Richard Ra­moutar

Ev­i­dent­ly, the growth in il­lic­it transna­tion­al ac­tiv­i­ties has been aid­ed enor­mous­ly by the great tech­no­log­i­cal ad­vances since the end of the Cold War. A com­bi­na­tion of fac­tors such as the rise in com­mer­cial air­line traf­fic, im­prove­ments in telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion and the growth of in­ter­na­tion­al trade have fa­cil­i­tat­ed the ready move­ment of goods and peo­ple and al­so en­abled in­ter­na­tion­al crim­i­nal or­gan­i­sa­tions to ex­ploit the tech­no­log­i­cal ad­vance­ments and use en­crypt­ed telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions to plan and ex­e­cute their trade. As the na­tion comes face to face with the chal­lenge of con­fronting these in­ter­na­tion­al crim­i­nal net­works, with its lo­cal coun­ter­parts, the bat­tle is go­ing to be com­plex.

These in­ter­na­tion­al crime groups have ex­ploit­ed the glob­al­i­sa­tion ide­ol­o­gy of free mar­kets and free trade and a de­cline in state in­ter­ven­tion to ex­pand their ac­tiv­i­ties across bor­ders to new re­gions of the world. They trav­el to re­gions where they can­not be ex­tra­dit­ed, base their op­er­a­tions in coun­tries with bank se­cre­cy or few ef­fec­tive con­trols and it's hard to fore­see an end­point to the il­le­gal guns and drugs trade. Con­front­ed with a dif­fi­cult and com­plex bat­tle against or­gan­ised crime, il­le­gal drugs and guns, the PP gov­ern­ment must al­so re­flect on the elim­i­na­tors of com­pe­ti­tion in the un­der­ground econ­o­my.

Com­ing in­to pow­er on the ba­sis of mean­ing­ful change, ac­count­abil­i­ty, trans­paren­cy and hold­ing it­self up as the em­bod­i­ment of good gov­ern­ment is pre­cise­ly the rea­son why good gov­er­nance em­braces the full ar­ray of the pro­tec­tion of hu­man rights, act­ing fair­ly, law­ful­ly and ac­cu­rate­ly in the process. Pro­tect­ing the na­tion's se­cu­ri­ty is a pri­ma­ry func­tion of the Gov­ern­ment. How­ev­er, Trinidad and To­ba­go by virtue of its ex­pe­ri­ences gained from two states of emer­gen­cies, must by now un­der­stand that in times of cri­sis, the shield of in­tel­li­gence and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty must not be used to pro­tect gov­ern­men­tal ac­tions from close scruti­ny of ac­count­abil­i­ty. As such our in­sti­tu­tions-leg­isla­tive, ex­ec­u­tive and ju­di­cial-must be pre­pared to ex­er­cise their au­thor­i­ty to pro­tect all cit­i­zens from their pet­ty.

Cer­tain­ly, the sep­a­ra­tion of the courts from the ex­ec­u­tive branch and the abil­i­ty of the courts has been a cru­cial fea­ture of the le­gal frame­work in Trinidad and To­ba­go. In­deed, it has been the lynch­pin for the rule of law and the pro­tec­tion of hu­man rights in this coun­try. Is there a "car­tel" in Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty fa­cil­i­tat­ing hu­man traf­fick­ing? In the midst of an all-out na­tion­al stri­dent and vig­or­ous as­sault on crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties by the com­bined Po­lice and De­fence Force per­son­nel dur­ing this state of emer­gency, a re­cent sur­prise raid over a week ago at Sea­men's Bar, (for­mer­ly Vil­la Capri) re­vealed an­oth­er side to the or­gan­ised crime of hu­man traf­fick­ing and white col­lar crim­i­nals, that is the al­leged role of of­fi­cial­dom in part­ner­ship with the pri­vate sec­tor. This in­ci­dent oc­curred with the state of emer­gency in full ef­fect, and un­der the very watch of the Ho­n­ourable Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and his coun­ter­parts.

Very re­li­able sources from the Im­mi­gra­tion De­part­ment, Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty in­di­cat­ed that ap­prox­i­mate­ly 24 na­tion­als from Colom­bia, Venezuela, Suri­name, San­to Domin­go and Guyana were held dur­ing this raid, with 20 be­ing re­leased for hav­ing valid ex­ten­sions, and four be­ing de­tained for be­ing il­le­gal­ly in the coun­try. Now it is im­por­tant to ex­am­ine the sit­u­a­tion of the re­leased women in or­der to un­der­stand the sub­tle role of al­leged of­fi­cial com­plic­i­ty, con­do­na­tion, col­lu­sion and cor­rup­tion, whilst pay­ing scant re­gards to gov­ern­ment at­tempts to gen­er­ate good faith in ad­dress­ing the scourges of hu­man traf­fick­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

As I have writ­ten ex­ten­sive­ly in the past on all as­pects of the op­er­a­tions of the Im­mi­gra­tion De­part­ment, very few in the pub­lic do­main, even among law en­force­ment of­fi­cers re­al­ly un­der­stand how "things are done and get done" in the hu­man traf­fick­ing world. Sign­ing in­ter­na­tion­al pro­to­cols and agree­ments is one thing to at­tempt to elim­i­nate this grave abuse and hu­man slav­ery but the lega­cy of this trade con­tin­ues to flour­ish.

Now how, when and where did these for­eign na­tion­als en­ter Trinidad and To­ba­go? How did all 20 of them find them­selves at the same broth­el? If they did en­ter legal­ly as vis­i­tors, were they giv­en spe­cial work per­mits by the Work Per­mit Com­mit­tee to "ser­vice" na­tion­als of this coun­try at the Sea­man's Bar? Were their ini­tial en­tries so well or­gan­ised so as to cater to spe­cial of­fi­cers on du­ty? Now, since ap­par­ent­ly, not one of these for­eign na­tion­als was in­ter­viewed and ex­am­ined in To­ba­go, who was re­spon­si­ble for grant­i­ng all these ex­ten­sions via a "spe­cial flesh emis­sary" to To­ba­go? Who is this se­nior im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cer who was so gen­er­ous to have fa­cil­i­tat­ed all ex­ten­sions with a smile and no ques­tions asked?

Why is it that these ex­ten­sions were not re­quest­ed in Trinidad at the Im­mi­gra­tion of­fices in San Fer­nan­do or Port-of-Spain? Are these ex­ten­sion records stored in a com­put­er data­base? Is the of­fi­cer in ques­tion per­son­al­ly ac­quaint­ed with the own­er of this high­ly pub­li­cised Sea­men's Bar? Was it done for free? Did the se­nior of­fi­cer have oth­er as­sis­tants in this re­gard? Can any knowl­edge­able and ex­pe­ri­enced im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cer feign ig­no­rance in this mat­ter, bear­ing in mind that the PP Gov­ern­ment has adopt­ed ro­bust leg­is­la­tion and ef­fec­tive mea­sures to en­sure that our coun­try com­plies with its in­ter­na­tion­al oblig­a­tions?

Has the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty in­ves­ti­gat­ed this mat­ter prop­er­ly? What an af­front to the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and the Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty about the ex­is­tence of the so­phis­ti­cat­ed threat with­in their own min­istry-do they have the courage to make a rad­i­cal de­ci­sion in this mat­ter as they are cur­rent­ly do­ing in the war on drugs and guns?

To be con­tin­ued next week...