By Johnny Coomansingh
Despite the State of Emergency (SoE) launched on December 30, 2024, in Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) the murders persist. It is now January 14, 2025. The murders committed to date are 14; one murder per day! Senior reporter, Akash Samaroo in his report published in the Trinidad Guardian (14/01/2025) PM: Fearful police officers hiding in stations from criminals, Dr Keith Christopher Rowley, prime minister of T&T says “some police officers are now pretending to close stations to hide from criminals.”
The prime minister said criminals had become so brazen that they believe they can, without fear, shoot and kill even the police. In Samaroo’s report, this is what Rowley lamented:
“So when officers are in the police stations, it has come to my attention, in some districts, in some instances, police officers whose job it is to protect us and secure us, in some districts at night, are so afraid of the criminals that they close the police station door, turn off the light, and be inside there hoping that the criminals don’t come at them…when citizens identifying themselves as lawbreakers choose as their place of attack to be in front of a police station inside the city, and to carry out an attack using the most sophisticated killing weapons, it tells you they have no regard for law enforcement in our society…the bottom line is this society has been under attack from a criminal element which we have not been able to suppress.”
Saint Paul said: “God is not mocked, whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap. The crime situation in Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) is about cause and effect, yes, for every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction. Blaming police officers is not the solution Dr Rowley! Have you properly outfitted the Trinidad and and Tobago Police Service (TTPS) to really fight crime in T&T Dr Rowley? I lay the blame on all of us. According to Dr. Francisco Slinger (The Mighty Sparrow): “We know. We like it so!” I am sorry that I had to bring Sir Ellis Clarke, a former president of T&T into the fracas.
I was there that night seated in Jean Pierre Complex when president Clarke said the words: “We like it so.” His gracious uttering blossomed into what we have today, more corruption (bobol), banditry, drug running, illegal gun toting, kidnapping, rape, home invasions, muggings and horrific murders. Mayhem! And with all the money derived from hydrocarbon exploration and exploitation, the basic infrastructure of the country is in shambles.
Although Trinidad is blessed with huge asphalt deposits, many roads, especially in the rural areas are riddled with potholes and landslides. The Four Roads Tamana road is a classic example. Sidewalks, for example in many districts including the Boroughs of Arima, Chaguanas and the capital city, Port of Spain, are cracked, broken, uneven, jagged and irregular in surface. In some cases, manholes are unevenly covered or left open with a piece of timber protruding out to apparently warn the pedestrian; literal deathtraps! Apart from the poor, potholed roads, with a proliferation of humps, bumps, and lumps, the hostility of drivers on such narrow roads leaves much to be desired in terms of road safety. Tourists driving on the Windward Road in Tobago are out for a time of their lives because of the local Tobago drivers who are going nowhere fast. Maybe Tobago is trying out their new product “Shock Tourism.”
Noisy vehicles with their huge speakers and boom boxes constantly pierce the silence of residential districts at all hours of the day and night; some of these drivers speed at 100 to 120 km/hour. Historic buildings are forgotten, abandoned, and sadly left to rot away or demolished! Due to uncontrolled squatting, the steep hillsides of the Northern Range become denuded. Flash flooding with the attendant deposition of mud and debris plagues Port of Spain, and several cities on the East-West Corridor. Zoning is non-existent in certain parts of the country; cash-crop gardeners from the outlying rural districts scatter themselves all over the sidewalks to sell their produce in Port of Spain, San Fernando, Siparia, Chaguanas, Arima, and Sangre Grande…and the list goes on.
People seeking shelter continue to squat, even in forbidden areas such as The Aripo Savannah, a government forest reserve earmarked for scientific study. Thousands of squatters plague the forests of Valencia. Feral dogs roam all over Trinidad and Tobago leaving their fleas and faecal matter behind. In almost every major town, vagrants rummage through garbage bins and dumpsters for food and clothing. Hand soap and paper towels are always in short supply in the airport restrooms. Used paper cups and plates, plastic bags, plastic bottles and other detritus could be seen lying around on some of the beaches. After a ‘River Lime,’ the rivers experience pollution with the entrails of animals and feathers. Some religions, after certain rites are performed, throw human hair and other foreign matter into the rivers. Not to mention the constant destruction of the foliage around these sites.
It is difficult not to behold young strong youth literally ravaging a garbage truck on the Beetham Highway as it slows down to enter the Port of Spain dump (the la basse). Pray that your vehicle never stalls around this area on the Beetham Highway. In the south of the island of Trinidad, tourists are warned to be extremely careful when visiting the Pitch Lake at La Brea. Muggings and robberies are rife at this location. It is even unsafe now to visit the beach, Fort George, almost anywhere! This chaotic description brings to the fore, the true guts of Trinidad and Tobago.
I am of the strong opinion that the government has shortchanged the people of Trinidad and Tobago. This is our country. Can we fix it? In my last article, I asked the question, “Will we continue to like it so?” Do we really believe the chaos that we are living in? Do we believe that the government is now powerless to stem the tide of crime? Marshal McLuhan said: “Fish is the last animal on Earth to discover water,” and in effect, the people of Trinidad and Tobago are the last people on Earth to know or realize what is truly good for them; certainly not the People’s National Movement (PNM). The age-old question “Who we go put?” echoes once more in this election year 2025.
I blame all of us for what is being dished out daily to all of us because we chose the PNM. They keep talking about good government, but when you don’t know where you are going any road will take you there. I once thought that there was some fortitude and grit in Dr Keith Christopher Rowley, but I was wrong. I am so disappointed. I realize that he does not have the testicular fortitude to put aside pride and hidden agendas and come clean with the people of T&T.
Penelope Beckles, member of parliament for Arima was recently defeated in her bid to be the next prime minister. For what? It’s possible that Penelope was forced to drink of the “wine of the wrath” of the PNM’s “fornication.” On the parliament floor, Patrick Augustus Manning, former prime minister described Keith Rowley as a “Raging Bull.” The present PNM is a run-down, broken, blind, and deaf unproductive mule floundering on a slippery path to destruction. Cognitive dissonance is what the PNM knows best. The centrifugal force is the only force they know. They continue to wallow in the quagmire of ineptitude.
Trinidad and Tobago is broken and sad, helpless and weak like a raped destitute virgin on a lonely beach. The PNM has brought this country to its knees begging for water, begging for food, begging for roads, begging for bridges, begging for sidewalks, begging for security, begging for protection, begging for a clean beach in Toco, begging for clean drains, begging for proper transport, begging for land to plant crops, begging for flood control, begging for ah ten days with the Unemployment Relief Programme (URP), begging for good health services, begging for a ray of hope! We all have become beggars!
The PNM takes the people of Trinidad and Tobago for granted. The PNM is a nasty cancer that is eating away at the very heart of righteousness; eating away the very people who put them there. And now they have the guts to say that ‘Team PNM’ “We are ready now.” What hogwash!
With all certainty, PNM people will come to your door with their walkabout nonsense before the next general election. It was Shakespeare who said, “Mend your speech a little lest you may mar your fortunes.” I cannot mend my speech because I see people dying every day under the barrel of a gun in Trinidad and Tobago! Everyday! I see the lives of our young men and women being snuffed out for nothing! I see our senior folk, retirees and pensioners harassed, tormented and murdered for their paltry assets! Where there is no vision, the people perish. Since I have no fortune to worry about I will speak. My tongue will not be bridled concerning the political disaster that has befallen us.
What have we become? Let them know that they the PNM, were the worst curse ever to befall the people of Trinidad and Tobago. Close your gate! Chase them! They have stolen enough from you and are still taking bread from your mouths. You must give them “Measure for Measure.” The PNM is not anything near to good and noble. They are a bunch of crooks, cheats, hoodlums, and liars. Right now billions of dollars are missing from the coffers of T&T! The PNM failed us all. To the people of T&T, this is your round to begin to fix things; it’s time to close Pandora’s box.
Not only mapipire snakes, but also many a fat crapaud (frog) is now living in the PNM balisier patch. Those hideous crapauds will smoke our pipes if we allow Rowley and the PNM to return to the Red House. My mother told me: “What yuh could see in the day doh wait till night tuh take candle tuh see.” And my godmother said to me: “Dog sucking egg, always sucking egg.” Recently, I declared: “Do not look for the light at the end of the tunnel. Remove the tunnel and we would all have the light.” If yuh geh ketch looking for dat light inside the tunnel, well heaven help yuh!
Rowley and his minions would want all of us to develop tunnel vision and live with a four-cent mentality on the roadside of dreams. The people must start thinking about their own future, not the PNM’s. It is a burning shame that so many countries have issued travel advisories about Trinidad and Tobago. However, I sincerely hope that the masses will mentally and intellectually revolt. It is high time that we say no to the PNM. Say no! It is high time that we realize that they have failed miserably.
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