But I have been making this call for many years now, and most of those calls were during the reign of Patrick Manning’s PNM, which sponsored the reign of terror that grew through their administration.
In this space on Sunday 25th August 2002, nine years ago, I called for a State of Emergency, to be applied in a limited scope (Kamla, please note my wording!), in order to allow the authorities to detain known gang leaders. I made this call in the face of murderers walking free because witnesses against them were either killed or terrorized into “forgetting” what they had seen.
I repeated this call in columns published on 13th August 2006, and again on 3rd March 2008. For me, this is not a political issue, but a matter of saving the nation, and thousands of lives, from the self-destruction of gang warfare, murders for money from URP contracts and the fear which has spread like a cancer through our land.
The sudden surge in murders last weekend seems to have been the stimulus for the government to summon the will to act against the violence. For that I am pleased, but for how they have managed the implementation, I give them a failing grade, and I do so not in glee and triumph as some are doing, but with sadness and regret that a bunch of supposedly intelligent people could have gotten it so wrong.
Like other commentators, I believe that “known” criminals should have been arrested and detained in the hours before the announcement.
I repeated this call in columns published on 13th August 2006, and again on 3rd March 2008. For me, this is not a political issue, but a matter of saving the nation, and thousands of lives, from the self-destruction of gang warfare, murders for money from URP contracts and the fear which has spread like a cancer through our land.
The sudden surge in murders last weekend seems to have been the stimulus for the government to summon the will to act against the violence. For that I am pleased, but for how they have managed the implementation, I give them a failing grade, and I do so not in glee and triumph as some are doing, but with sadness and regret that a bunch of supposedly intelligent people could have gotten it so wrong.
Like other commentators, I believe that “known” criminals should have been arrested and detained in the hours before the announcement.
Like other commentators I am appalled at the confusion and contradictions coming from every supposedly official source. I am particularly incensed at the incendiary comments emanating from the Police Service Commission about the absence from the country of Police Commissioner Dwayne Gibbs.
As this unfortunate matter played out, a report in another paper stated that “PSC members reportedly issued their strongly-worded release…. because there were ‘areas of grave concern’ and they wanted to alert the government, and caution them to be more vigilant in the future.”
As this unfortunate matter played out, a report in another paper stated that “PSC members reportedly issued their strongly-worded release…. because there were ‘areas of grave concern’ and they wanted to alert the government, and caution them to be more vigilant in the future.”
So, does the PSC normally communicate with, and caution, the government via media releases? Newsday was able to unearth that the so called Press Release was apparently issued by one PSC member, who just happens to be the attorney for PNM Senator Fitzgerald Hinds in the matter of the NP/Gopaul aborted contract.
What is really going on here?
What is really going on here?
I think that it is incumbent upon the PSC to support the declaration of the SOE in every way possible, not to posture and lecture on irrelevancies. But even as the government struggles to deal with the interference of the PSC, they have managed to confuse their own agendas almost every time they speak.
One can only hope that this Keystone Cops Cabinet can one day sit and come to consensus and deliver information without seeming to contradict each other.
We need to look at the possible causes, named and unnamed, for the calling of the SOE. The “named” cause was the sudden surge of gun murders. But what spurred this increase? Was it really gangs falling out, or might it have had a political genesis? And if so, who was behind it? Later in the week the government acknowledged that forces more sinister than gangs are in the plot.
If the government felt that there was a serious undercurrent of rebellion emanating from political sources (let us not call names as yet!), as was evident in the lead up to the 1990 coup attempt, then they needed to take action, and the crime situation, preplanned or coincidental, gave them the “cover” to do this.
I am among those who believe that criminals were being used to destabilize the government. Criminals who became millionaires by exploiting poor people in the name of the URP. Criminals who were sponsored by the PNM, including the now sanctimonious Rowley and Hinds, they never speaking about crime during their tenure in office. Criminals who have much to gain should their “sponsors” return to government.
Evidence of connections between politicians and the Muslimeen at the time of the 1990 coup has already been presented at the ongoing Commission of Enquiry into that event.
The country would do well to realize the seriousness of the situation we are facing, and seek to support the forces of law and order even as we call upon a government under attack to improve their management of this situation.
One can only hope that this Keystone Cops Cabinet can one day sit and come to consensus and deliver information without seeming to contradict each other.
We need to look at the possible causes, named and unnamed, for the calling of the SOE. The “named” cause was the sudden surge of gun murders. But what spurred this increase? Was it really gangs falling out, or might it have had a political genesis? And if so, who was behind it? Later in the week the government acknowledged that forces more sinister than gangs are in the plot.
If the government felt that there was a serious undercurrent of rebellion emanating from political sources (let us not call names as yet!), as was evident in the lead up to the 1990 coup attempt, then they needed to take action, and the crime situation, preplanned or coincidental, gave them the “cover” to do this.
I am among those who believe that criminals were being used to destabilize the government. Criminals who became millionaires by exploiting poor people in the name of the URP. Criminals who were sponsored by the PNM, including the now sanctimonious Rowley and Hinds, they never speaking about crime during their tenure in office. Criminals who have much to gain should their “sponsors” return to government.
Evidence of connections between politicians and the Muslimeen at the time of the 1990 coup has already been presented at the ongoing Commission of Enquiry into that event.
The country would do well to realize the seriousness of the situation we are facing, and seek to support the forces of law and order even as we call upon a government under attack to improve their management of this situation.
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