Pas­tor Clive Dot­tin

While we have to cope dai­ly with gang­sters op­er­at­ing by the law of the jun­gle, we are wit­ness­ing the as­sault on Dwayne Gibbs, the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice. He is be­ing con­sis­tent­ly hu­mil­i­at­ed. He is hound­ed and pound­ed by so many voic­es who pos­sess so many agen­das. He in­her­it­ed decades of deca­dence, and yet in record-break­ing time many ex­pect­ed that he would pro­duce some mir­a­cles. The shame to which he is be­ing sub­ject­ed has the po­ten­tial to de­stroy not just him but al­so the of­fice which he holds. Blows, blows and more blows. The ed­i­to­r­i­al in the Sun­das Ex­press was like an oa­sis in a desert. Blows from gov­ern­ment min­is­ters, blows from the Op­po­si­tion, blows from the Po­lice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion, blows from talk show hosts. Lis­ten, how can this man func­tion in such an ad­ver­sar­i­al cli­mate? Those who looked at tele­vi­sion or heard on ra­dio the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee's meet­ing with the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) must have been con­fused. Some peo­ple got the im­pres­sion that mem­bers of Par­lia­ment were lit­er­al­ly try­ing to force the hand of the PSC to fire Mr Gibbs. Is this the role of the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee? The mes­sage is clear: This man and one of his deputies, Jack Ewats­ki, are the tar­gets of a bru­tal as­sault. One woman had the courage to go on na­tion­al tele­vi­sion and make the fol­low­ing state­ment: "When I look at how Mr Gibbs is be­ing tar­get­ed, I am ashamed to be called Trinida­di­an." The sig­nals from the Ex­ec­u­tive are con­fus­ing. We heard that he act­ed with­in his au­thor­i­ty. Then the So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al, Eleanor Don­ald­son Hon­ey­well, said he act­ed with­out au­thor­i­ty. Of course, she was quot­ed dur­ing a par­lia­men­tary de­bate by no less a per­son than the Prime Min­is­ter.

Al­low me to re­turn to the Ex­press ed­i­to­r­i­al of March 11. Please fo­cus on this para­graph: "Again, the res­olute­ly an­tag­o­nis­tic pub­lic stance adopt­ed by the Po­lice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion must be reck­oned as ha­rass­ment, and a se­ri­ous dis­rup­tion of prop­er or­der in what is re­port­ed­ly a dis­ci­plined Po­lice Ser­vice. It seems whol­ly in­tol­er­a­ble that a ju­nior of­fi­cer, who hap­pens to lead the as­so­ci­a­tion, would re­peat­ed­ly call for the dis­missal of the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er." One of the trag­ic el­e­ments in the pub­lic space is the sur­fac­ing of ru­mours un­der the cov­er of "no­ble am­bi­gu­i­ty." Re­cent­ly there was a con­ver­sa­tion about the ad­vice of a le­gal lu­mi­nary be­ing sought as to whether the PSC had the au­thor­i­ty to fire the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice. The head of the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty, Gillian Lucky, was cor­rect when she said that we can­not de­clare a con­clu­sion and yet talk about in­ves­ti­ga­tions be­ing con­duct­ed. It seems rea­son­able to as­sume that one has to wait for the out­come of that in­ves­ti­ga­tion be­fore a de­ci­sion. It is al­most im­pos­si­ble to keep up with the splurge of scan­dals, bac­cha­nal and cor­rup­tion al­le­ga­tions. It is strike ac­tion in the North and strike ac­tion in the South. From Port-of-Spain to Clax­ton Bay there is hos­til­i­ty. It is about high­er wages but si­lence on high­er pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. The "bold­fac­i­ty" of the mon­sters we have cul­ti­vat­ed and af­firmed in the crim­i­nal world is ap­par­ent­ly shock­ing us. The open­ing sal­vo about Resh­mi chang­ing her name stole the spot­light in the ear­ly phase of the no-con­fi­dence de­bate. Re­cent­ly, we heard about some killers go­ing to a bak­ery and com­mand­ing the cus­tomers to wine to the side, while they ex­e­cut­ed the en­e­my. Now, fire­bomb­ing is the crude artistry in the pic­ture gang­sters are paint­ing.

Through all this bed­lam, we are as­sault­ing the lead­er­ship of the Po­lice Ser­vice who must be dis­tract­ed. Will this man suf­fer from a bout of de­pres­sion? Are we seek­ing to pres­surise him so that he will re­sign and re­turn to his com­fort zone? What are we hop­ing to achieve? When will we get a crys­tal-clear re­port on his eval­u­a­tion? Is there a split in the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion? But there is an­oth­er is­sue that cit­i­zens are con­tem­plat­ing: What is the big pic­ture? What is the sto­ry be­hind the sto­ry? Does Mr Gibbs know some­thing that is po­ten­tial­ly ex­plo­sive? Pre­pare to die. I have said it be­fore and I will say it again. Any­body, group, or­gan­i­sa­tion at- tempt­ing to tack­le cor­rup­tion in our "sa­cred" in­sti­tu­tions will face the sword. In case you did not know, this Po­lice Ser­vice is no bed of ros­es. Of course, Mr Gibbs and oth­ers know this. But I wish to re­peat what I said in sev­er­al in­ter­views-hear­ing a de­scrip­tion of a house and liv­ing in that house are two dif­fer­ent is­sues. I feel like cry­ing when I see the ug­ly sce­nario. For many this is a dan­ger­ous dis­trac­tion and one where scape­goat­ing is dom­i­nant in the po­lit­i­cal menu. In our rush to send him to the guil­lo­tine, let us ob­jec­tive­ly eval­u­ate the im­pact on the in­sti­tu­tion of the Po­lice Ser­vice. Me­dia hous­es must have a sense of bal­ance. I have seen a bru­tal, the­atri­cal dis­play in an ul­tra-pop­u­lar TV pro­gramme where Mr Gibbs is be­ing hunt­ed in a de­spi­ca­ble fash­ion. Yes, the hunt is on. But re­mem­ber that those who wish to de­stroy could al­so be de­stroyed.

What kind of sup­port is Mr Gibbs re­ceiv­ing from of­fi­cers in the First Di­vi­sion? It is al­leged that some of them do not share the vi­sion of the 21st cen­tu­ry ini­tia­tive. In fact, it is al­so al­leged that some are un­der­min­ing this strat­e­gy. Oh what a tan­gled web we weave, when we first set out to de­ceive. We can­not go on like this. It was re­port­ed that the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion gave the com­mis­sion­er and his team 13 rec­om­men­da­tions. But the as­sault con­tin­ues. One sens­es that there is a bat­tle for the soul of the Po­lice Ser­vice and by ex­ten­sion the soul of the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty. Dur­ing the cam­paign of the last elec­tions we were promised mean­ing­ful change, con­sti­tu­tion re­form, a so­cial con­tract, moral­i­ty in pub­lic af­fairs, quick re­spons­es to the con­cerns of cit­i­zens. And to be quite frank, all of this can­not hap­pen in two years. But the trend must point in the di­rec­tion of the ac­com­plish­ment of these no­ble ob­jec­tives. The fol­low­ing ques­tions should prove to be ex­treme­ly valu­able: Has he aban­doned the job? Is he guilty of some crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty? Is there a con­flict of in­ter­est that has led to ben­e­fit from cor­rupt ac­tion? Is he phys­i­cal­ly or psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly in­ca­pac­i­tat­ed? Is he mak­ing a gen­uine ef­fort to make a dif­fer­ence? What new strate­gies has he in­tro­duced? Are they work­ing? Must those plans be giv­en time to bear fruit? Is he sup­port­ing his of­fi­cers or be­ing sup­port­ed by his of­fi­cers? In clos­ing, let us re­mem­ber that the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion should be free from po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence.