Prime Minister Patrick Manning told the General Assembly of the United Nations Saturday that crime in Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean is a serious problem that is causing the region tremendous economic fallout. He told the world body the Caribbean is today plagued by the illegal drug trade, with the region being used as a transhipment point for illicit drugs to North America and Europe.
But while he admitted the problem, he did not attribute it to local conditions.
Instead, Manning said the rising criminal activity has been caused by the loss of preferential markets for the export of bananas and sugar, commodities that have little or no economic value to Trinidad and Tobago.
The country's export agriculture has been almost non-existent since the PNM administration closed the country's only sugar producing-exporting company, Caroni (1975) Ltd., shortly after the 2002 general election.
And the bulk of external earnings come from the energy sector.
Yet per capita crime in Trinidad and Tobago is the highest in the region, and among the highest in the world, with 398 homicides so far this year and daily reports of a vast array of criminal activity.
In the past Manning has tried to link the failure of law enforcement in Trinidad and Tobago to problems in neighbouring states.
He told his People's National Movement (PNM) in June this year that he intends to offer economic assistance for the country's neighbours because the worsening economic situation in other Caricom countries poses serious threats to Trinidad and Tobago through illegal immigration, narcotics trafficking and a decline in local exports throughout the region.
And that's the message he took to the United Nations on Saturday, linking crime purely to external circumstances.
"Mr President, the security situation has been aggravated by the deteriorating economic situation in many of our countries, weakened by the loss of preferential markets for bananas and sugar," Manning told the General Assembly.
"The new paradigm of reciprocity in trade, and the fact that both the tourism industry and the financial services sector to which many have turned to supplement their economic development have not produced the anticipated returns.
"The economic situation of these countries has, therefore, become even more critical, with severe consequences for the security and prosperity of our region, given the inextricable link between security and socio-economic development."
Manning told the world body the illegal drug trade in the Caribbean "has a most corrosive effect on our small societies, fuelling, for example, trafficking in small arms and light weapons, with troubling consequences".
And he appealed to UN member states "to negotiate a legally binding Arms Trade Treaty to join the fold of states working to ensure that it becomes a reality."
The Panday administration negotiated a treaty with the United States in 1996 to help deal with the problem of maritime drug trafficking. As leader of the opposition at the time Manning objected to the so-called ship rider deal, accusing the government at the time of ceding the country's sovereignty to a foreign power.
Read the treaty
Manning had boasted to Trinidad and Tobago that the global economic crisis that gripped the international community last autumn would not be a major issue for the Trinidad and Tobago economy.
He had a different take on the effect of the global economic crisis on the Caribbean.
"We must be very wary of the level of adventurousness in leading financial institutions, which contributed very significantly to driving the world to the edge of an economic precipice, from which we are just starting to pull back," Manning said.
He called on the UN to "ensure that the reform of the international financial institutions" such as the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank.
He added, "The trust of the world in the totally unregulated market has been entirely misplaced. We must now capitalise on the opportunity of this crisis and, without delay, reform our international economic system."
On another issue, Manning proposed that the United Nations convene as soon as possible a special summit on Non-Communicable Diseases, noting that forecasts indicate that by 2020 such diseases will account for "about 73 per cent of global deaths and 60 per cent of the global burden of diseases".
He also expressed concerns over proposals for an international standard for dealing with the global problem of change.
"Trinidad and Tobago makes it absolutely clear that we do not accept the per capita basis for the determination of levels of carbon emission. This is manifestly unfair to a small, energy-producing, developing country like ours with a small population," Manning said.
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