber sees it, in pointing to some of the more recent "senseless killings", as well as denouncing the escalating cases of kidnappings for ransom, the law enforcing agencies seem to lack the resources and strategies to effectively confront the criminals.
What the criminal challenges in countries like Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica suggest, is the need for greater levels of cooperation, on a sustained basis, by the security services in sharing information, tactics and strategies that could prove more effective in combating the criminals.
Not much was said publicly in the Communiqué issued at their Montego Bay Summit on "crime and security". But it is our understanding that the enormity of the problems affecting a number of Community partner states engaged significant time of the CARICOM leaders.
What their respective public need, however, and understandably so, is more than official assurances of new approaches to deal with the criminals. They are anxious to see results that ease, if not altogether remove, what the Trinidad and Tobago Chamber of Commerce last week, described as "the fear and evil that hover over our beloved country".
Winning the war against the criminal networks and restoring confidence for peace and security are vital for the social and economic development of any society. Guyanese know this only too well. We wish every success to Trinidad and Tobago in its ongoing anti-crime fight.